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Wifedom: Mrs. Orwell's Invisible Life
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39/99
Critics' Rating Index
39/99
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88/99
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98/99
Volume of Reviews
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About This Book
This is the story of the marriage behind some of the most famous literary works of the 20th century —and a probing consideration of what it means to be a wife and a writer in the modern worldAt the end of summer 2017, Anna Funder found herself at a moment of peak overload. Family obligations and household responsibilities were crushing her soul and taking her away from her writing deadlines. She needed help, and George Orwell came to her rescue."I've always loved Orwell," Funder writes, "his self-deprecating humour, his laser vision about how power works, and who it works on." So after rereading and savoring books Orwell had written, she devoured six major biographies tracing his life and work. But then she read about his forgotten wife, and it was a revelation.Eileen O'Shaughnessy married Orwell in 1936. O'Shaughnessy was a writer herself, and her literary brilliance not only shaped Orwell's work, but her practical common sense saved his life. But why and how, Funder wondered, was she written out of their story? Using newly discovered letters from Eileen to her best friend, Funder re-creates the Orwells' marriage, through the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War in London. As she peeks behind the curtain of Orwell's private life she is led to question what it takes to be a writer—and what it is to be a wife.A breathtakingly intimate view of one of the most important literary marriages of the twentieth century, Wifedom speaks to our present moment as much as it illuminates the past. Genre-bending and utterly original, it is an ode to the unsung work of women everywhere.
Reviews
"A sharp, captivating look at a complicated relationship and a resurrection of a vital figure in Orwell's life."
"And with the imaginative force of a novelist, she speculates in clearly sign-posted moments on what that life was like ..."
"Reading Wifedom, I felt a bit guilty for how often I thought of Orwell's brilliant essay 'Politics and the English Language,' in which he rails against the flaws — vagueness, imprecision, awkwardness, a reliance on jargon and cliché — that plague Wifedom."
"Not everyone will feel easy about the passages in which Funder allows herself to imagine what is going on inside Eileen's head."
"Funder may read as indulgent to some, but her claims ask: Has history ignored a collaboration between husband and wife which created some of the boldest political literature of the 20th century?"
"Laced with personal reflections and charged with a searing critique of the patriarchy and its smothering of women's lives and legacies, Funder's gripping and insightful portrait of the hidden Eileen Orwell is incandescent."
"Throw[s] light on the people Orwell failed to notice or fully understand — including, perhaps, himself."
"Funder believes Eileen is a woman in a box, a woman who needs rescuing from the bad actors of patriarchy ..."
"Full of keen psychological insight and eloquent prose, this shines."
"It is well-written and, on its own terms, carefully researched, although it is a shame Funder did not consult the extensive scholarship on Orwell, as his ideas about gender and sexuality have been discussed for decades."
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