Wifedom

Anna Funder's Wifedom is an extraordinary book. (Thank you to Chris for lending it to me so I didn't have to sit in the library queue for months -- currently 102 reserves!) It's doing several things at once: telling the story of George Orwell's first wife, Eileen O'Shaughnessy, a fascinating woman in her own right; examining the way that she has been erased from Orwell's history, both by Orwell himself and by subsequent biographers; and a reflection on the largely invisible work that most women do, whether it's supporting and encouraging an artist, or the simple and unsung caring work that seems inevitably to fall to women's lot (childcare, elders, spouses, siblings...)

I was very cross when I read a review of Wifedom in The Saturday Paper, that seemed to be berating Funder for failing to acknowledge sufficiently Orwell's genius. Well, Funder does acknowledge the value of Orwell's work, not just once but many times through the book; but on re-reading the review, it dawned on me that the reviewer seemed to under a fundamental misapprehension. He (yes, it was a he) seemed to think this was another biography of Orwell, this one focusing on what a bastard he was to his wife, and pleading for greater 'balance' by asking the author to admit that he wrote amazing books as well as being a bastard. Well, no. This is a book about Eileen, not George -- that's actually the whole point.

Quite apart from being a skilful, witty writer herself, and improving the quality of Orwell's writing (all his biographers admit his prose style improved markedly after his marriage), quite apart from creating the peaceful, organised domestic environment that he required to work, Eileen was the real performer when the duo travelled to Spain to fight in the Civil War. Though Orwell was terrified at the time, and for the rest of his life, that Stalinists were going to assassinate him, it's far more likely that they were targeting Eileen, who actually worked in the POUM office and would have possessed far more valuable information than George, who did little more than get himself wounded.

But Funder's most outstanding achievement in Wifedom is to show the sleights of hand, the judicious use of the passive voice ('passports were obtained...dalliances occurred...') to blur or erase Eileen's positive actions, and to do the same for Orwell's less admirable ones. If nothing else, it seems that Eileen had a huge part in creating Animal Farm, a work markedly unlike any other Orwell ever wrote, and for that alone, we have much to thank her.