‘Eileen made me laugh. I decided to go into the black box to get her out.’ – Anna Funder, Wifedom
This year, I had the privilege of attending a live talk by Australian author Anna Funder. She spoke about reading recently discovered letters from George Orwell’s wife Eileen to her best friend Norah.
In the first letter, Eileen writes, ‘I lost my habit of punctual correspondence during the first weeks of marriage because we quarrelled so continuously and really bitterly that I thought I’d save time and just write one letter to everyone when the murder or separation had been accomplished.’
Funder thought, to paraphrase, ‘Who is this woman? She’s hilarious!’
Re-examining Orwell’s works and biographies (written by men), Funder found Eileen in the gaps, the woman who edited Orwell’s work, won a scholarship to Oxford, and published, in 1934, a poem called ‘End of the Century, 1984’.
Re-reading Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, Funder notes, ‘the way the text buckles and strains to avoid her is the way I can see the shape she left’. As you can see, Funder’s writing is exquisite.
As the text ‘buckles’, Orwell’s misogyny is exposed. Wifedom brings up the question of whether the art should be separated from the artist. This is something I think a lot of us grapple with today.
This book is a must-read.
