Writing that enrages
Some books make me really cranky. I recently read Anna Funder’s Wifedom and I felt spurts of rage the whole way.
Wifedom is a non-fiction text about Eileen O’Shaughnessy, George Orwell’s wife, cataloguing the many ways she has been left out of his biographies and even from his own writing, with imagined narrative of her life based on meticulous research.
Of course, I felt furious about the omissions of Eileen’s influence on Orwell’s life story and on his literal stories, but I also experienced an obnoxious envy knowing that even if I dedicated my entire life to writing this book, it would still be a mere shadow of this masterpiece.
And that’s what it is, a masterpiece in writing, in research, in imagination and in illuminating Eileen’s colossal role, that has otherwise been depicted in an entirely deficient way by (male) biographers.
Funder wanted to hold on to the respect she has for Orwell’s writing but also portray a greater truth. She wrote, “I needed to find a way to hold them all – work, man and wife – in a constellation in my mind, each part keeping other in place.” And it takes a big, fat brain to hold a constellation like that.
There aren’t many writers who can churn out a text that is both impressive in what it adds to our collective knowledge but also put words on the page artfully. Funder definitely can. Here she drops a delicious simile:
“She goes up to bed. Before she lies down she checks under the mattress: their passports and chequebooks are still there. Then she settles in like a hen on precious eggs.”
As an editor, I wish I could read a long-form article or watch a documentary about the writing and editing process of Wifedom.
If you would like to discover more furiously fantastic Funder fodder (I can’t write a book but I can alliterate!), one of her character descriptions is featured in an upcoming writers workshop I am co-hosting on Sunday 30 August at Daylesford’s Words in Winter festival.
I hope I’ve convinced you to read some Anna Funder, but be warned: her skill might also leave you feeling stroppy (but thrilled and satisfied all at the same time).
Happy writing!