Wifedom

I'm currently listening to Anna Funder's Wifedom, and I am in awe. I don't think I've ever read a better, exquisitely researched, stunningly written book in my life. 

Okay, maybe that's taking it a bit far, but I've been blown away by this book, which looks at the life of Eileen O'Shaughnessy Blair - George Orwell's wife. 

George Orwell had a wife? Yes. Not that his former biographers gave her much credence. She was in the background. She was a cog in his wheel. She was there, but not important. 

Funder, a journalist and writer by trade, having written one of my favourite books, All That I Am, uses her incredible powers of research to look into Eileen's amazing, incredible, and in ways tragic life. Using a lot of secondary resources, including letters from friends, interviews given about the couple after their deaths, Funder pieces together an alternative narrative to this incredible woman who, thanks to male biographers, has nearly been whitewashed out of history. 

It's incredible. 

As I'm reaching the end of the Second World War, I know the end is nigh. Both Eileen and Orwell were dead before the end of 1950 - no surprises here, it's a matter of public record. But I'll see this one out, and be sad when it's over. I've not read anything so meticulously researched in a very long time. 

It will be missed when I'm finished - the sign of a very good book. 

Today's song: