Cirrus@Austlit

'Reading Anna Funder’s book Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life, about George Orwell and his wife Eileen, feels like listening to a clairvoyant seeking meaning and explanation from the tea leaves and dregs left in a stormy teacup after a seance. Perhaps Funder’s “sincere hope” that the biographers of Orwell (including Bernard Crick and Gordon Bowker, who are dead) will “embrace” Wifedom “in the spirit in which is intended” will be fulfilled if the spirit behind Wifedom materialises. But I could not embrace that “spirit” because it did not materialise for me; it is still deep within Funder, deeper than she is saying.' (Introduction)