Sara & Cariad's Weirdos Book Club - Wifedom: Mrs Orwell's Invisible Life by Anna Funder

Episode Date: July 10, 2025

This week's book guest is Wifedom: Mrs Orwell's Invisible Life by Anna Funder.In this episode they discuss Geoffrey Archer (again), war, domestic labour, jokes and geniuses. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you!Wifedom: Mrs Orwell's Invisible Life by Anna Funder is available to buy here.Tickets for Sara's tour show I Am A Strange Gloop are available to buy from sarapascoe.co.ukCariad’s children's book Where Did She Go? is available to buy now.Sara’s debut novel Weirdo is published by Faber & Faber and is available to buy here.Cariad’s book You Are Not Alone is published by Bloomsbury and is available to buy here.Follow Sara & Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club on Instagram @saraandcariadsweirdosbookclub and Twitter @weirdosbookclub Recorded and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive.Artwork by Welcome Studio.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sarah Pasco. And I'm Carriead Lloyd. And we're weird about books. We love to read. We read too much. We talk too much. About the too much that we've read. Which is why we created the Weirdo's Book Club. A space for the lonely outsider to feel accepted and appreciated. Each week we're joined by amazing comedian guests and writer guests to discuss some wonderfully and crucially weird books, writing, and just generally being a weirdo. You don't even need to have read the books to join in. It will be a really interesting, wide-ranging conversation and maybe you'll want to read the book afterwards. We will share all the upcoming. books we're going to be discussing on our Instagram, Sarah and Carriads, Weirdo's Book Club. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you. This week's book guest is Wifftam, Mrs. Orwell's Invisible Life by Anna Funder. What's it about? The life of Eileen Orwell and how she needs to be remembered alongside her husband. What qualifies it for the Weirdo's Book Club? Well, they're almost always just popping off to war. In this episode, we discuss Jeffrey Archer. Again, war. Domestic labor. jokes and geniuses.

Talk about Wifedom by Anna Funder which I read when it came out with hardback. A long time ago. And you bought recently. I've always been interested in it. I love Anna Funder, I love Starzstan. You bought it for me.

I bought it for you. That's why I read it. Christmas or birthday, something like that. I wanted to read it. It wasn't on our list. I have very little time. But then when I was in Australia, I did read it for pleasure on an airplane

while I was traveling. It was a naughty airport buy A naughty airport buy Cheaky, cheeky, some people buy Racy Rumcom, Sarah buys the history of Georgia Wells' wife, I'm sure to say That is literally what I do for fun Yeah

And did you feel a bit guilty when you bought it like This isn't home work I'm doing this for me Feminist history Feminist history It's actual go-to relaxing feminist history And Anna Funda is also writing this in Australia Writing in Australia

In Sydney in fact So I also in the very first section I was like Ooh I'm near there I could go to that bookshop. I could go to that swimming pool. Oh, yeah. She was talking about the Sappho bookshop.

Yeah, it sounds really good, doesn't it? Yeah, sounds good. I think you might be there. But they're sad. Sad to sell any of the books to you. Do you think that's where we're going to end up running a book shop? The bookshop where we don't want anyone to take any of the books away. Do you know what it would be?

It would be a cafe book shop. You won't want anyone to buy books and I won't want anyone to buy the cakes. Do you really want that cake? I was going to have it at the end of the day, you see. Yeah, I get to eat everything we don't sell. So please leave it here. If you don't want it, it's fun. Yeah.

They're mostly decorative. Just a small slice. Don't want for me, one for you. So what did you think as the most recent reader of Wifedom? We should say, let's say what it's about. Yeah. It's about George Orwell's first wife. Eileen.

Eileen O'Shaughnessy, who has kind of been written out, slightly of history, disappeared. There's a space. There's a space. Where she should be. Where she should be. Her influence on him. There's been six major Orwell biographies over the years. years, very, very detailed. There are people who are obsessed with his work. Like he has a lot of

detailed. But his top five, British writers, surely? His top five, top five. Who's in top five? Jeffrey Archer, Georgia, Georgia. With her British Shakespeare. Anna Funder felt that Eileen O'Shaughnessy had been sort of written out of history. We should say in 2020, another book by Sylvia Top also about Eileen O'Shaughnessy was written. And so it's not like no one was talking about Eileen. No. And they came to very different conclusions. Different conclusions. And Anna Funda mentions that book right at the beginning.

And she mentions, well, she not mentions, she writes extensively about the fact that she hugely admires George Orwell. She's not. She's a fan. She's an absolute fan of him. And finding out about Eileen was a way of finding out more about George Orwell. And then what she wanted to do as well as admiring George Orwell. And actually she doesn't want to diminish him, I don't think.

Although some people have taken negative. There's been a lot of criticism about this book, we should say, from the start. Yes. It's a very sensitive topic and it's very difficult to retrospectively based on not a huge amount of evidence. I mean, while Eileen does have existing letters left, it's not hundreds. No, six letters were found. To one friend and there's three to her husband. So it felt like there's under 20 letters. And they were recently discovered after some of the biographies were written

and they kind of give a much more fuller picture of Eileen as a person and a personality. So, yeah, the letters came out after some of the biographies. Although, yeah, I think it's worth just from the top. There has been a lot of criticism. Anna has come under a lot of criticism for not, for kind of throwing all well under the bus. I can understand it. Having read it, what I would say to anyone, and I would still recommend it as a really enjoyable book to read.

Some of it is fictionalised based on a small detail as a jumping off point, which means that some of it I would actually call novelisation, whereas Anna Funda describes them as scenes that she is written. So, for instance, here's a very simple one, writing a letter to her friend. So we know that letter exists, we know what the content of the letter is, but Anna is making up the chair she's sitting on, whether the cat's jumping onto her lap or not. It's beautifully written, I should say.

And Anna Funda at one point was going to write a novel about Arlene. And then she realised that this woman who has been erased. When after she found the letters, she felt she couldn't write the novel. Yes. She was promoting her own putting her voice ahead of Aylines, which I think is, you know, that's a writer's decision. Yes, Anna Funda said she didn't want to erase her voice. Yeah, and put her own view in front of violins. Although that does happen at points, I think she's very defensive of violin.

I think she also has, I'm not just going to say a woman's interpretation, a working mom who's trying to write's interpretation of certain things. I'd strongly agree with that, yeah. Because if you are the person in your world who is having to juggle with domestic labour and everything and still try to be a creative, you just, and I felt the same as the reader, you just feel very, very sorely the unfairness of this setup. Yeah, because one of the things, and I would say one of the best things I sort of counterpoints was an article in The New Statesman by Rebecca Solnit, which says, you know, like, she kind of points out like Anna Funder's problem is with her husband, but she seems to be taking up her problem with George Orwell. That's so funny. And I was like, oh, yeah, I do understand that because she really does. She says at the beginning, it's the book says, like, you know, there she is with three kids, she's organizing everything. She's driving a French exchange student round.

She's supposed to be writing a book, but she's sorting out the football kit and the shopping and all of this stuff that working mothers will understand. And she says, you know, oh, we thought we shared it with my husband, Chris, but somehow I'm doing everything. It's gone wrong. And then she's like, so jo, jaw, jaw. Yeah. So I can, but I agree with you. I think, but what, what wonderful therapy, like for lots of, if you are a heterosexual person in a long-term relationship, perhaps rather than. It's dedicated to her husband.

Rather than telling your partner once again how they're failing you, just pick a man from literature. I tell you who'd be good. Hemingway. You can get your teeth into him. Darcy. Just do a Darcy fan fiction. Yeah, and just take it out on them.

Yeah. Heathcliff, what an asshole. Leave Cassie alone. Yeah, I think it's, I hope, but it's, yeah, it's dedicated to her husband. So I thought that was quite funny as well. Like maybe he sat down and was like, oh, thanks. I'm a bit scared. I wrote down a couple of sentences at the beginning

because this would really help someone understand what this book is. So after I took Eileen out of the box, I had a life in facts, a woman in pieces. I continue to be fascinated by the sly ways she'd been hidden and a novel couldn't show those. So Anna Funda does, and I should say at Starziland is such a brilliant... Yeah, I haven't read that? You've read that, haven't you?

Yes. Anna's really, really, really good, Anna, at researching. But don't you find it hard? I find this in articles when people go, like, Funder or Pascoe does this, and I find it seems really cold, but saying like, Sarah, Anna, it's like, oh, your best friends, are you? Yeah. Is she your BFF? Yeah. So it's a hard line. Let's say, Ms. Funder. Ms. Funder. She said about Eileen, I wanted to make her live and at the same time to reveal the wicked magic trick that had erased her. Because that's the point of this book. It's not just to go, oh, Eileen was over. over here, Eileen was over there, then they adopted a son.

It's to go, look at all of this writing. Like in Homish to Catalonia, which is the sort of the biggest chunk of the book, where Eileen was present yet isn't in the text. And one thing again, to counterpoint, because I'd read the book already, I went and read some counterpoint, is she mentions these massive six biographies, and she often talks as if they were raised Eileen. And in this counterfeit, it was like, they do say Eileen was in Spain, and they do say she was helping him.

And it's not true, which I think is the narrative. She's slightly maybe goes a little bit too far. Everyone has written her out apart from me, Anna Funder. I think there's a little bit of that. But I agree with you, I still loved this book. And I haven't read the six biographies written by men, and I enjoyed the working woman's perspective. I didn't feel she was trying to say no one else has talked about her.

She just sort of like no one else had bothered to look deeper. They were also looking through a prism of patriarchy. Yeah, rather than saying what was Eileen's creative contribution? It's like that wasn't comfortable. Yeah. I love this sentence. Looking for Eileen involved the pleasure of reading Orwell on how power works. Finding her held the possibility of revealing how it works on women,

how a woman can be buried first by domesticity and then by history. So she sets out at the beginning that that's what she's doing. I think perhaps the one question I had, I had many questions but one of them was what if she didn't want to be in it? Is that controversial to say? No, that's what Rebecca Solnit says

because she says Funda is so busy being like oh she could have had a career like she could have been a writer She did have a career actually she worked lots But she could have been this great writer Almost the Shakespeare's sister argument

And Solnit As I call her now pointed out There's no evidence that she wanted that She quit herself after university She used to write poetry She quit at 20 And that's before she met

Oxford and she didn't finish the degree. She didn't get a first. Yeah. And so she, she did, that was the end of her writing career. So that's before she met George Orwell. You can still absolutely argue for a woman in this period was not encouraged or supported. Yeah, yeah. So you can absolutely put all of those things. But also sometimes people write poetry and then stop and that's okay. And the article was sort of saying it's a very modern interpretation that this woman's creative urge was quashed. Even though it maybe it was just that was the time. You don't get to go into her head and say, She wanted this and George took it from her. And also, it's not like there are no women writing before 1920.

Women did manage to write. That's not me saying that they weren't struggles. But I, right, so Homish to Catalonia, George Orwell writes his version of what's happening. And it's a novelisation and it's made for entertainment. And I write stand-up comedy, which is complete different. My husband doesn't want to be in it. The biographer said she just ignored all of the labour. Who was babysitting while she was out at her gigs?

I'd be like, he doesn't want to be in it. I found Pasco's WhatsApp messages. I was the only one to find them. She mentions her husband many times in the WhatsApp. Yet if you see the recording of Live with Apollo, he is not mentioned. Clearly, she quashed his... Who really wrote her jokes. He was very funny personally at the barbecue.

Everyone said he had a really lightness of touch. Underneath this Instagram caption, you can see how many people said, that was really funny, Steen, thumbs up. But yet, when it comes to her mock the week performance, she refuses to acknowledge his... Yeah, it's... It's weird, isn't it? It's weird. It's just balance. I could absolutely understand, and I'm not saying this is true of Eileen, I just think we don't know. Yeah, we don't know.

And this is not me instantly going on the opposite side. I just suddenly felt, well, what if, you know, she did read it, she did edit it, if she did want to be left out, as in she doesn't want to be dragging into his story. Or she liked being an editor. Like there's lots, there's a load of couples working now that work like that. There is someone that writes. And I would say this, I've equally met women who are doing the writing, the husbands who are, editing and they're not credited, they're not on the front cover of book, but they read all the work, they edit it, they help, they support. And there's also, like Sandy Toxford and her partner, there are people where it's not a gender split at all because they're homosexual and it's a pairing, that there's, there's skill sets and there's skill sharing and writing takes up

such a huge amount of people's time. But does Sandy's partner edit her work? Is that what you mean? Yes, well, she, she's a therapist, so they analyze her characters. They talk about things out loud that assisting Sand is writing. Oh, really. That's a really collaborative process. Like, if you're in a couple, and you're both creative, you will have those conversations. And we definitely read loads of writers, haven't we,

where the dedication has been like, my husband has helped me for this in life. Yeah, my earliest reader, my biggest cheer leader. And I think, lucky you. Pascoe never credited her husband, despite her performance on Frankie Boyles. Yeah, it's interesting. But obviously, I think I loved to this book.

I really enjoyed reading it. And I think the homage to Catalonia staff, having read Homage to Catalonia and having not read any of the biographies, I had no fucking idea that she was in Spain. So it's great to know that. I have no idea. Yeah. I have no idea. Yeah. There was a real life version where...

That she was sending him food. Yes. That when he was shot, she was the one who got him back. But she was in an office that was being raided. Like there is another story there. She was in really big danger more than he was. He was kind of going to places where people actually sort of didn't want him to go. And it's really, really valid her story.

So to be shocked and appalled that we haven't been telling that story more, even though, as you say, there were these huge biographies, this is so readable. This probably got into a lot more people's hands in some of those weighty tones. That's the thing, again, to counterpoint the criticism, I was like, there is a slight air in the book of, I've discovered her, I'm the one, I'm the only one that can release Eileen from the magic trick. But then isn't that an author's job?

And wouldn't it be weird if she was constantly saying, I'm not the first one, apologies, other people have had these sorts, Put this down and read all the biographies this minute. I absolutely think that. It's sort of like, what authors are meant to do. They're meant to be like, listen to me, my story's interesting. And also it takes sort of main character energy to a real extreme. It's like, imagine the main character is in a shed with only their own brain.

They will think that their thoughts are more important than everyone else is. Yeah. And that super confidence is necessary to get a book finished. Yeah. And yeah, I don't know, I think, I just think it's, I think the book is really well written. Oh, she's exceptionally good at writing. It's really interesting. And the homoic Catalonia stuff is the way she tells, the way that she does flesh out Eileen.

Because again, the things I were reading like, well, there's these letters. She didn't even find them. They were in the estate of someone else. She doesn't properly credit that finding. And I was like, yeah, if you're being super perniquity, but what she does do is bring Eileen to life in a way that perhaps no one else had done. Well, it's a page turner, isn't it? You don't go, oh, I'm reading fact to you. The emotional journey of her.

There are huge griefs. There's salicious, I guess, there's infidelities, there's sex, there's surmising what. There's revolution? Yes. Yeah, there's several wars. It's really huge. Firstly, let's talk about this gendered idea of male writers with wives. But then the next thing we should talk about is the ideas for some of the books.

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is from page 52. Of the paperback. Of the paperback. The tiny teeny paperback. We know that a male writer's time to write was traditionally created for him by liberating him from the needs to shop, cook, clean up after himself or anyone else, deal with mundane, correspondence, entertain, arrange travel or holidays, care for his own children, except as a helper, and so on. Time is valuable because it is finite. And there is an economy of time.

So this is the hugest thing of anyone who's trying to. to write no matter what their gender is. Life is filled with so many things. And if you are trying to write at home, it doesn't look like you're working and your time will be stolen. Yeah, because you're just sitting somewhere. Unless you have someone who allows you to close a door

and does all the other shit. And Anna Funder, she says herself at the beginning. This isn't reading between the lines of her letters. Yeah, yeah. She says it's shit. She has work to do that pays their mortgage and that's what she wants to do. And she's doing, she doesn't have a wife to do that crap.

for her. You look really sad. Oh, no, no. I was just taking it in. And I was also, I was reminded of the Jane Austen documentary I recently watched on BBC, which points out,

and I interviewed Jill Hornby recently, the author of Miss Austin and the elopement that's coming out this year. And she was saying, Cassandra Austin has always been sort of told off in history because she burnt Jane's letters

and has been, you know, priored and like, how could she do that the greatest woman? She was protecting her. She also, at the end of Jane's life, in the last, when she was at her most, became Jane's husband.

She ran the house, she cooked, she cleaned, and she gave Jane a space to write. And if she hadn't basically not married, not had kids so that her sister could be what she wanted, for various reasons. Well, Cassandra's husband died in the war. Cassandra's hadn't died at sea. I don't think it was a war.

I think it was on a journey back from... It doesn't matter. Yeah, no, it was a journey back. And she had many other proposals that she turned down. But that's again, like, again, to not gender it. like Jane Austen's books wouldn't existed had not Jane's mother and sister gone, we will create a bubble for you. Yeah.

Which is very unusual at the time. And that's what she's talking about. Somebody has to sacrifice their own choices for writers to get writing done. People are so nosy. Leave Jane Austen's letters alone. I know. She was private. Well, also the thing is she was really bitchy. Yeah.

Everyone knows. The letters that do survive are quite bitchy. And it's assumed that... Well, her books are really bitchy. It assumed that Cassandra burnt stuff that would have upset people, basically. And she held on to him to the end of her life. and then she burnt loads. But it's like, it's her sister.

Like, you don't get to be like, oh, especially if Cassandra had left her and not been a shit sister, be like, this woman stayed with her her entire life, enabled her to write. I didn't realize anyone was kicking it to Cassandra. Yeah, there's a general, I think it's changed, but a general 20th century view of if only she hadn't burnt those letters, can you imagine why would you do that? So there was a general sense that Cassandra made this huge mistake. But Cassandra should, Joel Hornby was saying at this interview I did at the women's prize, she should be celebrated as if she hadn't have given up and sacrificed.

We wouldn't have persuasion. We wouldn't have sentencing. Well, actually, this is what I was thinking about this major point, which is that because there's a story in this quite early on about a woman. I believe her name is Maeve. I did underline it, so let me actually quote who it is. But she really helped George Orwell at the beginning of his career. He'd written downland in Paris and London and it had been rejected.

and she sort of paid part of his rent. She was very literary connected. She hassled an agent. She hassled an agent for him. So she was the beginning of his career. Yeah. And she was reduced. The really hard line is, oh God, look at women getting edited out.

Whereas actually, I think there's a softer line which is maybe we all prefer a simplified narrative where geniuses are geniuses. But I think it's so much better to see where people are aided and helped and supported. Because when you don't have that, it's a real struggle to create work. Mabel. Mabel. Yeah, Mabel, that's her name. What is I thought?

Mabel F-I-E-R-Z. Fiaz. Fiaz. Fiaz. Fiaz. Fiaz. Fiaz. That's an amazing name.

So I basically got him his job. Anyone who's trying to work and doesn't have that kind of support and is struggling, yeah, of course you are. Yeah. It's really, really hard. And it's good. It's very healthy to hear that other people had help. Well, the bit that shocked me with Dan out in Paris in London,

that he had an aunt in Paris. He was helping him and giving him food. Yeah. After reading that book, I was like, What? But I think that doesn't bother me. It doesn't bother me. I just thought it was like funny.

It's a work of fiction. You cheeky bugger. It bothered me if a friend told me a story. Yeah. Going camping and I found out they were actually just in the loft of their aunt's house. I'd be like, don't lie to my face. But George Orwell is fictionalising something. I think it's okay.

I don't think it's like, aha, gotcha. That's what I don't think. Yeah, I know. I know. The two narratives can exist alongside. Here's the truth of where he was a lot of the time. And then. But I think there's a, there's, he definitely.

dined out on the truth being that he had done those things himself and it was very difficult. And that's, I don't think, I know what you're saying, but I don't think I don't see it's like how I got you. I'm like, you definitely enjoyed the truth, the twisting of that truth in real life that you had suffered and you had written these things. And only you knew those things. A bit like Anna Funder being like, only I know Eileen. That is perhaps the work of an author. Like, well, only I know this. Yeah. It does, that bit doesn't matter. Yeah. Let's talk about the germs of ideas because I think the he's, hugest one is that Eileen, when she was at university, wrote a poem called 1984.

Yeah, although the full title is something else, isn't it? It's like, does something, something, 1984 because the counterpoint people are like, well, everyone writes poems. You can't say she. But it was a specific date plucked out of nowhere. I know. About what Britain would be like, or what the world would be like in 1984. And then Georgia, well, after Eileen's death, goes on to write a book called 1984 about the future. And so, what are we surmising? We're guessing that he was very influenced by her poem. It was something they talked about very often.

I don't think it takes anything away from him writing that book. Yeah. To say, oh, wow, how incredible. That was an idea that she shared with him and then he went on to extend and elaborate on. And that's the worst it can be, as in that's the most she could have influenced him. I mean, I definitely think, like, again...

I don't think he's stolen idea. Yeah, like, well, Funder is kind of set... Fanda cut is kind of like, that's a bit interesting, isn't it? In the same way that I am of like, oh, you're not in Paris, did you? Yeah. And she's like, well, that's a bit interesting that she wrote a poem. It feels like a gotcha. Yeah.

But it's like, I don't think it's got you. I think there's a different percentage of got you. Do you know what I mean? Like, I think it's a little bit less of like like, like, oh, chin stroking. Oh, how interesting. Whereas I just think, find me an artist who isn't inspired by other people's ideas or saying. That's what people do.

They're magpires. Their minds pluck and go, oh, I can't stop thinking about that poem. read or oh i can't that's that sentence you said yeah i guess it's like but then when someone becomes considered a genius considered the top five considered as good as geoffrey archer like then people want to go oh okay well that's the thing which and again this makes me think of helen lewis's new book which i read a little bit of the genius myth of like the problem is the problem is genius that's the problem and this book also reminded me a claire dederer as monsters yeah because it's like is the problem irene's written out or is the problem

George Orwellis on such a high pedestal that we can't cope with him having any other influences. Yes. Do you remember when Kandinsky, this was about 10 or 15 years ago, when they found that he'd painted his ballet dancers, I think of Kandinsky, it might not be. Degar. Degar, painting from photographs. Oh, yeah, yeah. And his ballet dancers and everyone was like depressed about it. It's like, get over yourself. Like, it doesn't take away from, it's the process slightly different. You know a little bit more. What this, we're so...

But then we come back to that problem, don't we? We want it to be a man by himself with no other inspiration. Somehow the gods, the muses injected into his head. And that, as we know, being geniuses, that's not how writing gets done. Oh, it does for me. Yeah, the muses inject it into my head. But with their penises, that's disgusting. It's a muse penis and it goes in my ear.

In one episode of The Wheelers Book Club, Pascoe does admit that penises have been the true influences. This is the only time in her history she will admit on the influences. Oh, I'll admit it. I'll admit it. I'm nothing without a penis. That to me is the crux of the criticism of like, but do you love George Orwell so much that you can't cope with someone just writing a book about, like, all she's saying is I think his wife felt this.

And people are like, how dare you? And you're like, well, she's just saying, I think like his wife's been really ignored. And this is my take on his wife. And the George Orwell gang were like, outwaged. There were other points. where I think she's reaching a little... Anna Funder, the writer, is writing a little bit more,

imagining the two of them in bed, giggling, discussing, for instance, animal fun. She also got like where he was born wrong. Oh. And what his parents did. Someone I read nothing, being like he's famously born in India and she says Burma and she says his dad had a different job,

stuff like that, which I think annoyed the Orwell. But it would have been fact-checked the book. That's terrible. It's weird, isn't it? Either the information is wrong the other way. Or there's different tape. I was confused as well because I was like maybe there's different opinions of where he was born. Because sometimes received wisdom is wrong.

We don't know. We don't know, Anna. So she has this thing where she's talking about them in talking about animal. She's saying about how huge an influence Ily must have been an animal farm. Because animal farm is an aberration in terms of George Orwell's other work. It's more comedic. It's the only book that he's written in that style. It's his iron giant.

It's his fable. It's his iron giant. And so, but it's it. That felt like reaching. It didn't feel like, and because we have all of her letters about how she's working on animal farm. You know,

here she talks about how she was giving him the idea for this, that and the other. But it's more other people saying, this is Eileen's sense of humour. Eileen loved her an analogy. Yeah, that felt like reaching. What's interesting,

because what she does have this factual is he takes her to a horrific house with no heating. He makes her do fucking everything. Like, that she's like the water is frozen. They're living in a shithole. Well, they got married. and he instantly left for war.

Yeah. I mean... Mind you, that was pretty normal. That was pretty normal. Yes, but he must have been... Just needed stimulation. Intensity. Was he not...

I can't remember because it's so long I read it. Was he not called up? That's the problem. He would have been. He volunteered. That's what's in the letter to the friend. Yeah. Is that, you know, she's just lost her virginity to him

or they've just consummated their marriage. This is her, again, that's not information. that's her. She's imagining. Yeah. Anna Funda is imagining the bits that aren't in the letter. There's also a whole thing about homosexuality, which I don't even know if it's a can of worms we can get into.

But I found that really problematic. I go, well, I can't remember it in full detail. Okay, so this is in one of the sections. This is early in the book, and it comes up lots, this idea that George Orwell had feelings for men that made him feel ashamed and disgusted, and whether or not they were acted upon in whatever spectrum. So...

But there's no evidence either, is there, for this? No. No. I'm not a photograph of him kissing a man. Kissing a man and really enjoying it. No, I want more than that. And then frowning afterwards. So disgusted with yourself.

So there's this... She uses the term... She uses the F word, actually. It goes about men, you know, the usual... Mm-mm. At school, she assumes, whatever that involved. His pleasure in being... dressed by his houseboy in Burma.

Sodomy, he always spits the word, was rife in the down and out kips when he went tramping. Possibly, she thinks, he lives in a zone where desire and disgust mingle, a place where she is not. Yeah, so that's conjecture. Yeah, conjecture, that's a very good word. There's conjecture about his sexuality in general.

We know it does seem like the infidelities are absolutely proven. Again, what I didn't understand. What I don't think you can retrospectively decide is whether a woman, how much they knew and how much they knew, okay they were with it. There were lots of women who don't want to sleep with their husbands and are absolutely fine. There is a sexual jealousy. Lots of men did have affairs and it was completely expected and normal. And also, but the reason women weren't bothered is they didn't want to have to do it. They had working, balanced

relationships where economics and domesticity all sort of intertwined and they weren't like, oh, he fancies someone who's not me. They were like, I don't fancy him. Yeah, I married him very young. He's my husband. He's my husband. We're friends or we're not even friends. And then there's that one that's in love with her in the space. as well. So it's like, yeah, yeah, there's lots of stuff. So this is, again, you're putting modern emotional ideals onto someone from in like 1940, which is like, it's quite difficult. Yeah. Or even just guessing about someone else's marriage a little bit like you might do if Posh and Becks have been in the papers and you go,

oh, I think she's still hurting about Rebecca Luz. And it's like, you don't know her. You don't know what happened. You don't know what she knew at the time. You don't know how they talk about it. You don't know what the deal is. And you don't know what, you don't know what, you don't know how they feel. Yeah. Anyway. Anyway, what else was I going to say? So something about this.

Oh, the war, the very beginning one, what she does say in the letter, what she does say in this very first letter is that he announces he's going to the trenches. He comes into the kitchen of the cottage when she was washing up, said as casually as if he was walking out for cigarettes, I thought I'd go to Spain. So that doesn't sound like conscription. Sorry, I got my wars mixed up. So many wars. I was like, I think they all just.

got called up, Sarah. But yeah, the Spain, people could volunteer to go to Spain to fight with fascists, which was very dangerous. And yes, he does just suddenly, he doesn't need to go and do that. I got my, I got my war was confused. There was a lot in the early 20th century. So yeah, he volunteers to go to Spain and she ends up going with him and working a much more important job. See, here's one of the things where people adore George Orwell is his politics. Yeah. Was pretty brilliant. That's pretty great. He was anti-fascist. He was anti-Nazi. He was the person who first, you know, told Winston Churchill that Hitler was a terrible, terrible politician.

I don't think he was the first. I think he was the first. I mean, like, yeah, he definitely wasn't the first. There was lots of... Okay, at a point where Churchill was still, if it wasn't Churchill's British Prime Minister. He might be publicly to say... He wrote a letter to the newspaper at a point where we weren't, we were still in denial about what... Because like half the royal family were like, he's okay.

Yeah. He's alright. It's kind of us, isn't he? Yeah, basically. Yes. So, so that's the thing is he... His politics stands up well by today. His politics, yeah, by today's standards.

That's the thing where this fall from the pedestal is quite large because he has heralded as this great anti-totalitarian anti-fascist. And they're the ones we don't want to lose. We don't want to lose those ones. But that's, you know, that's not the nuance of people. Also, two things can be true at the same time. And people have layers. Yeah.

But also like... Multitudes. People contain multitudes, don't know. And again, I think that's the thing. This is where the blurring of like her bias, her bias, her. her point of view that she's seeing of like, oh, he's a bad husband, he didn't support her writing. It's like, that is very difficult to say for that time. No one would have expected him to do that.

Eileen might not have expected it. I might, I might not have wanted it. And yes, if you pick up Eileen and Place her in 2025, she might be like, actually, my poem 1984 is brilliant. But we can't do that. So, yeah, there is a, it makes the book very readable. And I think especially for people like me and you, because we can really like, yeah, bastard.

Sounds like he's not doing any of the childcare. Yeah. But actually, what are you, like, would he recognise those as crimes? Yes. I didn't detract any of my respect for George Orwell as a writer. And most writers, I don't read their books and go, oh, I wish we were friends. I think we'd get on. I don't want to be friends with George Orwell and I don't need to like him. I don't want to be friends with him at all. No, he sounds filthy. He sounds really filthy. Sting of fags. He was wrinkly at 32. I mean, I know.

Yeah, they say lines like parentheses on his face. Yeah. because he's been living in Burma, obviously with absolutely no SPF. Cheap Roleys, drink it all the time. I don't think he ever drinks a glass of water in this entire book. No. He lives in squalor. Like the house he makes her go and live in is disgusting.

Yeah. They have to walk for water. He's probably got a dirty little Willie. No wonder she didn't want anything to do with it. Yeah. There's all the stuff later on as well with the adoption of the child. And yeah, it's very loud, which should definitely talk about Richard. Yeah.

Because, Georgia, I really wanted to be a father. and he definitely wanted to be a son. And then again, instantly goes away and leaves her with a baby. That was nuts. That it was kind of his campaign and then they get the baby. And then he's like, okay, I have to go off and write and research something. She's just left alone with this baby. And again, I thought that was interesting that we get into very much her brother and her sister-in-law,

this amazing surgeon who also had worked in Nazi Germany and then come back and said, this guy's awful, by the way. And who really helped her, supported her, loved her. Like, she did have, she wasn't like a... vulnerable woman. Like that's something she had a lot of support network. She had this support network. Yes.

And he said was highly educated. Like the fact that she'd got even got to Oxford. Yeah, she's got a master's in psychotherapy. And she did work all the time. So during the, oh God, I don't know what war this is. Must be Second World War. So she was the one who's working at Senate House. Yes.

Which is the one that when I was a tour guide, Big Basque, not original tour, we used to point out and say, George Orwell worked there. So that was my moment in the book, the one where I went, oh, shitting, cry. We were trained to go Senate House in Bloomsbury, the inspiration for 1984. But it was she that worked on him. And that was too much information to say? And so it just got forgotten. But should I show you that picture?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the ministry in 1984. Yeah, I found that amazing. She was working there. At the Department of the Ministry of Information that cannot not have been a huge influence. No, of course. On 1984. And so it's not about discrediting or taking anything away from George Orwell.

It's about going, oh, if you're fascinated with this book, look at this extra bit of information that definitely fed into it. Yeah. Yeah. I think, like I said, it's like she perhaps goes, Fonda perhaps goes like 2% over where she is really cross with him. And it maybe relates to her own situation. And I think that's where the George Orwell gang get crossed. Like you said, the things where she's going, oh, she definitely felt this and she definitely felt that. Yes.

But what she's doing it to make it more interesting? story and that's where she succeeds. It's a really interesting story. She definitely really makes the narrative work really hard. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Like the way she Oh, I bet you like this poodle. I did love that poodle, yeah. Mark's the poodle. So you mad, mad, foodle, absolutely mad. But the way she takes you from Eileen as this like tiny, young, skinny little woman that looks like she's going to break and the things that she puts, you know, she takes Eileen, shows you what Eileen survives and goes through. And the men that she's the men that she's dealing with

and, you know, you can't, obviously there were women in that position but it is unusual a woman at that time, not to just be housewife like working, being smart, being so clever, the thing she does in Spain, the hiding of passports, like she's fucking cool. There's also, there is another reading

to this where it's a woman whose husband was encouraging of those behaviours. He wasn't saying, I demand a certain kind of wife, you have to do things this way. Yes, for their household to work, she probably had to do domestic labour. But there's also sense of he wasn't policing. It doesn't seem at any point that he's policing her freedoms.

Her physical illness later on, I think that's... I was very angry with him at that point. A really huge example of not even just patriarchy, I'd say lack of care. So she gets uterine tumours. Yeah, so she's already had terrible, terrible periods. Yeah, like constant bleeding, really heavy. She's always passing out. Agony, lying down, and she's weak and she's got...

She changed smokes. She doesn't really look after herself. Like, there's a lot of things that are not great about the health of this person. And Anna, what's it called when you don't have iron? Oh, anemic. Anemic. She's very anemic. And she decides to go, she's told to wait in London. I think to put on weight, isn't she?

She's told she needs to get fit or something before this operation. Because it's too dangerous for her to do, but it's more expensive to have it in London. And someone in Newcastle Bay says, I'll do it for you for cheap. The cheap. And the whole time. And the whole begs her not to go. Like her brother, everyone is maybe her brother's dead by the point. But everyone is saying.

She's dead. Everyone's worried about her. She's a mum. She has Richard, her son, but she's in agony. And also, she just takes this cut price deal because the money is so tight. And George Orwell is in denial. He's not there, is he. He's away.

But he's also in denial of her illness for a really long time. He isn't taking care of her. He's living quite a separate life. Yeah, he's doing his writing. And that is the focus. That is a priority. And she does try and write him to say, I'm having this operation. Her last letter is half written before she has the operation and unfinished and it's to George.

And it's really classic person trying not to worry someone else. I'll be fine, but here I am about to go under. Yeah. Oh, I'm sure I'll be. And then. But if I die, Richard, should go to this person? Yeah. Yeah, it's really, really sad.

And then her body was just far, far too weak. Yeah, too weak, basically. She doesn't recover in an operation she dies. Yes. I found that point really hard. It's really horrid. It's really horrid. Poor Eileen.

And I think that's it. It's like, you know, I don't need to find a person whose fault that is. But if that was my sister and her husband had a creative career and wasn't financially supporting her enough and was having affairs. Yeah. And then she was having basically a budget operation. Yeah, again, for a woman's problem that no one understood. No one holding her hand. No one being there with her.

I found that like maddening. But also maddening with her. I was like, why won't you let someone help you? Why have you gone there by yourself? Why have you got to the point where you're like, I'm such a burden. Don't worry, I'm just about to go off and die by myself. Oh, it's like, you know, she's single-minded. Single-minded.

And I think since her brother died, what seems to be there is that she did take much less care of herself. And she did feel really depressed. It's seeing like there was a huge amount of grief of like, I want to be dead as well. But she had this baby to live for. As we all know, babies are shit. Don't cheer you up. There's cry all the time. I know.

And it's, I guess one thing I don't know is like, I know that she's, you know that she's, She is, her work in Spain is written about by other biographers. And obviously her death is written about. Having not read the other biographies, I wonder, do they put as much emotion and heart in as Anna Fonda manages to do in that death? Like, you really care about Eileen by this point. That's the point in the book where I stopped, I had to put it down. And I was like, and I just turned to Ben, my husband said,

what a fucking asshole. I was so angry with him right now. You can't help it. But I guess the All World Gang feel like, well, that's not fair. You're making him to blame. but I would side on the two things can be true. I don't think it's a blame. I think that's the black and white of the situation.

And you would just have to shrug your shoulders and go, yeah, I wasn't there. And I chose not to be there. And that's what happened. She carries on after Eileen's death and follows George. And it's quite clear. He's not okay, you would say, in today's terms. I just think what he doesn't leave is that really heartfelt apology. Sorry, I'm devastated. I let her down.

He doesn't do that anywhere. He's not capable of that, it seems. He's not a motive. He marries very quickly afterwards. He proposes to millions of people. Proposes to loads of women. I liked that phase because I was like, this is the man we have here.

Yeah. And it is a man who needs... It's desperate. Yeah. And the thing is, you can recognise the grief, you can recognise the pain. He is a man at that time

and he doesn't say it properly. In Vertical comment, as you said, there isn't this. Oh, hey guys, I've really had to think. I keep posing to women. And I think it's because I'm so devastated

with guilt and grief for my wife. He doesn't do that. He has none of that. empathy or awareness. These women they'll be like, oh I've just popped in I live downstairs and he'd be like brilliant, I've got a kid who needs looking after. Are you good with kids? Can you make stew? Would you marry me?

Yeah, there's that woman who looks after which is for a year and then he tries to marry her and she's like, no, no, this is a job. Yeah, you pay me for. And she was like, oh, he just wants it for free. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So, yeah, it's, again, I just think it really reminded me of Claire Dada is, but that you know, people are, and not always,

one thing or the other. They're layered and it's confusing and it's difficult. And also sometimes someone can think Nazis are bad and be a shit husband. Also sometimes society allows certain behaviours if you are very very creative if you are very very rich. If you are one gender and not another one there are certain things where the world wasn't fighting against George Orwell going hey you need to be a better husband. No one was being encouraged to be good husbands. No and it would And like, I mean, his behavior to marry quickly, if you have a child, very usual. There's nothing unusual about that. And I did think Anna was a bit when she was like, oh, he was just trying to propose to everyone.

It's like, people would have been saying you need to marry, you have a child. Like that would have been considered a normal thing at that time to get married. Yeah. Otherwise, you're a man. One, you're a man, you can't look after a baby. And two, you're a genius writer you can't look after baby. Yeah, who for 24 hours a day is thinking about your work and is about to pop off to war again. Yeah.

Yeah. Is it a war? Can I go? Yeah. Oh, please. I've got a baby in my rucksack. Can I go? Yeah, it's really, I found that bit really interesting.

But that is definitely the bit why I've made me went more Nana's side. It's really, really interesting. Yeah, it is really interesting. And I think, I mean, if we read one of these other oral autobiographies and there were a little bit less emotive, that would be both a positive and a negative. It's the emotive which makes this book such a readable book. Yeah. And to be fair to.

her like again all the criticism that she's had she did read all the work it's like it's not like she she didn't and the back is absolutely

full of references she's done her work is what I'm saying yeah and I don't think this book is attempting something and failing it I think it's doing what it's set out to do

which is to make you feel lots of feelings and look again at something and it has an argument within it which is there was a woman here who had huge attributes and deserved

more than she got both from life and from history. Yeah. I agree. Thank you for listening to The Weirdo's Book Club. My new children's book, Where Did She Go, is available to buy now.

And I'm on tour. Tickets for my show. I am a strange gloop are on sale now from sarahprasco.com. You can find out all about the upcoming books we're going to be discussing this series on our Instagram at Sarah and Carriad's Weirdo's Book Club. And please join us on Patreon.

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