Six Degrees of Separation: Wifedom by Anna Funder

How the meme works

Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge.

A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the other books on the list, only to the ones next to them in the chain.  Read all the rules and FAQs here.

Family obligations and household responsibilities were crushing her soul and taking her away from her writing deadlines. She needed help, and George Orwell came to her rescue.  “I’ve always loved Orwell,” Funder writes, “his self-deprecating humour, his laser vision about how power works, and who it works on.” So after rereading and savoring books Orwell had written, she devoured six major biographies tracing his life and work. But then she read about his forgotten wife, and it was a revelation. Eileen O’Shaughnessy married Orwell in 1936. O’Shaughnessy was a writer herself, and her literary brilliance not only shaped Orwell’s work, but her practical common sense saved his life. But why and how, Funder wondered, was she written out of their story? Using newly discovered letters from Eileen to her best friend, Funder re-creates the Orwells’ marriage, through the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War in London. As she peeks behind the curtain of Orwell’s private life she is led to question what it takes to be a writer—and what it is to be a wife.

Wifedom: Mrs. Orwell’s Invisible Life by Ann Funder.

My Review will be up on Monday

My Chain

I thought first of Vera: Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov or of Meg Wolitzer’s The Wife, and even The Netanyahus, but went with a different “invisible wife”–one who was later “airbrushed” out of the picture entirely in the divorce court. Then I thought of Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, but rejected it too–preferring to stick with the Massie’s book.

1

Suzanne Massie, first wife of historian Robert K. Massie, did all the was necessary to make his greatest book, Nicholas and Alexandra happen–including providing the nearly ceaseless care for the hemophiliac son who inspired the research into the Romanov’s. This book fascinated me so much as a high school student that I’ve read it several times. I learned how a historian works largely from this book. (And, how rotten big movie premiers can be!). This is the only book in which Suzanne was actually given credit as a co-author. Later, he dumped her for his “new” editor. I never found his later books to be as good. When I read this I understood why. 

Journey by Robert and Suzanne Massie 

Sadly, I believe this is out-of-print, but there are a lot of used copies around.

2

An author’s wife who may be “too visible,” much more visible than Eileen Orwell or Suzanne Massie–who may have inspired her husband’s detestable new protagonist even, is Mrs. March by Virginia Feito. Thank you to Book Club Mom for bringing this book to my attention in a most timely fashion (the day I wrote this post). Won’t you please click on the link and read her review? 

3

Another “Mrs. March” was Mrs. Margaret “Marmee” March. Like two books further down the chain, she lived with the backdrop of war.  Marmee: A Novel of Little Women by Sarah Miller.

4

Like Marmee March, Martha Sharp was the wife of a minister–a Unitarian minister. The “real” March family–the Alcotts were Unitarians. Waitstill Sharp was Martha’s husband. They put their faith, values, and even, their lives on the line to rescue Jewish people in Nazi Germany.  Defying the Nazis: The Sharp’s War by Artemis Joukowsky. Like the Massies, sadly, the Sharps later divorced.

5

Another Sharp whose actions played out with the backdrop of a war is Becky Sharp–who did nothing too noble. (And whose author’s second name is very Puritan/Unitarian!) Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackery.

6

Another book with “vanity” in the title is Bonfire of the Vanities: A Novel by Tom Wolfe. Like Mrs. March it looks at New York society, and like Vanity Fair it is a satire of society.

I still haven’t had the problem with photos fixed in my blog, so no pictorial collage to round it all up.

Won’t you join the fun next month? We’ll be starting with the book I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith.