१७ ऑगस्ट, २०२३

George Orwell wrote of "two great facts about women": "One was their incorrigible dirtiness and untidiness. The other was their terrible, devouring sexuality."

 A passage from a notebook, quoted in "George Orwell gets his comeuppance in a new book about his first wife/Anna Funder’s ‘Wifedom’ focuses on Orwell’s first wife, Eileen, beginning with her influence on the creation of 'Animal Farm'" (WaPo). The article is by Francine Prose.

“Wifedom” is part biography and part speculative fiction written in the present tense; it includes passages of dialogue and accounts of private thoughts and intimate moments that only the people involved could have recorded or witnessed. (“The sex is strange. Perfunctory. Or performative. It doesn’t seem to be an act of communication at all, or of passion.”)...

Added to the mix in “Wifedom” are hefty chunks of memoir in which Funder describes her domestic life: watching Brett M. Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing with her son, explaining the #MeToo movement to her daughter and living with a husband whose thoughtfulness can’t fully compensate for the power imbalances inherent in a patriarchal system. “The patriarchy is too huge, and I too small or stupid, or just not up for the fight,” she writes. “Wifedom is a wicked magic trick we have learned to play on ourselves. I want to expose how it is done and so take its wicked, tricking power away.”

Francine Prose isn't buying all this:

Reading “Wifedom,” I felt a bit guilty for how often I thought of Orwell’s brilliant essay “Politics and the English Language,” in which he rails against the flaws — vagueness, imprecision, awkwardness, a reliance on jargon and cliché — that plague “Wifedom.” Many passages left me wondering what Funder was trying to say: “The first task of the imagination, for the writer, is the creation of the writing self. It’s quite a job, and it helps to have two of you at it: she, believing in you, so you, too, believe in yourself. This nurtured self is then mother to the work. And the work, in turn, becomes evidence of a self: I made, therefore I am.”

The WaPo readers aren't buying it either. Top-rated comment:

Mixing actual historical events and conversations with speculative fiction is incredibly misleading for readers. I can't stand this type of writing because it leaves the reader unsure which parts actually transpired and which are completely made up. This is my biggest problem with movies that are based on historical events...but also take dramatic liberties. As viewers, the real and imagined become entwined and truth is lost.

You want to write a book that makes George Orwell look bad, sure. You want to throw in your own life and experiences, go for it. But don't make stuff up and throw it in the mix, too, because then we all lose.

२७ टिप्पण्या:

Gahrie म्हणाले...

Brett M. Kavanaugh spent his life mentoring women and girls, and had a spotless reputation until a Republican appointed him to the U.S. Supreme Court when he suddenly became a sexist and accused rapist based on lies from his political opponents and the testimony of a deranged woman who was obviously lying.

rehajm म्हणाले...

The term ‘speculative fiction’ is a nasty little redundancy, innit?

I want people to believe my invented smear is indeed true…

Big Mike म्हणाले...

You don’t need speculative fiction if you actually get off your lazy butt and do research, do you?

Jaq म्हणाले...

The Orwell estate has approved the re-writing of 1984 to make the woman the hero, and the superior of Winston Smith in every way. Smarter, quicker to see the truth, etc. When of course the pace of Winston Smith learning the truth that readers had already guessed, is an important element of what makes the novel readable, its narrative structure.

Orwell's trenchant critique of the very techniques that the Democrats are now using in their project to create a one-party state, and to destroy individual rights, can't be allowed to stand.

The fiction a person is exposed to affects their judgement subconsciously, and judgement bypasses logic, so fiction is the ideal road to control of the culture. Therefore the fiction that created US culture must be undermined, destroyed, and replaced. They even do it with Shakespeare, they are doing it with fairy tales, and they will "cancel" Orwell, or more precisely, blacklist him.

Jaq म्हणाले...

I am waiting for "Oppenheimer's Wife" or "Einstein's Wife," in which it turns out that those two men stole their ideas from their wives, and gave them none of the credit, and were rotten husbands to boot.

Another old lawyer म्हणाले...

Finally, a top comment in the WaPo I agree with, and 100% at that. That's been my position for decades on fiction that includes real historical figures, and I made that very point in a discussion last week on Oppenheimer.

Of course, one should take materials labeled as non-fiction history or as a documentary with some of the same skepticism.

Dave Begley म्हणाले...

Well, Orwell got that wrong.

Sally327 म्हणाले...

Another example of how we can't be trusted to think and analyze and distinguish, we must have an elite chamber of truth purveyors who will decide what can be presented and what we must accept as truth. Can't have anything "misleading" because we're all to stupid to figure it out. Very Orwellian, that, so kudos to this author, eliciting this reaction.

Speculative fiction, is that like alternative history? Or more like the current controversy with Bradley Cooper's prosthetic nose in the movie Bernstein?

Assistant Village Idiot म्हणाले...

The medievals also believed it was the woman who was sexually obsessed and thus a spiritual danger. This seems unlikely, but I will check it out the next time I time travel. If it turns out to be true in Burgundy c. 1200, I will research what seem to be happening to make it so. We would all benefit, I am sure.

boatbuilder म्हणाले...

"Mixing actual historical events and conversations with speculative fiction is incredibly misleading for readers. I can't stand this type of writing because it leaves the reader unsure which parts actually transpired and which are completely made up. This is my biggest problem with WAPO PIECES that are based on historical events...but also take dramatic liberties. As viewers, the real and imagined become entwined and truth is lost."

Fixed it. I can't understand how anyone who percieves this method of BS can actually read the Washington Post. They've been doing this forever.

rhhardin म्हणाले...

Math book preface says that the authors would like to mention the hostility of their wives to the project once it turned out not likely to make much money, but one of the authors would like the thank his wife for her help, such as it was, with the index.

JAORE म्हणाले...

"... I too small or stupid.."

Close. You are getting close.

iowan2 म्हणाले...

Having reared a son and daughter, the daughter was much messier. Her clothes were arranged in piles on the floor. Clean, dirty, worn but still 'clean'. The boy used his dresser and closet. (but he's an Engineer)

Grandkids the same. Boys tend to pickup, the girls rooms are a disaster.

One of my first learning moments was visiting a buddy at the big State university. Coming back to the dorm at midnight and going up to the girls floor, exposed me the nastiest, foulmouthed creatures I had yet to encounter.

narciso म्हणाले...

Serves him right for denouncing big brother Stalin

cassandra lite म्हणाले...

A few years ago there was a movie (I think based on a novel) released called The Wife. Its conceit was that, in the '50s, a talented woman novelist would't be taken seriously enough and so should essentially become her husband's ghostwriter. This arrangement continues for years until the husband is to be awarded the Nobel Prize for lit, and the wife suffers serious misgivings.

What absolute poppycock wrapped in bullshit submerged in a septic tank. By the 1950s, multiple women had already won the Nobel Prize for lit, and women writers were every year well ensconced on the bestseller lists. But somehow this movie (and novel) was produced (and published) without anyone pointing this out, because the most important thing in 2017 was to make women victims of the patriarchy.

Compared to The Wife, Ragtime was documentary.

tommyesq म्हणाले...

"Speculative fiction" = finding one's own "truth."

Immanuel Rant म्हणाले...

He "gets his comeuppence" by someone imagining that he gets taught a real lesson?

Like when I get home and imagine how I "really would have shown that police officer if I just said X when he gave me a ticket. Yeah. And then people would have applauded, and he'd feel bad, and his wife would leave him, and I'd be married to a supermodel, and . . . ."

Rocco म्हणाले...

Assistant Village Idiot said...
"The medieval also believed it was the woman who was sexually obsessed and thus a spiritual danger. This seems unlikely, but I will check it out the next time I time travel. If it turns out to be true in Burgundy c. 1200, I will research what seem to be happening to make it so. We would all benefit, I am sure."

GRANDPA!

(I have Burgundian ancestors likely living there in circa 1200)

Oligonicella म्हणाले...

"The first task of the imagination, for the writer, is the creation of the writing self."

The kind of sentence written by someone who is trying to frame what they do (write what they want) as some sort of transcendent gift to others from some self-appointed god on high.

The Crack Emcee म्हणाले...

Good Lord: "speculative fiction"

Sebastian म्हणाले...

"her influence on the creation of 'Animal Farm'"

Does this reverse feminist anxiety of influence serve the sisterhood or affirm the patriarchy?

"watching Brett M. Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing with her son, explaining the #MeToo movement to her daughter and living with a husband whose thoughtfulness can’t fully compensate for the power imbalances"

LIke that woman who did color commentary on Barbie for her teenage son?

"I too small or stupid, or just not up for the fight . . . I want to expose how it is done and so take its wicked, tricking power away.”

The wickedest trick of the patriarchy is to get women without talent to expose their boring inadequacy. What better way to vindicate men's superior genius?

"left me wondering what Funder was trying to say"

I am woman, hear me roar, and admire me, all you sexist pigs.

"the real and imagined become entwined and truth is lost

In the age of pure subjectivity, truth is already lost. Nor do progs object in principle--the collusion hoax, the Kavanaugh hysteria "entwined" a bit of real and a lot of imagined to lose the truth for good effect.

Tom T. म्हणाले...

It's certainly the case that Winston Smith reacted with horror to the idea of having sex with his wife.

Ampersand म्हणाले...

Orwell's ideas are a problem for the Left. Crush him. Bring him low. Make it difficult for anyone to point towards his work as a guidepost toward truth.

The end justifies the means.


And those of you who were contemplating the possibility of saying out loud something that undermines the Left's project, take note: If we can do this to Orwell, we can do this to anyone.

n.n म्हणाले...

Handmade tale(s).

Just A Thought म्हणाले...

Tim in Vermont wrote

The Orwell estate has approved the re-writing of 1984 to make the woman the hero, and the superior of Winston Smith in every way. Smarter, quicker to see the truth, etc.

Rewriting? Not true. It was always written this way....

Assistant Village Idiot म्हणाले...

@ Just A Thought - well played.

Iman म्हणाले...

Ration that out, just like choco!