Category: Pop

Album Reviews 23/09/28

Zooey Celeste, Restless Thoughts (ATO Records)

Meanwhile on the planet XT-431, we have here a collection of tunes from this southern California-based dude, who’s busily trying to craft his own chill-techno trip, revolving around a genre he’s dubbed “astral-pop,” which his PR people cleverly promote as a “soundtrack for nocturnal driving and an immediate conduit for lasting transcendence.” I myself meditate once a week, usually, and this stuff wouldn’t interfere with the practice’s process of trying to become a witness to one’s own passing thoughts, but it’s not as TM as he might like to think. OK, there were probably a lot of drugs involved, let’s just say that, but I could be wrong; a lot of the imagery comes from a novel he wrote a while back, the feel of which, he professes, is “somewhere between Quentin Tarantino and the Bhagavad Gita.” Oh, I almost forgot, the music is gently woven tech-pop of the Goldfrapp sort by way of 1960s Donovan, all of it made uniquely magnetic because Celeste sounds a lot like the Cure’s Robert Smith. A lot of people would be down with this, absolutely. A

Arina Fujiwara, Neon (self-produced)

Well, what a nice surprise this is. Seems like 90 percent of the jazz albums I’ve been getting for review lately have been breezy dark-coffee-house exercises (luckily there’s been a lull in singer-oriented Big Book projects; not that I don’t like hearing the 4,749th interpretation of “Nature Boy,” there’s just no need for it in current_year), but this one, the debut EP from the Manhattan School Of Music pianist, is deeply ritzy ambiance, stuff you’d expect to hear at a snobby wedding reception for which all the stops have been pulled. The difference comes by way of the fact that Fujiwara is supported by a four-piece string section, along with a vibes person and a pretty chill drummer; as well, our heroine tables a pretty dazzling, dextrous version of Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag,” and, in a really courageous effort, offers a retrofitted version of a Japanese children’s song from her earlier life (“Hotaru Koi”). This is well worth the trip, folks. A+

Playlist

  • On Friday, Sept. 29, we’ll see a new LP from hilariously overrated singing person Ed Sheeran, called Autumn Variations! I’ve always thought that his fans just feel sorry for him because he is a ginger neckbeard, but what do I know; I mean, I did see the video where he went on a stupid talk show and “proved” his claim that every pop song in the world is an old Beatles song, I forget which one, and he accomplished that by pulling out his guitar and asking the audience to give him a song title, and then he “proved” it had the same chords as “Let It Be” or whatever by slowwwly and sneakily changing the chords to fit his insane theory. Your mileage may vary, of course, who cares, but that brings us to his latest song advance, “A Beautiful Game.” It is a piano-pop song that is pretty and oafishly show-stopping, just like every Zoomer-targeted pop song being put out today, and I’ll at least admit that it isn’t a variation on “Let It Be.” No, indeed; cleverly, it rips off Joan Osborne’s “One Of Us” at the beginning and U2’s “Beautiful Day” as things “progress.” What a talented human, that ginger neckbeard, wouldn’t you say?
  • Naturally I always confuse Blonde Redhead with Concrete Blonde, who wouldn’t? Sit Down For Dinner is the former’s new LP, and the latest single, “Before,” is very gentle and mellow and chill, evoking Fleetwood Mac stealing from REM. It’s not bad.
  • Finally, let’s have a laugh at the expense of former Pitchfork darlings Animal Collective, whose new full-length, Isn’t It Now, is on the trucks, headed to the malls and all that happy stuff. I have not kept track of this band, because why would anyone do that anyway, but I do give them credit for totally owning the “tuneless fractal-indie” space for those 10 minutes, remember those days? The single, “Soul Capturer,” sounds like Vampire Weekend trying to be Mungo Jerry. Does anyone seriously have any deep love for music like this, like at all?

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge

Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge, by Spencer Quinn (Forge Books, 291 pages)

Spencer Quinn is the pen name for Peter Abrahams, the Cape Cod resident who is the genius behind the “Chet & Bernie” books. They’re a collection of whimsical mysteries narrated by a dog who solves crimes with his human companion. I have zero evidence to support this, but believe that the books were sold solely because of their titles, which include “Tender is the Bite” and “The Sound and the Furry.” If you like this sort of thing, I suppose the books are great. If you don’t, they are painful.

And so I confess I came to the start of Quinn’s latest series with some trepidation, despite Stephen King having declared on the cover that he “absolutely adored the book.” The novel is called Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge, and it’s about a Florida widow who gets cyber-scammed by some unethical Romanians. It’s quirky, but surprisingly poignant and fun.

The titular Mrs. Plansky is 71 and although her first name is Loretta it is an affectation of the book that she is called Mrs. Plansky throughout. She had been married to Norm, with whom she had a long and satisfying marriage, producing two children. The couple had lived in Rhode Island, but the success of their business — the Plansky Toaster Knife, a knife that toasts bread while you slice it — enabled a comfortable retirement in Florida where they did the obligatory retirement thing when you live near a coast: “getting a metal detector and taking it for long beach walks.”

All this to say, Mrs. Plansky missed her husband greatly when he died of cancer, but he left her enough money that she doesn’t have to worry, and she keeps busy with the many needs of her grown children and grandchildren, and also with her tennis foursome.

Unfortunately for Mrs. Plansky, while she is living her best widowed life, a villainous man somewhere in Romania is paying an instructor to teach English to his dead brother’s son. It’s a bit of a struggle. The frustrated teacher tries to explain to the boy why no American ever says the grammatically correct phrase “It is I” — “You must learn the right wrong grammar. That’s the secret of sounding American.”

How does one learn the right wrong grammar? “There are ways. For one you could go to YouTube and type in ‘Country Music.’”

The teen, Dinu, is learning English for a nefarious purpose that is obvious from the start. At his uncle’s direction, he will be connected with hapless senior citizens in America in a scheme to drain their bank accounts. Mrs. Plansky is his first victim when she authorizes a payment to a person she thought was her grandson using a platform hilariously called “Safemo.”

While the banks and law enforcement were suitably solicitous about Mrs. Plansky’s plight, they ultimately said there was nothing they could do because the Romanian authorities tended to look the other way on such crimes, seeing as they brought U.S. dollars into their economy. At first Mrs. Plansky resolves to just figure out how to live out her days on Social Security and any job she can get; she owns her car and condo outright (and has a new hip), meaning she is already in better shape than many other people her age. She sits down to do an accounting of her assets, liabilities and income and have a drink like people on the Titanic “after the collision but before the realization,” and finds the math grim.

In addition to her own living expenses, she has promised loans to her children and is responsible for her 98-year-old father, who needs to move into a more expensive wing of his assisted living facility. Also, she is feeling as though she failed her beloved Norm in being taken in by the scam and losing their savings. She is finally overtaken with “real, hot fury” over her circumstance, sells her deceased mother’s emerald ring and books a plane ticket to Bucharest, determined to solve the case (and get her money back) herself. Hijinks ensue as she moves from “doing, not being done to.”

Since the publisher has already revealed that this is the first book in a new series, it’s obvious that Mrs. Plansky will survive her adventure with her pluck intact. There are enough clues throughout the novel that the astute reader will have a vague idea of how the story will end before Mrs. Plansky even deplanes. If you’re looking for a heart-stopping thriller with a surprise ending, look elsewhere.

That said, Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge is light-hearted fun packed with sly asides (like a “presidential suite” in a Romanian hotel that had a picture of Richard Nixon above it) that elevate it above a beach read — or a story of a dog detective. It’s a deceptively smart little novel, inspired by a similar scam call to the author’s father.

And Chet and Bernie fans can rejoice; that series is not over. Up on the Woof Top, a “holiday adventure,” comes out next month. B+

Album Reviews 23/09/21

10 Miles 2 Neptune, Change (self-released)

This New Hampshire-based fedora-pop duo features singer-songwriters Mike Birch of Derry and Merrimack’s Tammy Jann, who, for the last eight years, have co-run a Nashua-based songwriting group, I’m told, which I take to mean that they’re community-minded, which the state’s music community could always use, wouldn’t you say? Their songs are, as you’d expect, reminiscent of Joni Mitchell, Stephen Stills, all that stuff, you know, Bonnaroo-bait comprising ’60s rock, jam band stuff, and so on and so forth. “The duo’s challenge with their first CD release,” they tell us press people, “was to bring together Tammy’s lyrics and Mike’s music to create songs with an original sound and style.” I’d say that’s true; the songs are quite listenable, and if you’re, you know, a gentle soul who thinks Neil Young is way too heavy metal, you’ll probably like it. The production — which I only bring up because it’s really the only thing local musicians usually care about — is fine. A-

Rich Hinman, Memorial (Colorfield Records)

You know, if the only commercial CDs I received at this desk were all put out by studio hacks who were sick of being considered hacks by music journalism hacks, I’d be spending a lot more of my thesaurus.com time hunting for synonyms for upbeat-sounding adjectives instead of things like “humdrum” and “unlistenable.” Hinman’s pedal steel guitar has made appearances on recording sessions for songs by the likes of k.d. lang, Maren Morris and Amythyst Kiah, and I’m sure I’ve noticed his name on many other things, so I was a bit surprised that this is his first solo album. It’s trippy but kindhearted ambient stuff tilted in a Nel Cline direction; Hinman busies himself most of the time trying to make his pedal steel sound too breezily divine to be a pedal steel, put it that way, and there’s a lot of quirky, awkward but fascinating indie vibe along the way, found sounds turning into endless ringouts, plenty of cavitation, etc. Very listenable. A

Playlist

  • Ack, it’s about to get really freezing out there, isn’t it, because the next batch of random CD releases will magically appear on Sept. 22, just two months before Thanksgiving, can you even believe it, folks! In order to avoid thinking about sliding down hopelessly slidey hills in my car, which will be happening any minute now, let’s subject-change to something that’s a zillion times more pleasant, namely sexy singing lady Kylie Minogue, whose new album, Tension, is on the way to the stores, or whatever places people visit to buy stuff and randomly clog the aisles in our super-smart Information Age! Yikes, this song is so sexy and hot, like what Britney was doing for about five minutes, euro-trash trance-pop for runway models to stare vacantly to, I still love this kind of thing. Speaking of velvet-rope hotness, I wonder if Kylie’s ever done a jam with Tiësto, let me go look. Nope, apparently not, but DJ Flyboy once did a mashup of Kylie’s “Confide in Me” and Jonas Blue/Tiësto’s “Ritual.” OK, you have no idea what I’m talking about, do you? That’s a shame!
  • Unfashionably late-breaking: At this writing I’m hoping to attend a heavy metal rock ’n’ roll concert in Manchester at a place called Angel City Music Hall, a venue located within the Spider Bite building on Elm Street. An old public relations bro named Dave, who’s based in New York City, is helping to push the awesome, awesome New Orleans-based sludge-metal band Crowbar, who will be playing at Angel City on Saturday, Sept. 23, you should totally go!
  • Whew, I’m glad to report that our culture hasn’t devolved to the point that if you go on Google and type “Lydia L” the first thing the all-knowing search engine suggests isn’t “Lydia Lunch,” but the name right under that is, as it should be, Lydia Loveless, the alt-country indie-rocker, whose new LP, Nothing’s Gonna Stand in My Way Again, is due out in a few hours or whatnot! The teaser track is “Sex And Money,” a strummy mid-tempo gloom-along whose melody sort of reminds me of REO Speedwagon’s “Ridin’ The Storm Out.” Other than that, it’s OK!
  • I always get Teenage Fanclub mixed up with New Young Pony Club, mostly because I couldn’t care less about either of them! But don’t let that stop you from reading on: Nothing Lasts Forever, the band’s new full-length, floated a single a few months ago called “Foreign Land,” in which they come even closer to sounding like The Byrds than they ever did, which will please you or disgust you depending on your taste!
  • And finally, let’s look at swamp-monster thrash-metal band Cannibal Corpse, and their latest “slab,” Chaos Horrific! To be completely honest with you, I’m more familiar with the literally thousands of bands that are said to sound like them — for instance whichever one did the Occlused In Occlusity album, which is so obscure that Google is asking me “what the blazes are you even babbling about,” — than I am with Cannibal Corpse itself! But sure, I’ll go listen to one of these new songs, “Summoned For Sacrifice.” It is “spider walking metal” as I call it, like the guitar just does a “boo-bee-dah-boo-DEE-boo-dum-bee” in mid-tempo cadence, it’s perfect musical ambiance for coming at your little brother with a tarantula walking on your arm, which of course you plan to drop in his lap so his bowl of Count Chocula goes flying. And the singer is doing the Cookie Monster thing instead of doing any sort of singing, because it’s really hard for tarantula-owning suburbanites to find actual singers for their garage bands.

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

Wifedom, by Anna Funder

The Breakaway, by Jennifer Weiner (Atria, 387 pages)

Not many novels get reviewed by Bicycling magazine, especially not ones by Jennifer Weiner. But the author of books such as Good in Bed and The Guy Not Taken has written what she calls “a love letter to cycling, and to traveling,” and the magazine took note.

The Breakaway, Weiner’s 20th book, is about a 33-year-old woman who is asked by a friend to lead a group of cyclists on a two-week trip from New York City to Philadelphia. Abby Stern, who pieces together a living walking dogs and picking up other unfulfilling gig work, has nothing better to do and needs the money — and also the chance to get away, because her boyfriend has just asked her to move in with him.

Although everything seems perfect on paper, Abby is hesitant and can’t figure out why. Mark is a podiatrist who adores her. He’s a fitness buff who runs 6 miles each day, so good-looking that when they’re out together others look at them quizzically, as if they can’t figure out why these two are together.
Ironically, they met as teenagers at a weight-loss camp, but later lost touch. Mark went on to have weight-loss surgery and develop a lifestyle so rigid that he never eats dessert; when he wants something sweet, he brushes his teeth or uses cinnamon-flavored dental floss. Abby, meanwhile, has come to be comfortable in her plus-sized skin, and she enjoys eating, despite having a mother who has tried to make her thin since childhood.Abby’s relationship with her mother is fraught, mostly because Eileen is, in Abby’s terms, “a professional dieter,” so scared of gaining weight that she picks the croutons off her salads as if they were slugs. Although Eileen insists she shipped Abby off to weight-loss camps each summer because she wanted “what was best” for her daughter, Abby just wanted unconditional love, which she didn’t get from her mother.

So when Eileen shows up unexpectedly for the bike trip, insisting that she just wants to spend some quality time with her adult daughter, Abby is suspicious and more than a little stressed.
But a bigger problem is a man who joined the group — someone Abby had a one-night stand with two years earlier.

This is not a surprise to the reader since, when Abby went to the man’s house, she had observed a high-end bicycle hanging on the wall. Some might call this foreshadowing. I call it an announcement that readers aren’t going to have to think too hard in the pages that follow.

It was pretty much a given that the one-night stand, Sebastian, would later show up to complicate Abby’s perfectly arranged life, given his juxtaposition with Mr. Boring But Nice.

But Weiner is a pro and her characters are surprisingly nuanced — not only the leads but also the supporting cast. The others who have signed up to ride the Empire State Trail — which is real and is the longest multi-use trail in the U.S. — include an evangelical Christian mom and her moody teen, two older couples who do a bike trip together every year and call themselves “The Spoke’n Four,” and a couple with two teenage boys.

There is a side plot involving Sebastian, who, during the trip, has gone viral on TikTok because of a video made by a vengeful former hook-up. This complicates the (utterly predictable) feelings that Abby and Sebastian have for each other even more than the presence of her Spandex-wearing mother does. And there is also a side plot involving a teenager in the group and a pregnancy that disappointingly devolves at times into a thinly veiled screed against the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

It’s not unusual for Weiner to delve into the political in her novels, which are staunchly feminist and often feature characters who have been shamed for their weight. She writes authentically about this because she’s been there. As she told one interviewer, “I wanted to write about the women I was seeing in the world who were fat and strong and beautiful and powerful and had great jobs and loving relationships because those were the books I needed when I was 14 and 15 and 16 years old.”

She also writes authentically about cycling, a love of hers that she rekindled during the pandemic. The book is dedicated to “all the riders and leaders of the Bicycle Club of Philadelphia,” where she lives.

Weiner is the sort of writer people call “relatable,” as are her characters. Her novels are not highbrow, but then neither are most of us, and she is undeniably a master of her genre. Unfortunately, the subtle political asides (such as a character deriding a “dead-white-men” tour of historical sites) sometimes seem like a way to add gravitas to what is, in essence, a beach read. The story would be fine without what can come across as preaching.
The takeaway from The Breakaway, however, is pretty simple: bicycling is good, people are complex, and we can make our own happy endings. Also, life is short: eat dessert. B

Album Reviews 23/09/14

Mitski, The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We (Dead Oceans Records)

Generally speaking, I’m late to the ball with this indie-piano-pop princess, who’s been making albums since 2012. In fact, I wasn’t aware that she’d opened for The Pixies a few years ago, which was what probably prompted Pitchfork Media to give her some reckless love with her 2018 album, Be The Cowboy. Thus she’s truly arrived, following up 2022’s Laurel Hell and its frozen Enya-meets-Goldfrapp timelessness with a new set of tunes bolstered by a choir and an orchestra in some places. She’s moonbatty here on “Bug Like An Angel,” but not to Bjork-level; she’s ultimately too polished and Tori Amos-like for that, but in that strummy track she’s also got some Aimee Mann steez going on. I hope you’re ready for (yet more) Pink Floyd-speed drudge-pop if you’ll be indulging this: In “Star,” she comes off like Lana Del Rey’s lonely, bookish sister, staring up at the sky with hope, brimming with grace, evincing elegance. Only thing to complain about is, as others have stated, the cover’s font, which is ludicrously bad, but aside from that, she has entered the most hallowed of halls, no question. A+

Lauren Calve, Shift (self-released)

So today I learned that “DMV” is an acronym that doesn’t only designate a local Department of Motor Vehicles, it’s also short for the area of the country that comprises “District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia,” which is where this contemporary rock singer hails from. We can proceed briskly with this; as a rule of thumb, describing a female folk singer with the catchall “contemporary rock singer” generally clues people in to the distinct possibility that the tunes in question sound quite a bit like Sheryl Crow, which is very true in this instance, the album being a collection of inarguably well-written, slightly Americana/bluegrass-tinged songs guided by Tom Petty principles, and yes, she sounds like a more breezy Sheryl Crow during most of them. But she’s also informed by the ’90s-radio-pop I assume she grew up on; she’s obviously into Alanis, being that “Pretend to Forget” sounds like her for (the better) half of the song. Soccer-parent-rock with a jagged little edge; no harm done here. A-

Playlist

  • Hear ye, hear ye, and such-and-so, there are new music albums being released on Sept. 15, just like every other Friday! You know, folks, a lot of people ask me, “You’re so eclectic and scattershot with your award-winning music column and your book-writing, you must be super-busy. Are there, like, any bands you wish you had more time to investigate and get to know better?” To that I will honestly reply that I wish I had more time to listen to albums by Savannah, Georgia, sludge-metal band Baroness, because what little I’ve heard of them over the years has always been pretty cool. Of course, then again, I would also be keen on listening to Radiohead until I liked them, like all you coolios do, but I’ve read with great interest the rantings of former Boston Phoenix and Your Band Sucks writer Dr. David Thorpe, who’s tried valiantly but never liked anything Radiohead has ever done; usually he defaults to mocking Thom Yorke for having unnecessary alphabet characters in both of his names! But yes, I’ve heard Baroness before, after being lured into their trip by their awesome album covers, and, truth be told, I didn’t know they had a girl frontperson, and no, the fact that they’re named Baroness didn’t clue me in, smart aleck, who has time to keep up with all this stuff? But look at this, I’m already five years behind in my study of this cool band, because they replaced Summer Welch with Gina Gleason (formerly of Misstallica, the all-female Metallica tribute band) back in 2018, can you even believe it? Right, I know, who cares, the new Baroness LP is Stone, and it’s out this Friday, featuring the latest awesome cover art by the band’s leader (and only consistent member), John Dyer Baizley! I was first exposed to them in 2007, when their Red Album came out, and I was like “what even is this,” like it blended sort-of-progressive metal with some roots-emo sounds and added some pop elements as well. Anyhow, the new record features a single, “Last Word,” that continues the band’s tradition of being a Tool-like band that’s a hundred times better than Tool in mawkish-semi-ballad-mode; it’s actually very accessible for a neo-metal-pop tune, remindful of Isis and Bury Your Dead within the same song. If any of this is news to you, you need to get hip to this band, is what I’m saying.
  • Yikes, another blast from my questionable past, it’s British neo-soul lady Corinne Bailey Rae, of all people, with a new album titled Black Rainbows! I haven’t heard anything from her since her 2006 self-titled album, believe it or not; her last four albums have actually charted quite high in the U.S., but I haven’t exactly been pelted with Corinne Bailey Rae news over the past few years, probably because her super-nice chill hasn’t led to any big singles here. “Peach Velvet Sky,” her new single, will probably be similarly underserved here; it’s a deeply soulful, really nice piano ballad, in which she dazzles with technical brilliance, meaning no one will get it, since she’s not singing about badonkadonks or whatnot.
  • Oh, how cool, a new album from Diddy, called The Love Album: Off The Grid! You kids know who he is, right? Nope, not the guy who pretends to play drums for the Weeknd. OK, forget it, he was once a great and powerful rapper, you kids should totally check out the album trailer, featuring Diddy talking about how we’re in the “lev era,” you know, when everyone has private planes or whatever he’s babbling about.
  • Lastly, it’s ancient dusty stoner mummy Willie Nelson, with an album called Bluegrass! The teaser single, “Still Is Still Moving To Me,” sounds like unplugged Outlaws. It’s not bad, for a song performed by a literal mummy!

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

Wifedom, by Anna Funder

Wifedom, by Anna Funder (Knopf, 464 pages)

Never meet your heroes, goes the old adage. A corollary should be “Never read the letters written by their wives about them.”

Unfortunately, for fans of George Orwell, nee Eric Blair, in 2005 a series of letters was discovered, written by his first wife, Eileen O’Shaughnessey, to her best friend. Compared to the hundred of thousands of words written by Orwell, and about him, the letters represented just drops in the proverbial bucket. But those drops made waves. And now they are the basis for a partly imagined book about the couple that lionizes Eileen at the expense of her husband. Read at your own risk.

Funder is an Australian writer who immersed herself in Orwell during a time when she was dissatisfied with the demands of her life as a wife and a mother while trying to fulfill her own professional ambitions. After reading his books and a half-dozen biographies, she moved on to Eileen’s letters, curious as to why Eileen was largely invisible in what had been written about Orwell. This is not a particularly original question when it comes to the wives of famous men; books have been written in recent years, for example, that introduce the little-known wives of Albert Einstein and Ernest Hemingway, among others.
But Funder brings a certain fury to her endeavor, because of her own domestic unhappiness and the concurrent river of discontent that flowed toward the patriarchy throughout the #MeToo years. She weaves her own unhappiness with that of Eileen, who died tragically on an operating table at age 39, though any real kinship between the two seems greatly exaggerated.

The Orwell that Eileen’s letters introduce us to is a petulant, entitled, unfaithful misogynist. The Eileen that Funder introduces us to is a brilliant, selfless martyr. His needs supersede hers at all times; even when they adopt a son at his request, he is not present when it’s time to pick up the infant. He’s an absentee husband and would have been an absentee father if they’d both lived long enough. As it is, she died at 39, Orwell at 46.

The story of her death is heartbreaking and evokes the problems of many in the working class today. The couple made too little money to cover their bills but too much to qualify for charity care. When she was diagnosed with cancer and needed a hysterectomy, she chose the cheapest doctor and hospital she could find, because, she wrote, “what worries me is that I really don’t think I’m worth the money for better care.” She died of heart failure on the operating table. Her husband was in Paris, where he had been socializing with Ernest Hemingway. He later responded to someone’s condolences by saying, “Yes, she was a good old stick.”

There’s a line in the late Keith Green’s song “So You Wanna Go Back to Egypt,” in which the ancient Israelites in the desert are complaining about their lot, saying “Moses seems rather idle / He just sits around and writes the Bible.”
That comes to mind while Funder recounts the work Orwell did with Eileen providing support. In the first six months of their marriage, Funder notes, he finished his “Shooting an Elephant” essay, wrote The Road to Wigan Pier, reviewed 32 books and composed two lengthy articles. In the last days of his life, Orwell would describe the incessant need to produce, writing “all my writing life there has literally not been one day in which I did not feel that I was idling … and that my total output was miserably small.”

Maybe someone that obsessive about work should hire a secretary instead of taking a wife, I don’t know. The pair were both miserable in their own ways, it seems, and both cursed with ill health. Funder’s overarching complaint is the “conditions of production” for high-achieving men. “So many of these men benefited from a social arrangement defying both the moral and the physical laws of the universe in which the unpaid, invisible work of a woman creates the time and neat, warmed and cushion-plumped space for their work,” Funder writes. In other words, like many contemporary women, she’d like a wife, too, or at least someone who would provide the traditional services of one. She later says, “Access to time, as to any other valuable good, is gendered.”

True as this still may be in some families, there has been progress on this front in the author’s life, and even in previous generations there have been women who have managed visible, professional success while married to high-achieving men and raising children.

This is not to say that Orwell wasn’t a first-class jerk who didn’t deserve the saint of a woman he married. But Wifedom, while not entirely fiction, is speculative, and Funder is clear that she came to the story with an agenda. Her achievement may not be so much truth as it is disillusion. B-

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