Over the recent holiday period, I managed to read two very different, yet wonderful books. The first is a nonfiction text called Wifedom by Australian author Anna Funder. The second, written by American psychologist and author, Jonathan Haidt, is entitled The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. Both books are compelling and convey powerful messages worthy of thought and deep reflection.  

Published in 2023, Wifedom presents the reader with an intimate and confronting view of the marriage between writers Eileen O’Shaughnessy and George Orwell. Using newly discovered letters from Eileen to her best friend, and to Orwell himself, Funder follows the marriage through the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War in London. This life writing text is at times a very uncomfortable recount of one of the most significant literary marriages of the twentieth century.  Having read, enjoyed, and taught two of Orwell’s most famous books – Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four – the revelation of his clever and compassionate ‘invisible’ wife, left me with a distinct sense of unease. Whilst always admiring Orwell’s skill as a storyteller, his passion for freedom and his warning against the abuse of power, the story of his gifted, supportive, and ‘forgotten’ wife is indeed a revelation.

Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation is a powerful exploration of some of the serious issues which characterise our young people’s world today. Described as a ‘modern-day prophet’, Haidt names issues such as sleep deprivation, social disconnection, cognitive fragmentation, and addiction, while at the same time citing psychological and biological research, and pointing the way forward to a brighter, stronger future for society generally. Published earlier this year, the text makes a convincing argument that the loss of a play-based childhood and its replacement with a phone-based childhood is the source of increased mental distress among teenagers.

I will be exploring Haidt’s text The Anxious Generation in the weeks ahead as it speaks powerfully to many current concerns in education and mental health circles. In reflecting on my reading in the holidays, I’m reminded of a statement made by Robert Scholes: ‘Texts are places where power and weakness become visible and discussable, where learning and ignorance manifest themselves, and where structures that enable and constrain our thoughts and actions become palpable.’

Clare Murphy

English Coordinator and Literacy Instructional Coach