THE GIRL FROM THE FICTION DEPARTMENT: A PORTRAIT OF SONIA ORWELL, by Hilary Spurling, Counterpoint, 194 pages, $24.
The name George Orwell more easily trips off the tongue than his wife, Sonia Orwell — but she was the model for Julia, the heroine of Orwell's famous book, "1984."
According to Hilary Spurling, an experienced British biographer, Sonia Brownell, as she was originally named, was beautiful, intelligent and idealistic. She was close friends with W.H. Auden, Lucian Freud, V.S. Naipal and Mary McCarthy — but she was a very talented writer and editor in her own right.
The title of this biography, "The Girl From the Fiction Department," is also taken from "1984," as Orwell described her: "She was very young, he thought, she still expected something from life. . . . She would not accept it as a law of nature that the individual is always defeated. . . . All you needed was luck and cunning and boldness. She did not understand that there was no such thing as happiness, that the only victory lay in the far future, long after you were dead."
The novel's hero, Winston, is electrified by her.
Sonia married Orwell in his later life, when he was in poor health, and he was dead in three months. His commanding fortune, as well as the numerous decisions about his literary life, fell to her. By 1971, Orwell's two novels "Animal Farm" and "1984" had sold 20 million copies between them in paperback. Rumors circulated that she was "a conniving gold digger" who failed to understand her husband's genius. But according to her biographer, those rumors were untrue.
Besides, Sonia was a terribly interesting person independent of the Orwell connection. Born in India, she went to a convent school in England, then settled in London. She became a friend and muse of some of the most talented painters of her generation. In the 1940s, she became the leading editor of Horizons, the most influential literary magazine of its time. She traveled often between London and Paris, comfortably moving in an elite and intellectual circle of friends.
Spurling, a graceful writer, makes it clear that many male intellectuals were in love with her. Her personality was charismatic, witty and forceful. But her most intimate friendships were "with men of great charm and natural authority, generally older than herself, whose intellectual distinction she revered, and who were in turn enthralled by her."
Jack Harrison, who directed the finances of the Orwell Trust, slyly tricked her out of her role in the foundation, eventually leaving her penniless and without a home. She was stricken with cancer while in her 60s, and her life was cut short. But not before she had amassed all of Orwell's writing into one, "The Collected Writings," and published it. She had promised Orwell there would not be a biography — but so many scholars and writers were interested in doing it that it was impossible to stop.
Finally, she appointed economist Bernard Crick to write an official biography, then shepherded the work until it was completed in 1980, the same year she won her lawsuit against Harrison and the Orwell Foundation.
Two weeks later, she died.
E-mail: dennis@desnews.com