Words, let us simply admit it, were always slippery and the problem is only exacerbated when shoddy speech becomes the norm. Think of Prufock, worrying himself into night sweats because his allusion to Lazarus might be misunderstood (“That is not what I meant at all, / That is not it at all.”) or of nearly any character in The Waste Land dangling uneasily between “memory and desire.” And it is surely among Eliot’s intentions that those more sophisticated than Sweeney Agonistes should also “wrestle” with one of the central questions of our age-namely, how making coherent sense becomes increasingly problematic. For even a consciousness as coarse as Sweeney’s has intimations about how fragile words, in fact, are.

Eliot’s protagonist nonetheless identifies a problem that has high-brow implications, and the 20th-century jitters, written all over it.

Through Emily’s personal story, as well as the voices of other caregivers and those receiving care, unflinching investigations into the facts of care, and research from scientists at the forefront of potential solutions all over the world, this ground-breaking books asks vital questions about why we have a ‘crisis of care’, at both a global level and in the individual lives affected – and shows how we need to reorganise and reimagine the fundamental building blocks of our world to ensure caregiving is at its heart.“I’ve gotta use words when I talk to you,” Apeneck Sweeney tells his girlfriend Doris as he tries to explain how it is that “death is life and life is death.” Though he dwells near the bottom of the cultural food chain, T.S. This isn’t only in the form of paltry financial handouts for informal caregivers, but also a dearth of social, psychological, workplace and community structures to support people going through this experience.ĭeftly blending memoir, polemic and deeply researched investigation, Who Cares lifts the lid on a subject society has never been willing to confront. Yet when writer, activist and former policy advisor Emily Kenway found herself in the painful position of caring for her mother, she discovered that provision for people in her situation was, at best, hopelessly inadequate and, at worst, completely non-existent. For many, this is a full-time job, saving our economies billions each year.

Around the world, millions of people are quietly caring for long-term unwell, elderly or disabled loved ones one-in-eight people in the UK and a sixth of the total US population, with comparable proportions across the globe.

Orwell politics