Anne Enright, writer, critic, Booker winner, kindly made time back in 2023 for Irish literature maven Paige Reynolds and for John Plotz in his role as host for our sister podcast, Novel Dialogue. In this conversation, she reads from The Wren, The Wren and says we don’t yet know if the web has become a space of exposure or of authority. We can be sure that the state of diffusion we all exist in is “pixilated”–though perhaps we can take comfort from the fact that “Jeff Bezos…is not as interested in your period as you might think.”

Anne speaks of “a moment of doom” when a writer simply commits to a character, unlovely as they may or must turn out to be. (Although The Wren The Wren harbors one exception: “Terry is lovely.”) She also corrects one reviewer: her characters aren’t working class, they’re “just Irish.” Asked about teaching, Anne emphasizes giving students permission to write absolutely anything they want–while simultaneously “mortifying them…condemning them to absolute hell” by pointing out the need to engage in contemporary conversation. Students should aim for writing that mixes authority with carelessness. However, “to get to that state of carefree expression is very hard.”

Although tempted by Lewis Carroll and Kenneth Grahame, Anne has a clear winner when it comes to Novel Dialogue's traditional "signature question": A. A. Milne’s Now We Are Six.

Mentioned in this Episode:

By Anne Enright:

The Gathering (2007; Booker Prize)
The Forgotten Waltz (2011)
The Green Road (2015)
The Portable Virgin
Taking Pictures
Yesterday’s Weather
Granta Book of the Irish Short Story
Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood
No Authority

Also mentioned:

Patricia Lockwood, No One is Talking about This

Sally Rooney on the social life of the young on the internet, e.g. Conversations with Friends

Christopher Hitchens, “Booze and Fags:”

Transcript.

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134* Etherized: Anne Enright in a Novel Dialogue Conversation (Paige Reynolds, JP)