{"id":55883,"date":"2024-04-12T10:00:07","date_gmt":"2024-04-12T15:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/?p=55883"},"modified":"2026-01-16T20:10:50","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T02:10:50","slug":"etherized-anne-enright-in-conversation-with-paige-reynolds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/etherized-anne-enright-in-conversation-with-paige-reynolds\/","title":{"rendered":"Etherized: Anne Enright in Conversation with Paige Reynolds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our partner podcast <\/em>Novel Dialogue<\/a> invites a novelist and a literary critic to talk about novels from every angle: how we read them, write them, publish them, and remember them. This season\u2019s signature question is: \u201cWhat is the first book you remember loving?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

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Anne Enright, writer, critic, Booker winner<\/a>, kindly makes time for Irish literature maven Paige Reynolds<\/a> and ND host John Plotz<\/a>. She reads from The Wren, The Wren<\/em><\/a> and discusses the \u201cetherized\u201d state of our inner lives as they circulate on social media. Anne says we don’t yet know if the web has become a space of exposure or of authority, but that the state of diffusion we all exist in is \u201cpixilated\u201d\u2014though perhaps we can take comfort from the fact that \u201cJeff Bezos \u2026 is not as interested in your period as you might think.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anne speaks of \u201ca moment of doom\u201d when a writer simply commits to a character, unlovely as they may or must turn out to be. (Although The Wren, The Wren <\/em>harbors one exception: \u201cTerry is lovely.\u201d) She also gently corrects one reviewer: her characters aren\u2019t working class, they’re \u201cjust Irish.\u201d Asked about teaching, Anne emphasizes giving students permission to write absolutely anything they want\u2014while simultaneously \u201cmortifying them \u2026 condemning them to absolute hell\u201d by pointing out the need to engage in contemporary conversation. Students should aim for writing that mixes authority with carelessness. However, \u201cto get to that state of carefree expression is very hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although tempted by Lewis Carroll and Kenneth Grahame, Anne has a clear winner when it comes to the signature question: A. A. Milne\u2019s\u00a0Now We are Six.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

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Subscribe to <\/em>Novel Dialogue on Apple <\/a><\/em>or Spotify<\/a>\u00a0to listen and to be notified when new episodes are released.<\/em><\/p>\n

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