7.1 Etherized: Anne Enright in Conversation with Paige Reynolds (JP)

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Anne Enright, writer, critic, Booker winner, kindly makes time for Irish literature maven Paige Reynolds and ND host John Plotz. She reads from The Wren, The Wren and discusses the “etherized” 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 “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 gently 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 the 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:”

Listen and Read:

Audio: Etherized: Anne Enright in Conversation with Paige Reynolds

Transcript: 7.1 Etherized: Anne Enright in Conversation with Paige Reynolds

11.2 Taking Apart a Metaphor: Dan Sinykin and Sarah Brouillette on the Literary Ecosystem – Novel Dialogue

Our second episode on “The Literary Ecosystem” features scholars of contemporary literary culture Dan Sinykin and Sarah Brouillette in conversation with host Aarthi Vadde. Like the good close readers we all are, we begin by thinking about how the metaphor of the “literary ecosystem” works. Sarah values the way it brings relationships between cultural institutions to the foreground but prefers the base-superstructure model of Marxian critique. Dan, too, moves away from “naturalizing” metaphors although he sees the ecosystem’s potential for pithily naming the interplay of literary production, circulation, and reception.From here the conversation ranges widely as we consider the economic and social forces shaping contemporary literature – be they the conglomeration of publishing houses (see Dan’s Big Fiction) or the impact of platform capitalism upon authorial labor (see Sarah’s Content Machinesand Aarthi’s We the Platform).  We acknowledge the hollowing out of institutions meant to cultivate appreciation for literature and ponder the viability of platforms like Substack for reconstituting a literary sphere. Finally, what would a discussion of the literary ecosystem be without addressing the elephant in the room: AI. We bracket the author scandals to address the supporting players under threat: the translators, the audiobook narrators, the humans who bring books to readers across languages and formats. Come for the literary sociology; stay for the inside scoop on “prompting” a dark romance novel.MentionsMarx – base-superstructure modelBruno Latour – actor-network theorySophie Bishop – Influencer CreepAndrew de Waard –  Derivative MediaPierre Bourdieu – The Rules of Art Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
  1. 11.2 Taking Apart a Metaphor: Dan Sinykin and Sarah Brouillette on the Literary Ecosystem
  2. 11.1 Indie Presses and the Literary Ecosystem: Meg Reid and Will Evans
  3. 10.5 The Novel as Instrument: Sinan Antoon and Michael Allan (MAT)
  4. 10.4 Place Presents Itself To You in Fragments: Ivan Vladislavić and Jeanne-Marie Jackson (MAT)
  5. 10.3 Just Slightly Outside the Circle: Peter Orner and Sarah Wasserman (EH)
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Published by plotznik

I teach English (mainly the novel and Victorian literature) at Brandeis University, and live in Brookline.