Irish Books

Chris's guest to discuss Intermezzo is Madeleine Callaghan (Maddy), Senior Lecturer in the School of English at the University of Sheffield. Maddy explains that Rooney's title alludes to the opening strategies of chess, in which players aim to set up the conditions they want for free play. But Rooney's characters find they can't arrange their lives the same way: they can neither identify the beginning nor put the pieces where they want. We meet Peter - torn between his sexual ideal in the younger Naomi and his Platonic match in old flame Sylvia - and Peter's student brother Ivan, the socially awkward chess champion who falls for the much older Margaret. Chris points out that the brothers have recently been bereaved by the loss of their father, a grief that is present without being mediated. With that bereavement, and troubled love affairs, the novel presents a lonely world in which emotional closeness is elusive, sex doesn't fully answer a person's needs, and the unfortunate dog symbolises neglected responsibilities. While commentators have made much of Rooney as millennial spokesperson, Maddy notes Intermezzo's place in the cerebral traditions of various European fictions. Rooney is also specifically interested in where modern Ireland is going, without perhaps having the answers. It feels like a moral work, but does it communicate worthwhile morals? And would the novel benefit from the ability to find humour in adverse circumstances, as in some of the most well-known Irish literature?  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

25 years after the events of Brooklyn, Eilis Lacey has integrated to American life successfully, but faces a crisis in consequence of her husband's infidelity, a crisis that propels her home to Enniscorthy. Guest Matthew Ryan, a specialist in Modern Literature at the Australian Catholic University with an expertise in Tóibín's work, stresses that Eilis is a more assertive character than we meet in Brooklyn. But can we ever go home? Much has changed. Eilis attempts to revive old relationships, unaware of complications that have arisen in her absence, leading host Chris Murray to wonder whether the migrant character can treat multiple locations as fully real, or always treats one place as a dream. Yet the locals can be selfish too, with characters like the disappointed Jim Farrell and widowed Nancy Sheridan identifying each other as means to their own self-transformation. Small-town Ireland is a place in which characters feel watched, and Tóibín's cast agonises over whether their desires are respectable. For this reason, what is unsaid is vitally important in Tóibín's work, and his characters' paralysis looks back to writers like James Joyce: Chris and Matt ask whether Tóibín indicates an essentially Irish condition. Contains spoilers. LINKS:Irish Books Podcast on Blogspot: https://irishbookspodcast.blogspot.com Follow the Irish Books Podcast channel on WhatsApp https://colmtoibin.com  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lynch’s Booker-winner is divisive. While Chris Murray wonders whether the characters in Prophet Song could be fleshed out, and the story of a fascist Ireland more fully realised, his guest says that this misses the point. Professor Christopher Morash (Trinity College Dublin) argues that Lynch’s purpose is to explore what happens to a person whose identity is gradually eroded. In a vividly portrayed suburban Dublin that steadily slips from view, narrator Eilish Stack first loses her husband, then her profession and her home, and faces the prospect of losing her children too. Morash says that Lynch is most interested in this reduction of a person to her basic impulse to survive, and that the story of Ireland’s decline into an authoritarian state is only a device to achieve this. While recent politics have made Prophet Song topical, Morash suggests that paying too much attention to the book’s political dimension means misreading Lynch’s experiment in ‘radical empathy’. Morash refers to playwright Sean O’Casey to show the Irish literary tradition at work in Prophet Song, in which civil war is so mutually harmful that the specific politics cease to matter. Murray wonders whether the book is too bleak, but Morash says that the closing image of the sea signals hope. Which perspective on Prophet Song seems right to you? LINKS:Irish Books Podcast on Blogspot: https://irishbookspodcast.blogspot.com Follow the Irish Books Podcast channel on WhatsAppBuy Prophet Song: https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/prophet-song-9780861545896 Guest:Christopher Morash http://www.tcd.ie/English/staff/academic-staff/chris-morash.php The Irish Books Podcast is proudly produced by East Coast Studio with support from the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Monash UniversitySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hear in-depth discussions of recent Irish books that are worth reading, across a range of genres. Expert guests get to the heart of books you know and give you ideas of what contemporary Irish literature to read next. In Irish Books, author and critic Chris Murray discusses recent Irish books with expert guests. Hear their in-depth conversations to learn about contemporary Irish books that are worth reading. For lovers of Irish fiction, The Irish Books Podcast gets to the heart of books you know and gives you ideas of what to read next.Follow the Irish Books Podcast channel on WhatsAppSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.