{"id":42141,"date":"2024-05-20T06:30:25","date_gmt":"2024-05-19T18:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=42141"},"modified":"2024-05-19T19:48:14","modified_gmt":"2024-05-19T07:48:14","slug":"what-im-reading-the-wren-the-wren-by-anne-enright","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2024\/05\/20\/what-im-reading-the-wren-the-wren-by-anne-enright\/","title":{"rendered":"What I’m Reading: “The Wren, The Wren” by Anne Enright"},"content":{"rendered":"

As implied on May 6,<\/a> when I posted on reading Mur Lafferty’s Station Eternity<\/em>, I’m racing to catch up on the book booty list<\/a> posted in January. The posting part, that is, since I have now read four of the six titles. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

The second book off the posting block is The Wren, The Wren<\/strong><\/em> by Irish author, Anne Enright.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Published last year, The Wren, The Wren<\/em> is a novel about family relationships. The primary protagonist is Nell, the granddaughter of a moderately successful poet, Phil, who abandoned his family. The effects of that abandonment fell heavily on Nell’s mother, Carmel (as well as her sister and mother) and the ripples continue to be felt in Carmel’s relationship with Nell.<\/p>\n

That’s the broad brush, anyway, although”what it’s all about” is by no means that simplistic. Although I consider Nell the primary protagonist, the story is also told from Carmel and Phil’s points of view. As readers, we see all of them as human beings, with a mixed bag of behaviours and\u00a0 motivations. Overall, I felt it was a story about experiencing relationship, primarily romantic and familial, and finding \/ defining ourselves within those interactions. Yet it also explored the characters’ sense of purpose and of being in relation to nature and life — which sounds pretentious when I write it here, but wasn’t when reading the book.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Anne Enright is a Booker Prize winning author, so I knew The Wren, The Wren<\/em> would be contemporary realist fiction and most likely written with a “slice of life” focus. And it is. \ud83d\ude00 Initially, I found it difficult to get into it, but once I adjusted to the rhythm of Nell’s “voice” and Enright’s storytelling, I was engaged by the narrative and enjoyed the read.<\/p>\n

If you have read and enjoyed books like Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach<\/em>, Anna Burns’ Milkman<\/em>, or Kate Atkinson’s Behind The Scenes At The Museum<\/em>, I believe you may also like The Wren, The Wren<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I read a paperback edition, 273 pp, published by Jonathan Cape (Penguin Random House) in 2023, which I borrowed from my sister-in-law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As implied on May 6, when I posted on reading Mur Lafferty’s Station Eternity, I’m racing to catch up on the book booty list posted in January. The posting part, that is, since I have now read four of the six titles. \ud83d\ude00 The second book off the posting block is The Wren, The Wren […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-writers","category-what-im-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42141"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42148,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42141\/revisions\/42148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}