Misery plus poetry

Her father was bigger than the world and a lot less wonderful.

Anne Enright, The Wren, the Wren

Beauty and ugliness often seem to come together, as if in a package. That is true in the world we live in, in the people we know, in our own lives and even in the novels we read. That may be the message in The Wren, the Wren by Anne Enright (2023).

The novel tells of the broken lives of three women in the family of Phil McDaragh, an admired Irish poet whose poems are sprinkled throughout the novel. McDaragh writes poetry about romantic love, and for inspiration he thinks he needs a succession of young lovers. He abandons his wife when she becomes seriously ill. His daughter, Carmel, and his granddaughter, Nell, feel the same abandonment as they lead their confused, often aimless lives. Their own love affairs are no more meaningful or lasting than McDaragh's. They just lack the poetry, which may be why they return again and again to his.

Enright does not deny us the ugly details of these relationships in language that is sometimes beautiful and often vulgar. The contrast seems to be important.

My favorite line in the novel comes early: "We don't walk down the same street as the person walking beside us." How true. We see different things even when looking at the same thing. How we perceive what we see depends upon our different backgrounds, different experiences, different ways of thinking. Carmel and Nell may walk down the same streets as those next to them, yet as the offspring of this famous poet they see different streets.