Greg’s Comments (group member since Jul 02, 2014)

Greg’s comments from the All About Books group.

Glad to have you Erica, and if you can work it out, we'd love to have you join Petra!

Tamara wrote: "I just finished reading it, so I'll probably join in the discussion."

Great, thanks Tamara!

Is anyone else planning to join this one?

I just finished, and I have to say, I appreciated Nell's perspective much better in the second half of the book.

For me, one of the major themes in this book is generational trauma and healing, the way traumatic things pass down a legacy in future generations but also the way these breaches can eventually be healed.

I like also the musing of the function of writing and the way it can distort what it observes. Keeping Phil's poetry in mind, I love Nell's observations in the final section about the bird:

"The bird looks me in the eye . . . . And with that smart, held connection, the story I made up for him falls away. The bird is no one's servant. He is not dapper. Words only obscure him: the lipstick, the coral, the chiffon, the glass of port, these are all impositions on his tiny, incontrovertible bullfinch self."

She achieves something here that Phil could not; she sees clearly rather than cloaking what she sees in her own desires, her own needs.

It's a brilliant final section.

Nidhi wrote: "Yes this is in Carmel 's narrative, I think it is art of the novel where author is describing character's emotions through poetry, I don't think that Carmel herself is a poet.
There is a possibilit..."

So glad you're enjoying it Nidhi!

Nidhi wrote: "Greg, I think the excerpt which I quoted here is written by Carmel, it fits her situation, she was watching Dublin Bay during her daily trips to Language Institute and home.

Though I have to read ..."

I like your interpretation of the ink Nidhi!

Did this come from one of the poems interspersed in the narrative though? I thought all the poems embedded in the text came from Phil's works (some originals and some supposed translations from the original Irish poems), but maybe I am confused?

Thanks for the nominations everyone - several ones I'd enjoy reading or re-reading!

Nidhi wrote: "I was intrigued by the title of this book and still I am in awe with the way author has used birds as motifs, The Wren is a poem dedicated to Carmel ( later used by Carmel for her daughter Nell), C..."

I do like the motif of birds Nidhi, and although I'm not sure about the cadence of that poem, it has some interesting imagery for sure.

What do you think it means when Phil says that he is the keeper of birds and that he looks for ink in the sea?

Since sea-water will leave no mark, is he saying that his work is temporary and of the moment? Or is this meant to be a comment on the impossibility of his task? I am not sure what he means, but it's an intriguing stanza.

And as the title of the book is The Wren, the Wren, this poem and the wren itself must be important. But I'm really not sure what it means yet - I am at about 90% now in the book.

There's an intriguing moment where Nell talks about a tatoo she gets of a wren on her hand and she says that rather than getting one of the extravagant and beautifully colored varieties, she wants a tatoo of the common, drab wren. Something small and insignificant that people don't notice.

I second Brotherless Night

Kai wrote: "100% I hate it when there are different narrators, but they're all basically interchangeable. I thought Enright did really well with that facet."

Definitely Kai!

I hadn't been expecting much of the Phil section, but surprisingly it was one of my favorite parts of the book.

Hanorah's story haunts me, and it says so much about the town's culture in Phil's day. The casual brutality of the villagers with Old Brick and the dogs was also highly affecting (and disturbing)!

This little section adds a lot in explaining how Phil is made.

It's heartbreaking the way Carmel loses control with Nell in the kitchen, and now some of Nell's self-destructiveness and remoteness makes sense. Carmel loves Nell very much, but her way of interacting with her daughter is wrapped up in her own pecularities. Both Carmel and Nell have unheathy ideas around men that seem to draw them into unsatisfactory, unfulfilling relationships.

And Phil doesn't seem like any great shakes either. His absence and volatility have a legacy in his daughter that carries forward to his granddaughter in many subtle ways.

I'm mid way, and the character of Ronan was introduced recently. I really like him - he's so wonderfully peculiar!

This is what I'm planning. I haven't been able to get anywhere near my plans for the last couple months, but here's trying:

Finish up from last month:
in progress 28% Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
✔ The Wren, the Wren by Anne Enright ★★★★ (4.0)
✔ Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones (re-read) ★★★★ (4.0)
✔ The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For and Believe by Richard Rohr ★★★★★ (5.0)
in progress 36% The Bone Shard Emperor by Andrea Stewart

Definitely:
✔ Yellowface by R.F. Kuang ★★★★★ (4.5)
✔ The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau by Graeme Macrae Burnet ★★★ (3.5)

Probably:
in progress 3% The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
✔ Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill ★★★ (3.5)

Possibly:
in progress 52% Apple and Knife by Intan Paramaditha
Floating Hotel by Grace Curtis
Witch King by Martha Wells

Unplanned:
✔ Translations from the Night: Selected Poems of Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo (African Writers Series ; 167) by Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo ★★★★★ (4.5)
✔ Almost Dreams by Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo ★★★ (3.0)

I got behind, but this is what I was up to in June:

Finish up from last month:
in progress 57% The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For and Believe by Richard Rohr
✔ The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde (re-read) ★★★★ (4.5)
in progress 28% Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
in progress 36% The Bone Shard Emperor by Andrea Stewart

Definitely:
✔Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy ★★★★★ (4.5)
✔ Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison ★★★★ (4.0)
in progress 51% The Wren, the Wren by Anne Enright

Probably:
in progress 75% Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones (re-read)
delayed The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck

Possibly:
skipped The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
skipped Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

Unplanned:

Tamara wrote: "I'm a bit late for the discussion but have been following the posts. I just finished reading the novel and enjoyed it tremendously. The writing was great. The female characters were authentic, and ..."

I agree Tamara about the perspectives feeling authentic and about the distinctive voices!

Lauren wrote: "The only poem I thought was good was "A Scent of Thyme," the one that goes, "Lay your head"

That was the only one that I liked too Lauren!

@Tom and @Lauren, I actually quite liked The Poisonwood Bible, but I know several who have different criticisms of the novel and I get where they're coming from. But it's a large conversation.

Alannah wrote: "Just started this on audiobook while sitting in work. I'm sure it won't take me long to get through. I am looking forward to it."

Hope you enjoy it Alannah!

For me, it was the last part in Lauren's comment about the relationships.

I was just really bored with Felim and exasperated by Felim - he didn't seem worth a second glance from the first time they met.

But in the Carmel section, Carmel's relationship with her mother and sister was much more intetesting and profoundly moving. And I felt for her experience of her absent father.

The language in the Nell sections is more experimental, and that gave it some interest, but the Carmel sections were beautifully written in a more traditional way.

I guess though that it all came down to Felim for me. He had absolutely nothing going for him, a nearly empty brain other than football and sex. If he were even 5% useful as a human being, I could've roused up some interest, but as it was . . . those sections became more of a meditation on dark one-sided romantic obsession than anything else. Felim was so empty that it would have been impossible for any woman to have anything "real" with him.