The personification of Ireland of course is an old tradition, and indeed the old woman, or “the hag” as the term went, often stood for Ireland in poetry, even as late as Yeats. But I don’t think I was after such a thing. Ireland as a landscape and a character ... that’s an interesting notion. I don’t really know the answer. Sometimes, either in accusation or praise, it is said that I write poetically, but the truth seems to me to be that I listen for how the characters speak and try to be faithful to that, wherever it leads. Robert Frost said that dangerous thing: that he looked after the sound and let the sense look after itself. I suppose as a child I could make no distinction between inert matter and things with a beating heart and have held on to that ignorance. After all it is the apprehension of a person of their surroundings that makes up the material, the banner and the inner pictures of a life. Annie lives in a rich world, in the sense that it has daily sights to see that she approves. Such I suppose is the wealth of people that have few coins, the coinage of things as they are, as they show themselves, like those small animals that are familiar to country people but are like revelations, revenants and miracles to city people, or used to be.
7. You said that The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty began as a play that slowly took shape as a novel. What was the genesis of Annie Dunne? What are you working on now—and in which genre are you writing?
I did think of Annie Dunne as a play, but in fact I had already written it in a sense, my first play being about two brothers living on a small farm, Boss Grady‘s Boys, in 1988. Then there was that story begun twenty-five years ago, in the voice of the little boy. But that wasn’t the right way to do it. Kelsha has lain behind a number of other books and plays, especially The Steward of Christendom, where Annie herself appears as a young woman.
A book may have a reason more than a genesis, and the desire to write Annie Dunne finally came out of a time a few years ago when a great friend died and a brother fell ill, and I wished, I think, inasmuch as one knows these things, to recapture something of a haven, a place where there was a measure of nurture, even of family, though entirely temporary and erased. Where the soul of the one and the spirit of the other would find rest. Of course a book cannot do these things. But I felt that Annie was my only accomplice in the effort, and though she was distrusted and even disliked by adults in general, yet she, or at least the woman I had in mind and have carried in mind all my life, could love a child, and practiced that love faithfully and without stint when her brief time was given her.
At the minute I am just beginning a book set during the First World War. Oddly enough, it is about Annie’s brother Willie, who died in Flanders.
It’s a long way back to go—wish me luck. And good luck to you!
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Looking at a crab-apple tree, with its “generous, bitter arms,” Annie Dunne thinks “this is the happiness allowed to me” (p. 43). Why does Annie identify with the crab-apple? How does Sebastian Barry use the hills and trees of Kelsha to describe the people who live there, especially Annie?
2. “Poor Annie Dunne” (p. 20), the villagers say of Annie, referring to her once-influential family. How does Annie’s sense of herself as fallen in social rank influence her relationship with her cousin? And with Billy Kerr?
3. “There is not much between the characters of Billy Kerr and Billy the pony” (p. 33), thinks Annie, and yet although we see Billy through Annie’s eyes as a foolish lout, the events of the story suggest another side to him. How do Billy’s actions—both kind and cruel—contrast with Annie’s description of them?
4. Annie often refers to bones—her “old Kelsha bones” (p. 38), “the field sticks of my bones” (p. 40), her mother’s “long set of bones” (p. 64). What does this reveal about Annie’s sense of the essence of people?
5. “We are blessed in the company of these children,” thinks Annie, “it is our chance” (p. 7), but Sarah describes the children as “shadows,” into which she can’t see (p. 77). How do Sarah and Annie relate to the children in different ways? Do the children come between them?
6. “The world of my youth is wiped away, as if it were only a stain on a more permanent fabric,” thinks Annie. “I do not know where this Ireland is now” (p. 95). Annie Dunne is a novel about the loss of old ways, but by referring to past times as a place, how does Annie complicate conventional notions of nostalgia?
7. History looms behind Annie’s memories, especially that of the revolutionaries who ended English rule in Annie’s Ireland. Annie scorns them for having done so, but is her hatred political, or does it come from deeper, more personal emotions? What symbolic role do the historical figures Michael Collins and Eamon De Valera play in Annie’s view of her own life?
8. What is the difference between Annie’s relationship with her niece and with her nephew? How does the boy become a confidant of Annie’s? Why does she describe him as “sean-aimseartha, an old fashioned child” (p. 119)?
9. How does Sarah’s and Billy Kerr’s “understanding” threaten Annie? Sarah and Annie are as close to each other as two people can be, but they see their relationship differently. What does Annie’s “marriage of simple souls” (p. 127) mean to Sarah? What prompts her to put it at risk for Billy Kerr?
10. “You are surrounded by things you never notice,” Annie’s brother-in-law, Matt, tells her (p. 156). Since we see the world through Annie’s eyes—ever observant of the land and of Sarah, neglectful of changes in society—it is late in the book before the scope of her alienation from her surroundings emerges. Who is Annie in the eyes of those around her? What explains the great divide between Annie as she sees herself and the Annie whom others see?
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The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty
For Eneas McNulty, a happy, innocent childhood in County Sligo in the early 1900s gives way to an Ireland wracked by violence and conflict. Unable to find work in the depressed times after World War I, Eneas joins the British-led police force, the Royal Irish Constabulary—a decision that alters the course of his life. Branded a traitor by Irish nationalists and pursued by IRA hitmen, Eneas is forced to flee his homeland, his family, and Viv, the woman he loves. His wandering terminates on the Isle of Dogs, a haven for sailors, where a lifetime of loss is redeemed by a final act of generosity.
Written with passion and a tender wit, The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty is the story of a lost man and a compelling saga that illuminates Ireland’s heartbreaking and complex history.
“Sebastian Barry is a minstrel of a novelist. He could stand at any street corner in the English-speaking world and chant his book, and his hat would overflow in no time with dollars, punts, pounds....”
—Frank McCourt, author of Angela’s Ashes
Sebastian Barry, Annie Dunne
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