The Irish historian Roy Foster was recently asked to explain one of the great riddles of world literature. How was it, the interviewer wanted to know, that a sparsely peopled island on the margins of Europe had managed to produce such a hoard of canonical writers? At a bare minimum, the list would have to include Swift, Sterne, Yeats, Wilde, Shaw, Synge, Joyce, Beckett. Though how could you fail to mention Flann O’Brien? Or Frank O’Connor? For that matter, what about Elizabeth Bowen, William Trevor, and Seamus Heaney? And this is to say nothing of the extraordinary crop of living talent—from Edna O’Brien to Sally Rooney—whose accustomed toil continues to enrich the tradition.
Instead of reaching for grand theories to account for this remarkable literary surplus, Foster did that very Irish thing: he told a story. One summer, he said, he’d been on holiday in County Kerry when the trunk of his aged Volvo became jammed. At a nearby garage, Foster asked the mechanic if he ought to take the car back to the dealership. The mechanic didn’t think so. He gave the trunk a good whack with his wrench, and just like that it sprang open. “In matters like this,” the man said sagely, “Volvo dealers wield no special magic.”
Denne historien er fra March 27, 2023-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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Denne historien er fra March 27, 2023-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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YULE RULES
“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.”
COLLISION COURSE
In Devika Rege’ first novel, India enters a troubling new era.
NEW CHAPTER
Is the twentieth-century novel a genre unto itself?
STUCK ON YOU
Pain and pleasure at a tattoo convention.
HEAVY SNOW HAN KANG
Kyungha-ya. That was the entirety of Inseon’s message: my name.
REPRISE
Reckoning with Donald Trump's return to power.
WHAT'S YOUR PARENTING-FAILURE STYLE?
Whether you’re horrifying your teen with nauseating sex-ed analogies or watching TikToks while your toddler eats a bagel from the subway floor, face it: you’re flailing in the vast chasm of your child’s relentless needs.
COLOR INSTINCT
Jadé Fadojutimi, a British painter, sees the world through a prism.
THE FAMILY PLAN
The pro-life movement’ new playbook.
President for Sale - A survey of today's political ads.
On a mid-October Sunday not long ago sun high, wind cool-I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll. There were few people on the streets-like the population of a lot of capital cities, Harrisburg's swells on weekdays with lawyers and lobbyists and legislative staffers, and dwindles on the weekends. But, on the façades of small businesses and in the doorways of private homes, I could see evidence of political activity. Across from the sparkling Susquehanna River, there was a row of Democratic lawn signs: Malcolm Kenyatta for auditor general, Bob Casey for U.S. Senate, and, most important, in white letters atop a periwinkle not unlike that of the sky, Kamala Harris for President.
