Short treasure chest unlocked
THAT simple sentence from Elizabeth Bowen’s Summer Night might indicate the requirement for inclusion in this, or in any, book of short stories. It might also serve as a hint of the breach between the older writers and the younger, a distance which Man Booker prizewinner Anne Enright has to bridge in her selection of 31 short stories representing some of the best work of Irish authors.
Summer Night was published in 1941, the year in which Bowen began her life-long adulterous affair with the Canadian diplomat Charles Ritchie. In this exploration of addiction, resignation and adultery, Bowen expresses some of the excitement and duplicity of intimate betrayals. Although it may be too daring to hope that in some way that emerging relationship is reflected in the shape and scope of the story, Bowen at least exemplifies the advantage older writers have over younger ones: experience. That is what transforms the actual into the visionary, what places the observer — and the writer — in that peculiar territory of insight.
