John Banville says the work of Ireland's great writers is 'revenge for colonisation'

John Banville: 'We had basic English imposed on this essentially dreamy linguistic sense, and out of that came wonders.' File picture

The work of Ireland's many great writers has been the country's "revenge for colonisation", John Banville has said.

Speaking on Saturday afternoon on a panel alongside fellow Irish Book of the Year nominees Sally Rooney, Kevin Power, and Nuala O'Connor at the Dalkey Book Festival, the influential Wexford writer spoke of how it is that Ireland has been able to consistently produce literary greats.

"We never tire of telling ourselves our own story, or, our own lies," he said.

"I think it has to do with the fact that we lost our own beautiful language in the 19th century, and we were imposed upon by basic English, which was — the same as the Latin of the Roman empire — the language of command, of direct statement, of clarity."

In contrast, he described the Irish language as "a mode of evasion rather than a mode of communication".

"We had basic English imposed on this essentially dreamy linguistic sense, and out of that came wonders. I mean look what we did with it.

"They imposed it on us, and look what happened. This was our real rebellion."

He said Ireland and its writes had taken the English language and "made wonders out of it".

"This was our revenge for colonisation," he said.

"If you look at what has been done with the English language in Ireland, from Swift down to Shaw, Wilde, Joyce, Beckett, to the present moment that Ireland is having, it's an extraordinary thing.

We seem never to run out of steam, we seem never to run out of this garrulous desire to keep telling ourselves our own stories.

Later in the discussion, Mr Banville was asked about creating and writing characters that seem to embody specific time periods and places with experiences that are so far removed from his own.

He recalled how one person, in the wake of the release of one of his early novels, had asked him how it was he was able to write so accurately about the life of an individual living in the 16th century.

‘The Irish revenge has been Irish writers’ response to colonialism. They have crafted the English language imposed upon us.’ John Banville .⁦@FaberBooks⁩ ⁦@frederick65⁩ pic.twitter.com/Chpm4UFo7u

— Dalkey Book Festival (@dalkeybookfest) June 18, 2022

"I said: 'thank you very much' but I wanted to say: 'how do you know?'."

"What the person was giving me was a very wonderful comment, I think.

"When I published a book about a murderer, a woman came to me after a reading and she said, 'I work in a prison. You got it so well, you must have been in prison'.

"I said 'no, I wasn't in prison, I've never been a murderer, and I've never been a woman'."

Mr Banville said in his profession he writes all the time about things he doesn't know anything about "in the same way we dream about things we don't know anything about". 

"As Nietzsche said, every man and every woman is an artist when he or she sleeps — we make up worlds.

Obviously, we have a deep need to go to these places we don't know about. And that is the whole point of fiction, to discover things we don't know about.

He went on to describe the view that he could not write from the perspective of a black person or a woman as "utter nonsense" adding that he hoped the notion "would pass quickly". 

"I can hear the Twitter storm gathering around me," he said, to laughter from the audience.

"Luckily, I'm not on Twitter so it may pass over my head without my noticing," he added.