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Paul Lynch discusses his Booker Prize-winning novel, Prophet Song and why he thinks the end of the world is always a local event.
The Irish novelist Paul Lynch has written five novels, among them The Black Snow and Beyond the Sea, that are widely admired for their poetic prose and thematic complexity. His latest, Prophet Song (Atlantic Monthly Press, $26), won the 2023 Booker Prize; it is an all-too-credible fable about democratic Ireland's descent into a police state, and its effect on a biologist, her trade unionist husband, and their children. Lynch spoke with Shelf Awareness about Prophet Song (reviewed in this issue)--the style of the novel, the 18th-century idea of the Sublime and its influence on this work, and the different understandings of the term "Socialist" in Europe and the U.S.
You address it in detail late in the novel, but, without giving anything away, can you discuss your choice of title?
I know from speaking with readers that the book's title may give the initial impression of omen. And of course, the novel can be read that way. But its deeper meaning is revealed much later in the book when Eilish, having ended what she must endure, is met with the realisation that the apocalypse, as proclaimed by the biblical prophets, is not in fact some sudden event, and that it is vanity to think that the world will just end in your lifetime. The ending of the world is, in fact, a recurring event, and that "the prophet sings not of the end of the world, but of what has been done and what will be done and what is being done to some but not others, that the world is always ending over and over again in one place but not another and that the end of the world is always a local event, it comes to your country and visits your town and knocks on the door of your house and becomes to others but some distant warning, a brief report on the news...."
The gorgeously intricate sentences and dialogue among characters alternating throughout reminded me of the works of José Saramago. The sinister tenor of the book bore similarities to Saramago's great novel Blindness. Why did you choose to write in this style?
I'm aware of Saramago's work, especially Blindness, though that book wasn't a conscious influence on Prophet Song. Saramago's writing comes from a very different place, and we use the block paragraph for different reasons. I believe that the form of your novel must be justified by the deeper meanings of the text, and Prophet Song is a tale imbued with a deep sense of inevitability. There is nowhere for Eilish to turn as she grapples with the fates and seeks to outmanoeuvre them, but is carried helplessly onward. And so the reader must experience that feeling too, and they find themselves straitjacketed by the text, carried onward with nowhere to turn and no white space to catch one's breath.
Midway through the novel, 12-year-old Bailey, Eilish and her husband Larry's middle son, makes a mysterious and premonitory comment that I think is a key to the novel: "The worm is turning." Can you talk about Bailey's meaning and your decision to have a 12-year-old boy articulate this sentiment?
I remain interested in the 18th-century idea of the Sublime and have sought in my most recent novels for new ways to express or redefine it. I am searching, too, for different ways of articulating our modern terror in the way that Beckett or Kafka did in their own time. Somewhere in the back of my mind, both ideas are one. What lies unseen or beyond our comprehension belongs to the Sublime and therein lies our feelings of terror. In Prophet Song, I felt it was important to keep the specific nature of the politics to the background. Had I articulated that, it would make the book about a particular style of politics, or directed people towards a specific political message that would invite a misreading of the text. Prophet Song is metaphysical rather than political in nature, and throughout, the characters fail to comprehend the true nature of the threat. As for Bailey, a 12-year-old child grappling with the disappearance of his father and the collapse of his known world, he has no way of expressing any of this, and so he starts talking about the worm in that knowing way that children do. He has alighted upon a symbol for his terror.
It seems noteworthy that you made Eilish and her father, Simon, scientists. Science is rooted in fact, whereas politics is often governed by passions. Can you discuss this choice and what you hoped to say regarding the dispassion of science and logic versus the often less temperate nature of politics?
We have been living in an era defined by liberal democracy and rationality, and I suspect there is an unconscious bias or belief that we will continue teleologically towards the highest good arrived at by rational means. But human nature is deeply irrational (just observe yourself for a day), and it seems to me we cannot abide too much rationality. We may indeed have reached our limit of tolerable rationality, and you can see the irrational being expressed in politics and the general culture almost as though it were a natural counterforce. It's worth reading E.R. Dodd's great book The Greeks and the Irrational, which challenges the traditional view of the ancient Greeks as purely rational beings. He argues very convincingly that the irrational was deeply embedded in their culture and thought, and shows how rationality peaked and then irrationality took hold and became again the dominant force. I fear we are seeing the same thing now.
Anyone witnessing political groundswells in recent years, including in the U.S. and Brazil, knows that totalitarianism is a real possibility just about everywhere. Have you seen developments in Ireland that make you worry about the rise of a Trump or a Bolsonaro or some other would-be autocrat?
The rise of the far-right in Ireland has been small yet noticeable. It is not a threat at present, but history has shown, and continues to show, that one major traumatic event can alter the consciousness of a nation. When the reader comes to the conclusion of Prophet Song, they should recognise that they have been living in a simulation, and though it can be fiction's task to demonstrate what could happen, what happens in this book has already happened elsewhere and is happening right now. It was my intention to include a quote from Cormac McCarthy's The Crossing as an epigraph which pointed towards my intentions, but unfortunately McCarthy was ill, and we couldn't get permission in time. "The task of the narrator is not an easy one.... He appears to be required to choose his tale from among the many that are possible. But of course that is not the case. The case is rather to make many of the one." Prophet Song seeks to make many of the one, to tell a tale that speaks to multiple political realities all at once.
In the U.S., union membership has fallen drastically over the past four decades. Can you briefly discuss the labor movement in Ireland? Do you perceive threats to union stability, and, if so, to what extent did that fuel your motivation to tell this story?
Ireland, at least for now, is a stable social democracy where inclusiveness ranks high on the agenda. Even political parties on the centre right govern left, and show a deep leaning towards social justice. What many people in the U.S. consider "Socialist" is actually just the centre for many European countries. Teachers in Ireland have strong employment unions and every so often, they bring the country to a halt while seeking better pay conditions. And so, we have come to define life in a liberal democracy by our ability to unionise, to march for our rights, and to speak freely. In Prophet Song, Eilish's husband, Larry, is a trade unionist, and he is brought in for questioning by the GNSB, Ireland's newly formed secret police. He is asked to prove to them that his behaviour as a trade unionist is not seditious to the state. Now that's quite something if you have been living all your life in a liberal democracy. It's counter-intuitive and is the sign of a political tipping point that points towards the abyss.
This interview by Michael Magras first ran in Shelf Awareness, and is reproduced with permission.
Unless otherwise stated, this interview was conducted at the time the book was first published, and is reproduced with permission of the publisher. This interview may not be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the copyright holder.
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