Novelist Colm Tóibín Speaks With Claire Messud at 'Writers Speak'

“You can never write a novel—or do anything in art—without some pressing concern from now,” novelist Colm Tóibín says, sitting on the other side of a coffee table from Claire Messud, novelist and professor in Harvard’s English Department. A prolific author, Tóibín has written eight novels, including “Brooklyn,” which has recently generated a buzz of publicity due to its well-received Academy Award-nominated movie adaptation. On Monday, Feb. 8, the Mahindra Humanities Center presented the talk between Messud and Tóibín at the Harvard Art Museums as the inaugural event of their “Writers Speak” series, which brings prominent writers to Harvard to talk about the craft and their own work.

Messud offered an informative introduction to Tóibín’s work, which was followed by Tóibín’s reading of his work in progress. The event concluded with a conversation-style question and answer session between them. Messud praised Tóibín highly in her introduction: She spoke of his generosity of spirit, which extends to the portrayals of characters within his novels. Tóibín’s novels are often dark and complex, but Messud contended that he accepts his characters’ flaws and portrays them in such a way that the reader can accept them too. She described his style as patient and classically simple. Finally, she noted that while she didn’t want to cause his head to swell, she believed his work warrants description as a genius.

Tóibín then read extensively from a work in progress, a version of the story of Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Electra and Orestes. This reworking of historical material echoes his 2012 novella “The Testament of Mary,” which employed a similar style. He noted that he did not want to compete with existing narratives, so his interest in this particular story was guided by a gap spanning about a decade in Orestes’ whereabouts before he returns in Electra. In his own own rendition of the myth, Tóibín tried to play out a central, compelling question: the battle between people who believe that autonomous free will guides human decisions and those who do not. According to Tóibín, any story, no matter how old, has continuing relevance as long as a present, central concern guides it.

In the question and answer session, Tóibín delved further into his beliefs about what drives the production of novels. “I don’t believe in anything,” he said when humorously describing his stint on an Irish late-night TV show called “The Meaning of Life.” “I see chaos, not order, and even when I see order I’m not sure it comes from anything other than nature itself,” he said. Tóibín said that the novel is an inherently secular space. Even though the section of his work that he read operates within the realm of Greek mythology, he said that it is the human aspect of loss—paired with his lack of belief in an afterlife—that holds his creative attention and captivates him deeply.

Continuing his discussion of the driving questions behind his work, Tóibín said that there are probably only one or two things that interest a particular person. Authors, he said, just vary the tone of their most fundamental concerns in each new work they write. He described how the idea for his most recent novel, “Nora Webster,” came from watching his mother in the years following his father’s death and from his subsequent need to preserve the emotions he saw in her, which he knew would fade. “It isn’t as though writing novels is a form of therapy,” Tóibín said, with perhaps a hint of irony.

—Staff writer Theresa A. Byrne can be reached at theresabyrne@college.harvard.edu.