The events of The
Forgotten Waltz lead us down the trail toward Evie, the just-prepubescent daughter
of philandering Seán,
and she’s a quirky, uneven character to carry all that energy. And up until the
last sections of the book, she doesn’t play a particularly prominent part in
the story – she’s important, there’s just not a lot of text devoted to her. Forgotten Waltz is a surprising book,
considered in the context of Ms. Enright’s Booker-winning The Gathering. It has none of the deep psychological strife, and
abjures the artful burgeoning clarity of that masterpiece. But it is
nevertheless a compelling read.
In The Forgotten Waltz
we follow the thoughts and sometimes the emotions of Gina Moynihan, a Dubliner
in her early 30s, who although married, pursues an affair with married Seán. Her inward dialogue
rings too true: she kind of knows what she’s doing is reprehensible and costly,
knows why she’s now caused alienation and sorrow in two families, but – she and
Seán will try to
make a go of it, at least for now. And slowly, the importance of Evie, Seán’s 14 year-old
daughter, starts to grow. By the end of the book I thought of her as about to
exercise the judgment of the world – will she survive and thrive while aligning
herself with Gina, or will she turn her back and thereby take her Dad – and
Gina’s happiness – away?
I’m convinced of this importance for the character by the open-ended
way Ms. Enright leaves the issue – there is really no way to ascertain Evie’s
state of mind from her statements. It gives us the opportunity not only to
understand the critical nature of the issue for Gina, but also to speculate as
to the outcome. But a fortiori it
gives Gina’s and Seán’s
misadventures the slight possibility of durability, of the certifying mark of
longevity, and we don’t know if we want that for Gina. As a character, she
engenders no sympathy, and this is perhaps Evie’s function. It could be that the
youngster’s final judgment dooms Gina, and this is a highly persuasive, perhaps
the most logical, reading.
I looked for parallels with the grand and magisterial The Gathering, and I did find them. We
get the same crystal clear and true-to-life inward dialogue in the main
character. Although the morality of the two characters from the two books is at
least very divergent (if not diametrically opposed), we understand the series
of machinations and rationalizations that Gina goes through, and this is a
great accomplishment, make no mistake. Ms. Enright set out to portray a
realistic progress of an adulterer, which by playing it perfectly straight, she
achieves extremely well. By then placing her fate in the hands of a shaky and retrogressive
teen, she leaves the end of the story open, and the reader is free to form her
own conclusions.
This is a very balanced and honest conjuring. We enter the
head of our anti-hero and see its none-too-pretty workings clearly, and this is
the great success of Forgotten Waltz.
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