Anna Enquist: 'I would like to be able to be a bit angrier'

For the evening, Anna Enquist's new novel, is a book full of pent-up exasperation and anger. Never before has she written so freely as with this book, without knowing where the story was going. "I would like to be able to be a bit angrier myself."

After the poetry collection Hear the cityAnd and her memories of Gerrit Kouwenaar, A garden in winter, Anna Enquist (72) felt the need for another "nice project" - a novel, that is. She wrote a sequel to Quartet, her novel about four friends who are taken hostage by a fleeing criminal while rehearsing as a string quartet. For the evening continues where Quartetceased. The main characters are all traumatised and entrenched in their own way, and the string quartet no longer exists. 'I kept thinking: how are these people supposed to go on?'

Further after loss

How someone should move on after a major loss is a major theme in your work. What is there to discover about that?

'However I try my best - whether I am writing a historical novel about Captain Cook or a commissioned novel for the VU hospital such as The stunners-Indeed, the underlying theme always boils down to the same thing: how do people who get hit get back on their feet? It happens to everyone in life. As a psychotherapist, I have been dealing with it all my working life. People have different ways of dealing with it, you can see that in my characters. I was curious to see how they would fare.

Jochem and Carolien, Heleen and Hugo are in their fifties, so the greatest resilience may already be out. They are traumatised and must miss something that was important to them: playing music together. Jochem has become frightened and overcome by paranoia; he converts his house into a fortress. His wife Carolien is depressed, to the point of apathy. She does nothing more, wants nothing, and uses the fact that she lost her little finger as an excuse why she can no longer work and play the cello. Their marriage is hopeless, and so Jochem just goes to live in his studio. Heleen ignores the trauma; she wants nothing more to do with it. From a cosy fat human woman, she has turned into a skinny lady with short red spiky hair, working in a gym. And Hugo has fled in his work; he has gone to China to organise music festivals there. I like describing all these different ways of dealing with a traumatic event.'

Hits

Never worried that readers might think: we know that now?

'No, actually not; my books have a completely different form each time anyway. Sometimes, as a reader, you find yourself in a hospital, then you are back in the eighteenth century on a sailing ship. Besides, the subject matter is so universal - I think people are more likely to feel a sense of recognition. Even if they are harder for some than others, we all get hit in life.'

The human tendency then is usually to flee and sweep feelings under the carpet. Why don't your characters choose a more constructive way to deal with their loss?

'Carolien feels the sadness, and in her case it results in deep depression. But the others indeed repress it. From my practice as a psychoanalyst, I recognise that mechanism. If such a person were to come to me in therapy, Hugo with his hyperactivity for example, I would try to get at the feeling hidden underneath.'

Crusher

'But the people in this book don't go to therapy, they stick with it themselves. What surprised me most was Carolien's development, which I hadn't thought of. She gets so distressed by her husband, who pressures her, that she flees to Hugo in Shanghai. Slowly she gets moving, starts feeling again, becomes somewhat interested in the world around her again, even in music. The situation is brought to a head because she inherits her music teacher's beautiful, expensive cello. That instrument acts as a crowbar. When Carolien returns from China, she picks up the cello to play secretly. When Jochem sees that, he gets moved.'

In particular, there is a striking amount of annoyance and anger in the book.

'Anger is defence against sadness and powerlessness. People who, like my characters, have felt enormously threatened and powerless in a particular situation can feel very angry about it afterwards. There is also, of course, the lack of friendship and support they had from each other. They direct their anger at anything they can direct it at - and, of course, especially at each other and themselves. The moments of sadness in the book are little volcanic eruptions through that shield of anger.'

Did you experience it that way yourself, after losing your daughter Margit?

'No, anger is not my strong suit. I seem to have less distance from my grief. I would like to be able to be more angry myself.'

She smiles. 'That's why it was hilarious to describe it that way.'

Series

What made you follow up on Quartet wanted to write?

'The characters in that book, especially Jochem and Carolien, didn't let me go, and I didn't have another idea for a new novel. Coincidentally - and with great pleasure - I had read many series of books last year, such as Elena Ferrante's Naples novels, which are wonderful Old Filth-trilogy by Jane Gardam and, in our own language, the Kessels trilogy by P.F. Thomése. That gave me the idea that I could write a novel about main characters I already knew.

Writing a sequel novel presents special challenges, and I had not ventured into that before. For instance, it has to be a stand-alone book but contain enough information about the story from the previous book, and that is quite difficult. For a long time during the writing, I felt it was going nowhere. When my editor asked me what it was about, I would reply, 'No idea! My characters are just arguing with each other.' I was inside the heads of the two main characters, there is a lot of thinking and internal talking in the book, but they hardly do that with each other - back and forth it is mostly reproach. How are the four going to face each other again? I didn't get the solution until I realised there had to be a trial where they had to testify against that criminal.'

Hopeful

Does writing get easier with age?

'In a way, yes. Writing without an outline, I used not to dare. For fear that otherwise it would come to nothing and I had invested two years for nothing, I used to completely divide my novels into scenes beforehand. At For the evening however, I gave myself a lot of space and I definitely didn't know where it would all go. I've never written as freely as I do now.'

The novel ends more hopeful than your previous books, doesn't it?

'Yes, it's quite a nice ending, isn't it? At least the four face each other again. How that continues, whether their friendship is restored and they start playing together again, it's not about that. But at least they talk to each other again. That ending presented itself automatically, but for once I enjoyed writing a good ending.