A realistic look
John looks at his mother and notices that “the blue costume, the greasy hair, are details, signs of a moderate realism”. The irony is that his mother does look realistically enough for everyone to understand that she is a writer who worships realism. She doesn’t look like a Hollywood star; rather, Elizabeth looks just like any other woman in her middle 60s. There is nothing artificial or artistic about her.
Mystified
Susan Moebius is not satisfied with her talk with Elizabeth Costello. The woman she used to imagine and the woman she finally meets are absolutely different and the latter one is even a little bit boring. However, she is “baffled”. She is attracted by “the mystery of divine in the human” and disappointed in an elderly woman she meets. The irony is that one often let his/her imagination a way too much freedom, but when reality crushes those expectations and ideas, they are cross with people, who don’t manage to meet their expectations, but never with themselves.
Art and business
Listening how Elizabeth Costello and Emmanuel Egudu talk about literature and its aims, Steve – a man who also takes a cruise – is inexplicably surprised. He mentions that they “treat writing as a business”. The irony is that people, who have no idea, how writers work and how publishing business functions, tend to idealize and romanticize this sphere of work. More often than not, they believe that writers are not interested in money and live in the world of fantasies.
