Beautiful World, Where Are You

Det kan godt være at jeg ikke er målgruppen i Sally Rooneys lesekrets, men etter å ha lest Conversations with Friends og Normal People, bøker jeg likte, tror jeg dette ble èn bok for mye med Sally Rooney. Conversations with Friends var hennes første bok, og dermed den friskeste. Man skal heller ikke se vekk fra betydningen av identifikasjonspunkter, og mens Normal People mer kjentes ut som beskrivelsen av en ungdom jeg aldri opplevde (mangel på faktisk ungdomsromantikk), hadde Conversations personer jeg kunne relatere til.
Beautiful world, derimot, opplevdes stort sett bare som trist, en bok som er skrevet på ren vilje, med et persongalleri jeg trodde ville engasjere meg, og som jeg kanskje kjente meg igjen i. Men nei,stilmessig svinger det alt for mye, måten skildringene fremstår, er slik jeg ville skrevet ting på dager jeg ikke er inspirert, hvor setningene ikke kommer flyvende, og avsnittene sammentvungne.
Men det er kanskje slik det er å være i trettiåra og ikke ha landet, landet personer eller landet tilknytninger. Hvis det er slik det er å være Millennial er det langt fra der jeg er, og det virker som den tristeste generasjonen mulig. Kanskje er det derfor folk liker denne boken, men for meg blir det håpløst selvopptatt og .... kan man si knotete? Jeg håper Sally Rooney opplever en epifani før neste skriveprosjekt, for hvis dette er utviklingen i hennes forfatterskap, er jeg usikker på om jeg gidder lese neste bok.

What an exasperating novel! Literally half of it is made up of the most inane, indulgent emails where characters ponder about consumerism and cosmetics and the philosophy of relationships, with zero theoretical background. Literally hundreds of pages of people just saying shower thought nonsense about labor and the exploitation of the global south and being like "idk if that makes sense, I've just been thinking about it." These are the sorts of conversations I have with friends over coffee and they tell me to read a fucking book.

The parts that aren't Wikipedia rehashes are also bizarrely inert. Huge chunks of the book read like alt text (constant plain descriptions of characters opening messaging apps), with almost no character voice because it's written in this detached third person style where everyone is a soup of the author just trying to have a single coherent idea. The back third of the book is the best by a wide margin because the emails go away and characters actually interact, but even that is too little too late because it's coming in with dynamics that are explicitly pulling from decades of friendship we barely see. We're meant to assume these characters are best friends despite only having uncomfortable interactions and bizarre emails. Then - psych - it's COVID time and we're talking about how actually nothing changed and isn't it sad we can't go to the cinema. Just exhausting stuff.

Finally, there are ongoing gestures at queerness which are so fucking obnoxious. Two of the characters are supposedly bisexual but everyone craves the traditional stability of heteronormativity. The book literally ends with a character getting pregnant and talking about marrying her childhood best friend and moving to the country.

This will certainly appeal to a certain type of middle class liberal that fancies themselves progressive but refuses to engage with actual materialist reality. Why consider decades of theory when you can act like you're the first person who has ever thought maybe it's wrong to subjugate much of the world to preserve an expendable lifestyle. Rooney is so transparently trying to come to terms with her own wealth and celebrity and it's just embarrassing.

What a fucking let down after Normal People.

Perhaps it isn’t fair, so close to Cusk, to think Rachel wrestles with her writerly-ness with more detached but interesting nuance. That said, Rooney posed the questions with empathy and familiarity.