For Christmas, from my mum, I received the latest novel by the literary sensation Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where are You. I therefore spent my January intermittently switching between periods of academic intensity, working towards three coursework deadlines, and escaping to the fictional reality woven by Rooney’s prose.
I was first introduced to Rooney, the Irish author and screenwriter, by my Grandma and have followed her work closely ever since. I will openly admit that Conversations with Friends is my comfort novel, and whilst Normal People allows me the perfect revere to reflect on past relationships, Beautiful World, Where are You, however, forced me to rethink the way I process and view the world around me.
But why exactly does Rooney have such an effect?
However many times I have re-read her novels, I always seem to find a new perspective and insight, that hitherto I had never thought of, unpacking layers I had not noticed. The most striking feature of Rooney’s novels is her lack of quotation marks. When asked about this in her debut novel Conversations with Friends, Rooney herself quipped, ‘it’s a novel written in first person, isn’t it all quotation?’.
This lack of speech marks begins to blur the boundaries between dialogue and surrounding narration, meaning one must take greater consideration of the prose itself, whilst encouraging the reader to question what the characters are feeling verses what they express. Leading you to re-read sections to decipher and unpick meanings. This creates a typographical convention; you are not distracted by speech marks or dialogue, and this allows you to immerse yourself into the story. The distinct lack of dialogue makes you feel like you are part of the conversation, opening the prose, allowing for more depth, meaning you read and re-read the novels becoming addicted and completely immersed.
The characters and protagonists are real people, deeply flawed, making selfish and cruel choices. This paints an accurate picture of the reality of life in your twenties. This imperfection is at the heart of all her novels. The characters are loved paradoxically because they aren’t perfect. Connell in Normal People is too embarrassed of Marianne to admit to his peers that he is sleeping with her, whilst Frances in Conversations with Friends has an affair with a married man alongside befriending his wife. Similarly, Eileen in Beautiful World, Where Are You is aware of her own inertia and yet does nothing to challenge or change her situation.
This pinpoints exactly why me, and countless others, ardently adore her prose. Her books feel real and different, interweaving significant contemporary issues into complex but readable plots, which at their core deal with sex, love, and modern relationships, successfully encapsulating what it is like to be living in the here and now. This phenomenon has become known on social media as living in ‘your Sally Rooney Era’, with the trend even having its own hashtag on TikTok. So perhaps escaping isn’t the right word to describe the experience of reading Rooney, instead it becomes a conformation and comfort of the messy reality that is your early twenties.