Beautiful World, Where Are You

I was an early reader of Irish writer Sally Rooney, before she shot to stratospheric fame. I was offered an ARC of CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS, not expecting to love it as I did. It’s not that I don’t enjoy stories about Millennials--it’s just that sometimes there’s too much navel gazing or whining and stuck-ness in issues that can make my eyes roll. But Sally Rooney? She’s a delight! Navel gazing in Rooney’s book is organic and watchful. She writes her literary opuses as if they were screenplays. I’m not talking about just the filmic quality of the narrative. But in BEAUTIFUL WORLD, as in all three of her novels to date, you could pluck the breathtaking images right from the words themselves. The dialogue, characters, and story are three dimensional, and every scene pops and delivers and allows you to interpret on your own terms. BEAUTIFUL WORLD touches on themes of beauty, celebrity, social media, mental health, friendship, love, the continuum between friendship and love, and the fluidity of attraction. As always, I feel that the author connects deeply with the reader as she writes. Even when the tone is wry, tense, or accusing between characters, I feel that Rooney’s people are always evolving and in motion. Rooney isn’t rigid but she is decisive. Her cast comes with an implied background of unease, or lofty principles that they themselves have problems achieving. They are searching for love and identity, and also a culture class that they can brandish or even hide behind. This new novel revolves around two best friends, Alice and Eileen, and the men most important in their lives at the time. As in all Rooney’s books, one character is a writer (sometimes she has more than one). Alice has achieved literary fame after two novels (like Rooney, although I won’t make the mistake of thinking Alice is based on Rooney), and then had a mental breakdown. It is obvious that she isn’t that egocentric about her fame; in fact, she chooses a boyfriend much less intelligent than her who doesn’t even read books. Her typical form of communication with her best friend, Eileen, is email. They contain some scintillating content and background info, and move both character and plot along, or give the reader a bridge between times. So when Eileen and Alice eventually see each other again (Eileen is living in Dublin, Alice by the sea), you just know there’s a climax coming. (Eileen is actually living in the house Alice abandoned when she went into treatment). You feel the tension. And when I said that her novels are like cinema? I think this one is more theater, like a play. You’ll see when you read it, but the scenes usually include little details about the environment when a character is doing something, such as: “…sitting on her bed scrolling on her phone… On the floor, a discarded cardigan, her swimsuit with its straps tangled, sandals with the buckles hanging open. On the bedside table a lamp with a pleated pink shade.” The stage is set a particular way. It’s like seeing a play, where you are riveted to the stage, and the play and your life have merged. Simon and Eileen have known each other since childhood (he’s 5 years older than her) and their relationship was Platonic for many years, although Simon has always been hard to pin down. Felix is Alice’s new boyfriend, and there are a few stunners of information about him that are revealed early. If you are a Rooney fan, you’ve already read the book and are just checking out what other readers are saying. Is Alice really Sally? No, of course not, but it is a little bit meta-, as Alice does criticize people on Twitter for judging her life and her boyfriend, as if they know her. (I imagine many celebs feel this way.) Her readers do act on social media as if they are involved in Alice’s life--like her friend or cousin. Shows you how creepy we can be. We all do it sometimes--judge someone famous for making certain choices with their lives! But, Rooney doesn’t act superior when she writes a scene this way. Her nuanced portraits are unguarded, even when her characters are leery or calculating. Rooney mesmerizes when she points out their darker sides. What I wanted to say is that if you are already a Rooney fan, then there’s nothing I can tell you other than to read it, and you won’t be disappointed. If you are new to her, prepare to love her or hate her. She writes her familiar geography--Dublin. Her characters are mostly about her age, and like her character, Alice, she writes about friends and lovers. Rooney does that SO WELL! That is why she is so beloved. Scenes are vivid, like her characters, and I become invested in them. So when they feel a cleaving, so will I. And most Rooney readers will, too. She is wise, piercing, and intuitive with the narrative form. Her stories are convincing because the texture feels like authentic material. Rooney will follow a character into a murky tunnel and come out the other side with the bright sun shining or peeling off skin. She decides and we interpret. Or she can say it all in a few keen words, taking the context and subtexting the hell out of it. It’s almost always through the characters, like a play. Rooney doesn’t describe geography except to add mood/atmosphere to the story. Settings are in a room or a space, indoors or out, where you can feel the boundaries when they are crossed. Her characters are urgent with the world they live in, fearful and fearless simultaneously. And constantly thinking, feeling, desiring. “It was like God had put his hand on my head and filled me with the most intense desire I had ever felt, not desire for another person, but desire to bring something into being that had never existed before…I knew what I had to do, and I did it, that was all.” I’m so thrilled that Rooney has this talent to share with the world. I’m a superfan, a wide-eyed votary, so I can get away with saying…gulp…it’s a more beautiful world because Sally Rooney’s talent is in it.

This is one of those books that is truly “compulsively readable”. Beautiful descriptive writing interspersed with intelligent and pretentious and annoying philosophizing. As usual Rooney’s characters are extremely flawed and often hard to like…but she gives you just enough reason to keep rooting for them to figure it out. If I am understanding correctly, the answer to the question in the title is “all around us all the time;we just have to pay attention”.

I liked the earnestness in this book to find and resolve meaning in our modern world. Any book that does that is worthy of respect. But in nearly ever other facet, I thought Beautiful World fell short of Rooney's previous work, especially Normal People, which I think is a modern masterpiece (and for reference, some of my faves include Farewell To Arms, Giovanni's Room, Slaughterhouse Five, The Recognitions, Emma, and The Idiot). In Beautiful World, I feel the writing first and foremost is flat. Past tense distant 3rd person killed the magic. I was audibly shocked at how flat and predictable some of her writing was at times, and even repeatedly had the thought that Rooney herself seemed burnt out. Characters were hard to relate to, unlikable often. Sex scenes felt forced and gimmicky and just boring (except for one scene, *spoilers*, first time for Alice and Felix). It was a bad feeling being more excited for the emails than the narration. But a lot of those emails did have thought provoking ideas. I wanted to love this book, and again, I respect the hell out of Rooney's attempt. But it just didn't ignite the magical intimacy that great books always do.

5/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ #andreeareviews This is my second Sally Rooney book (after which I bought everything she ever wrote). The book tackles the complexity of relationships and mental health while living in a system not meant to support our well-being. The friendship between Alice Kelleher, a successful Irish novelist, and Eileen Lyon, an editor at a literary magazine, is at the centre of the book. After having a mental breakdown, Alice retreated out of the public eye to a vast rectory house on the Irish coast. Living on her own, Alice goes on a few dates with a local she met on Tinder, Felix, and the two start a relationship. They are an unexpected pair: Felix works in a shipping warehouse after making a mess of his life, barely making it from salary to salary; Alice is a wildly famous novelist. Their different social status appears in their conversations and interaction, being, at first, an area of conflict (and maybe a subtle sense of inferiority from Felix). Meanwhile, Eileen lives in Dublin and has a complicated relationship with his long-time friend, Simon. Their current relationship can be best described as a complicated situationship. Eileen is recovering from a breakup in a long-term relationship by seeking solace in Simon’s company, who is her oldest friend. On the other hand, Simon has a habit of dating much younger women. Eileen and Simon have been friends since childhood. She considers the possibility of dating Simon, who has been by her side, supporting her through all her hardship since she was a teenager. However, she doesn’t want to endanger their friendship and deep connection. The relationships between the four people grow throughout the book; the characters themselves grow and transform and find themselves or find meaning in their lives. There are deep conversations, difficulties in dealing with intimacy, socially tense situations, and even self-sabotage of own desires and relationships. There are fights, reconciliations, cold interactions, and emotionally charged situations. The friendship between Alice and Eileen is complicated. They met in college, and while Eileen struggles to find meaning and passion in her writing, Alice has found fame. However, Alice also struggles with mental health issues and an inability to have a social life. Their interactions are filled with tension - Alice complaining about the side effects of success to a struggling Eileen, whose pay is ridiculous at her current job. They agree that our world is complicated and downright hostile from multiple perspectives (emotions and mental health, climate change, economics, and morality). While Alice is far from Dublin, they exchange numerous letters. However, Eileen only visits Alice months later. There is tension between them, hidden under their social criticism (they debate everything from politics to religion). In the style that got me hooked in Conversation with Friends, Rooney continues her deep conversation and philosophical analysis of the current world. I enjoyed the correspondence between Alice and Eileen more than the plot of the book per se. They are beautiful prose, and raw, soul-baring self-dialogue, that tackle complex modern topics with utmost sincerity.

I am a few generations beyond millenial and have to fight the been there done that feeling when I read the work of young novelists. In the early chapters of this book, I found myself judging the self-absorption of the two young women friends who communicate mainly in writing. At the same time, I admired the freedom with which they poured out their thoughts to each other. Alice suffers from the success of her joy, writing. Eileen, beautiful, smart but not so successful, sabotages opportunities for happiness with her self-doubt, willful ambivalence, etc. Both are burdened by their own sophistication which seems to blind rather than enlighten. Even a trip to the grocery store triggers guilt over exploitation and planet murder. May we all have such problems, this boomer thought. Their male boyfriends/friends tend to provide touchstones of reality. Felix, a warehouse worker uninterested in literature, a bit disheveled himself psychologically, is shrewdly insightful. Simon is very kind to Eileen even when she seeks him on a whim. The characters progress subtly with a climactic unveiling in the later chapters and ends not dramatically but meaningfully which is what I think these 4 are all after. They will face the apparently futile future doing the best they can with those they love. Ms. Rooney writes with a sort of rigor. When I finished the book I thought of the rigor and precision of creating Irish lace. The long paragraphs of dialogue, minus quotation marks, flow effortlessly, revealingly. Felix in particular, speaks with that provocative Irish wit that had me at times laughing out loud. Though it took some patience to stick it out with these characters, it was well worth it.

Sally Rooney's "Beautiful World, Where Are You" is a contemplative and introspective novel that invites readers to ponder the intricacies of human relationships, as all her novels do and, honestly, if you liked one, you'll like them all. Rooney has delivered another compelling work that explores the lives of its four central characters with both the depth and nuance that I've come to expect from her. At the heart of the novel are the lives and friendships of Alice, Eileen, Felix, and Simon. Through alternating perspectives and inner dialogues, Rooney offers readers an intimate look into the minds of her characters, inviting us to share in their uncertainties, anxieties, and desires in a way that is engaging and sympathetic. I think the perspective switching in this book is vital, otherwise I would have found myself seriously unable to feel for some of the characters. What sets "Beautiful World, Where Are You" apart from other books is Sally Rooney's characteristically unflinching examination of contemporary issues, from climate change to political turmoil, and, of course, capitalism, and how these external forces shape the inner lives of the characters. The backdrop of a world in crisis (aka the real world we live in) adds a layer of urgency to the dramas unfolding, making it a novel that is very much of its time. This is a must read for those who appreciate introspective storytelling. While "Beautiful World, Where Are You" may not be a traditional page-turner, it excels at provoking thought and reflection. It poses questions about the nature of existence, the impact of personal choices, and the ways in which love and friendship can both enrich and complicate our lives. Rooney's ability to capture the essence of the human experience is on full display here.

I had a hard time getting into the book, but eventually found myself hooked. I didn’t find the characters believable all the time. But I did appreciate their “raw” nature.

I loved the show, Normal People. I loved Conversations with Friends. But I don't know what this book is. It's random and odd and doesn't feel well planned. I have a theory. Rooney basically writes non-fiction and passes it off as fiction. Which is fine. She's an amazing writer so it's worked so far. The problem with this new book is that, for the first time in her life, she's writing non-fiction from the perspective of a rich successful person, which means she's no longer writing accessible characters that everyone can relate to. None of us know what it's like to be an award-winning millionaire book author. So her newest character feels distant, unrelatable. And because she's our entryway into the story, we can't get into the story. This is a big mess of a book, unfortunately.

Where does Sally Rooney go now? In 'Beautiful World, Where are you?' a novel more of conjecture than story, the main character Alice, debates the worth of novels themselves. What does it mean, Alice asks, when you write novels about first world characters, their angst, their preoccupations and struggles, in a world going to hell in a handbasket? She does not use the handbasket cliché because she's too good a writer, with far to firm a grasp on language to write anything quite so obvious, but her conundrum is the conundrum of the obvious. What is novel for and what is the worth of a novelist involved herself and her own petty problems? That Rooney is a novelist writing about a novelist just makes these questions more poignant. Alice, who, like Rooney is successful, asks if she will be able to write again or at least to write fiction again. Will Rooney or will the weight of the world grind her down? If that is a cliché too then it's a cliché the novel is intent on dealing with and in a broader context asks what does art matter? If, indeed, what Rooney and Alice, her alter ego, are doing is 'art'. Yes, it is and the interweaving of the the email debates between Alice and her best friend Eileen, a junior literary editor, with their personal stories: Alice's affair with Felix, a working class warehouse worker and Eileen's with the politically committed Simon and Eileen's and Alice's own complex friendship make for a reflection both on whether such a novel of manners means anything and whether its concerns are material in the broader scheme of things. The novel nods gently in the direction of an answer that, in fact, the preoccupations of love and life in middle class Ireland have an importance because they are important to the people who have them. Us. That love is important and so are friendships and honesty and attempts to deal with the wider context. Alice wonders about these matters as clearly does Rooney; by expressing them she produces a novel that is worth reading for what happens to the characters and for what it says about what we talk about today and what we should be thinking about even if we cannot solve the problems we see.

Still reading this but it’s promising. I love Rooney!

This was my third Sally Rooney book and she never disappoints. I love the way her characters are written, the plot is basic but represents so many problems and issues we go through on a day to day and it was lovely seeing the characters evolve so much from beginning to end

Excelente autora. No es la mejor de sus obras, pero la relación entre los personajes te envuelve.

Nothing else to say but that Sally Rooney is just an amazing writer, insightful, deep and great storytelling