T-Rex Book Review: Sally Rooney’s Beautiful World, Where Are You
I have, for the first time in my life, decided to return a book to the store.
It’s not that it’s badly written. Clearly it’s well-written.
It’s not that it’s plotless. I don’t care about that, not even a little.
It’s not that it doesn’t use quotation marks. A page or two in and I was used to it, and I don’t get lost in dialogue easily.
It’s not that it’s about a novelist. Unlike many, I love stories about writers.
It may be a little bit that it references New York City. That is a mixed self-loathing/narcissistic tell if ever there was one.
It may be a little bit that the descriptions are so mundane they’re cute. That shit is twee and kind of pretentious.
It may be a little bit that there’s nothing compelling about, well, anything or anyone in the first chapter. I fully acknowledge it’s because it doesn’t speak to me, not because it doesn’t contain anything worthy. Not that anything worthy is required; it’s a novel.
But perhaps more than anything, I thought, it may be the shitheaps of praise in the front matter. It’s like the pub really, really, really wants you to love this book. I was aware this had soured my disposition toward the work, so I did two things to control for it.
First, I asked my wife to read the first chapter without reading any of the front matter or the back cover. She was right next to me, so I just handed it to her, and she wasn’t busy, so she read it straight away. Her impressions were almost identical to mine—though she had a couple more complaints than I did, mostly related to it having no genre elements; and, the descriptions bothered her a bit more than they did me. She also seemed to think the writer didn’t really like herself very much and was trying to compensate for that in how she told the story, which was an interesting observation.
Second, I read the book club study guide at the end. My thinking here was that maybe it gets better and would be worth sticking with. I have no issue carrying on with a book whose beginning I don’t much like. But the guide made it seem like we were in for more of the same for a few hundred pages. So …
I gave it a try. It wasn’t for me.
It definitely poked at some kind of jealousy boil I have (but my wife does not) about how a book like this could be published to such widespread acclaim and yet I have no place among traditionally published works, no interviews with the Guardian where I look either waify (like this author) or smugly self-assured (as I’m more wont to do in such photos). It nearly lanced some abscessed desire I have to be explored like a book, to have my mental worlds be of interest and use, and the concomitant belief (quite probably mistaken) that it would all be different if I just got over it and moved to NYC. It’s like the country club-union-crown palace of writers, and it kind of makes me sick.
Anyhoo, that last paragraph isn’t super related to the book, obviously, so you can think of that as a bit of confession that is either helpful in someway or the literary equivalent of farting after performing a song. Reader’s choice.
PS - In reviewing the response to this book (after reading and writing my own), I discovered that she chose to support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions with regard to the Israeli language rights—a decision which I admire very much. What a writer does with what power she has is very important. This impelled me to reverse my decision to actually return the book (which I know may feel anti-climatic to you, the reader, but there it is). So I will most likely be gifting it or donating it instead.
Have you read this or any of Rooney’s other books? If so, tell us about it in da comments.
