T'wasn't feelin tha new Sally Roo. I'm sticking with Wayne.

(Y'know, lookin back on the review before postin, somethin feels a bit too negative about it, but I dunno: I left it here, cuz after all, this is The Pub Club! Ideas are supposed to inspire discussion, not provide answers.)

This book contains:

Zero levity.

Zero irony.

Zero metaphorical/figurative language.

The overall effect being that it comes off as overly “serious.” If everything is so serious, we are left to compare the events of this novel to other events, like the wars currently raging today, or our own personal tragedies. The aggregate result is that the book is not as serious as it appears. Maybe it isn’t meant to be, in which case, it wasn’t executed in the author’s intended way.

As for the complete lack of metaphor, it offers nothing for us to interpret, only to judge. Do you like Peter? Do you share Naomi’s opinions on things? If so, great! If not, then you’ll probably not like them. They’re not literary characters but personality types. Surface level. For someone with seemingly allegorical (socioeconomic) intentions, it’s very strange to provoke so little abstract thought.

As much as I can't stand united, I have to rate the man from Liverpool above his Irish namesake.

If you never joke around, if you have no sense of humour, it’s not only not as fun—assuming, as I do, that reading should be fun—but there’s something untrustworthy in a person devoid of goofs. Crackin jokes let’s the reader know that you don’t really think everything you believe is totally true, cuz, like, how could it be? Nobody’s perfect. Part of the joy of books is sharing in that communal notion that nobody has it 100% right. That’s part of the joy in life. It’s not so accurate to say there is no joy in this book, because there is, but those moments are only for the characters, not this reader (and I wonder, did this give the author any joy??). Ms Rooney has set herself a problem to solve: Write a novel; and she’s used her keen intelligence to go about explaining things, filling gaps as if a novel is a crossword puzzle, or… dare I say, a chessmatch. The thing is, it aint tho.

In interviews Rooney speaks of her “duty” when writing, and I’m reminded of Oscar Wilde’s pithy takedown of Henry James for his apparent duty to writing. God, no one cares about your “duty”; they want to read a good book. I’d give anything to read Oscar Wilde’s review of Intermezzo!

& Speaking of 19th century influences… apparently Jane Austen is a hero of hers, and I did detect some Austen in the book in the sense that the characters are believably different from one another. To say Rooney is a bad writer would be going too far (it is instead these rigid, dare I say binary, views on writing that hold her back. I don’t care if it’s correct, I want the paragraphs to transcend!) Other than that—and to be clear writing separate consciousnesses is not easy or common—there is very little Austen to my eye. This is Pride and Prejudice with no Elizabeth, Persuasion without Anne Eliot, ie completely unpersuasive. There is no book without these characters! Why? Because those characters are not only Austen’s stand-in, but they are the authorial perspective of the novel, they are the heart and soul as well as the brain. Without them we’re left with common social interactions, and that’s it.

The hair is sick tho!

People spout the Joyce connection a lot too and I never got on with that dude so I dunno, but I also think “stream of consciousness” doesn’t automatically make you Joycean, at least I hope not. I saw more of another son of Erin, Sam Beckett, but again that was just in the stocatto prose, which in itself is not an authorial style. Put Murphy up to this book and the two are apples and oranges.

Finally, there are the social situations themselves. I was recounting to my wife Ivan’s story arc, in particular how he didn’t think he should be nice to pregnant women until a girl let him have sex with her and now he thinks pregnant women are cute and can step aside for them and I started getting super offended. I hate the character of Ivan. Full disclosure: I can relate to him, esp in the awkwardness of the initial pages and his interactions with Margaret, but as soon as Margaret agrees to go inside with him (which doesn’t feel plausible) not only does Margaret’s confidence take a nose dive and she fades away as a character, but Ivan gains confidence for gee! the first time! And there is nothing more sickening than a morbidly shy douchebag that has discovered confidence. Peter, at least, is just a normal douchebag. Why is Rooney writing from the POV of men, again?

And as for the marxist rumblings… a $30 hardback about bourgeoise promiscuity, which unintentionally wraps up a lot of toxic elements and sells them as liberal intelligentsia, seems pretty much Patriarchy 101.

So who is it for you? Wayne or Sally?

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  Plymoth Argyle manager
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  Probably loves argyle sweaters (if they are cashmere)