June 13, 2022
Sally Rooney writes about modern life and modern love with a sense of wistful, repulsive detachment that simultaneously makes a person want to throw her books across the rooms, and also finish them in one sitting. Her characters often garner a sense of deep pity, while at the same time being so unlikeable as to counteract that initial instinct and replace it with deep contempt. And yet, I found myself coming back, trying to understand Frances and Nick and Melissa and Bobbi, trying to level with them, perhaps because in each of them I saw something cathartically true about myself. Few authors tap into the universal truths about humans in that way, which makes this an excellent book because it makes me uncomfortable. Rooney’s writing, nearly void of quotation marks, feels as though it’s written entirely in flashback, as if it were a story being told by someone else, even though it’s in the first person. Every moment feels detached from the present, and the plot jumps through time almost without warning. There’s something disjunct and jarring about the style of writing, despite the fact that the reader is nearly always in on the progression of action. This is aided by the use of extremely unreliable narrators. Rooney writes from the perspective of each character (especially the narrator) without regard for objective truth, and as such it takes discernment and effort on the reader’s part to parse what might be true, and what is simply the radical and insecure inner monologue of any given character. An authentically human story that leaves the reader with more questions than answers, beautifully written from top to bottom.
8.5/10
댓글