A new Knausgaard book.

Just arrived today. There's a few in the queue before it, but I am eager to start this one.

Until next time, peace and love.

Taylor Swift, Sally Rooney and me

Taylor Swift, Sally Rooney and me.  What do these three people have in common?  Well, pretty much nothing, and particularly in relation to me, absolutely zero.  So where is this shaggy dog story taking us you say? (or maybe not).

Recently I joined a conversation, well advanced, between two lovely millennial women family members who were discussing the merits of Taylor Swift's music.  I think there was general agreement that she was mostly lightweight meh, but that she had released a few catchy singles over the years.  You know the type of song, the DJ drops one into the dancefloor at the local meat market pub/nightclub at around midnight and sets the joint alight.  DJ self affirms "I am a legend, look at my power over the masses!" when we really know the five preceding hours of tequila and vodka shots and Taylor Swift's ear worm were responsible.

I remarked that I don't think I had heard a Taylor Swift song so could not express a view.  I am aware she is a huge pop artist, but not being a consumer of huge pop artists I wouldn't know a song if it belted me over the head.  My millennials expressed incredulity at this statement and replied along the lines of "surely you must know <insert song title here> blah, blah, blah".  "What about in the supermarket, you can't escape her music, it's everywhere!".  I explained my strategy in supermarkets was to move extremely quickly and block out all extraneous stimuli so as to minimise the effect of the mind cancer inducing environment on me.  Perhaps I had a heard a song, but not consciously.  I had heard of the Kanye West controversies though, I couldn't escape those!

Which takes me to Sally Rooney, the world's most famous millennial author.  She has three novels under her belt at the tender age of 30.  Her second novel, Normal People, was a big hit and is apparently a very successful show on one of the streaming services.  Now, not being much of a consumer of the streaming services due to having an aversion to watching 1400 episodes of vikings warring with aliens, I cannot attest to Normal People's popularity.  But I am assured by the millennials that it's popular.

So when a couple of months back stories started popping up in the Guardian and other zeitgeist publications about a new Sally Rooney novel I completely ignored them.  In fact I had assumed Sally Rooney was an English football WAG (wife and girlfriend to you) and I thought to myself why all the fuss over a book by some B grade celebrity who seems to be famous only for conducting a sting on one of her frenemies who was leaking stories about her to the tabloid press?  Okay, so I knew something about this story, but it turns out the WAG in question is one Rebekah Rooney.  My millennial credentials, and let's face it, any credibility as a reader of modern literature, are zero.  I am just too old and out of touch it seems.

So when I received a breathless email from my on-line book club that the new Sally Rooney novel was being shipped out express post to me on it's day of release, I thought I better look into this novelist a little more closely.  By that I mean, a 30 second scan of her Wikipedia page.  Research done, I awaited the arrival of "Beautiful World, Where Are You?"

The title of the book is a direct translation of a phrase from a poem by Friedrich Stiller "The Gods of Greece" (no, I've never heard of it either).  It was later set to music by Franz Schubert in 1819 (no, not heard it).  So we're off to a great start; I don't know a thing about this writer or her influences.  Can we come back from this place of profound ignorance?  Yes, so it seems.

The book involves four characters: Alice a millennial novelist who is famous (hmmm), her best friend from university days, Eileen who works as a literary editor (just someone who puts commas into manuscripts), Felix who meets Alice on a Tinder date (of course) and who hasn't heard of Alice, and Simon who is friend from Eileen's childhood with whom she had a fling with years before, and now again.  These four people are deeply unhappy in different ways about the state of the world and their place in it.

Alice, despite her wealth and fame, is miserable about her life and has run away to a small sea side town in Ireland to recover from what seems to be a breakdown of sorts.  She meets Felix and a tentative relationship starts, but he seems a deeply cynical person and a bit self-destructive.  For much of the book I did not trust Felix's motives toward Alice.  He was broke, she had money and he was often callous toward her.  Eileen is a brilliant writer it seems, but aside from having one essay published, is ambivalent about writing.  She drifts along.  Simon is five years older than Eileen and is a political adviser for a progressive political party.  He is committed to the causes, but thinks there is little hope that much will change.  He is also the one character who has retained a religious faith.  Being set in Ireland this is Catholicism.

Now a comment about style.  Often scenes in the book are told in a very remote and clinical way, almost like they were generated by machine.  For example, the opening chapter starts:

"A woman sat in a hotel bar, watching the door.  Her appearance was neat and tidy, white blouse, fair hair tucked behind her ears.  She glanced at the screen of her phone, on which was displayed a messaging interface, and then looked back at the door again."

I get the sense these scenes are told in such a way as to indicate the cynical alienation of the characters from the world.  Maybe not, but it had that effect on me.

Another device Sally Rooney uses are transcripts of emails between Eileen and Alice.  In these emails they muse on the state of the world as it inexorably hurtles toward climate catastrophe under the weight of unchecked capitalism, relationships, should they bring children into the world, that sort of thing.  These emails are really mini essays if you like which allow Rooney to try and explain and understand the world as she sees it.  I found these quite satisfying to read, although I have read a criticism which thought they were a little undergraduate in their style.  Who cares, I found them thought provoking, and anyway I'm no smarter than the average undergraduate.

I enjoyed this book and it gave me some insight to another generation and from a woman's perspective.  I think it's important to read such books.  I am looking forward to hearing what my millennial women family members make of it.

Until next time, peace and love.