/lit/ - Literature

it's a book for people who bleed

>>15777553
based normie

I agree
Though I liked the tv show more. Some things in the book didn't work as efficiantly as they did on the screen

>Normalfags: The Book
No thanks

is this the tao lin for normies

Conversations with friends was absolute dogshit though. Bunch of pretentious and vapid hipsters being pretentious and vapid.
>it's intentional
just because something's intentional doesn't mean it makes it good.

>>15777553
>book involves teenage sex scenes/romance
I'll pass on this one

I don't want to hear anything about normal millennials. I don't want to read self-congratulatory wank written by and about the people who thrive under the current system. I want to read about the ones alienated by it.

>>15779692
read my diary desu

>>15777553
totally ghost written. women cant write good novels

>>15779722
checked.

>>15777553
Based troll, you remind me of Sarah J Maas poster on /sffg/

>>15779657
>implying tao lin isn't for normies himself
Have you not seen his twitter?

>>15779799
>Have you not seen his twitter?
he seems like an absolute schizo

>>15779809
>Wiping your butt with a sock instead of pooping directly into the sock.

>>15779692
>I want to read about the ones alienated by it.
But it tackles all these issues

>>15779831
Girlfriend-havers are not alienated.

>>15777553
Post a passage. I want to trash it.

>>15779675
It's not even intentional it's Sally Rooney being deadly serious thinking she's writing normal everyday people. It's the writers equivilant of those women who said Joyce was sexist because he wrote Stephen as sexually repressed.

>>15779841
Suddenly he can spend an afternoon in Vienna looking at Vermeer’s The Art of Painting, and it’s hot outside, and if he wants he can buy himself a cheap cold glass of beer afterwards. It’s like something he assumed was just a painted backdrop all his life has revealed itself to be real: foreign cities are real, and famous artworks, and underground railway systems, and remnants of the Berlin Wall. That’s money, the substance that makes the world real. There’s something so corrupt and sexy about it.

>tfw wrote a paragraph saying how shit Sally Rooney is and it didn't even post

Here's a great example of her amazing prose.
>‘He puts his hands in his pockets and suppresses an irritable sigh, but suppresses it with an audible intake of breath, so that it still sounds like a sigh.’
This woman got the highest marks possible in the best college in Ireland along with Beckett.
She has no self-awarness, she has no skill at writing real characters, she doesn't know how they talk and she doesn't know how they act. She got lost in the middle class fantasy of going to a good college and is that far up her own ass she manages to write two books about le commie empowered teenage girls with one book having the most autistic man in the world falling in love with her (he's also the most popular guy at the seocndary school while her self-insert isn't liked because she's """"different""") She had th audacity to talk shit about the quality of Yeats' writing while producing this dogshit and being praised for it. I know this thread is bait but I can't help replying because that woman is the personification of the death of Irish literature. The people who read the book praise it for the same things people praise Ulysses for. She wrote a YA sex novel that's being treated as revolutionary.

>>15779692
Any lit like this? I feel so alone bros, even going on my favourite boards there's few i truly sympathise with. Any books to take away the pain?

>>15779958
The Catcher in the Rye is the only thing that's ever scratched this itch for me. No Longer Human got close but it was hard to relate at times since the protagonist is a womanizer. I'm not aware of anything modern.

>>15779840
Holy shit incels are so intolerable. Not having sex isn’t the only way you can be alienated from society, you don’t have a monopoly on outcasts.

>>15779989
If you are sexually successful in the current climate then you are not alienated from society. Stop trying to pretend that you are you fucking normalfaggot.

>>15779958
>>15779976
Yeah read Catcher in the Rye

For me this book did not live up to it's hype. Fairly bland and boring with some """shock""" relationship shit thrown in. From what I remember I think the writing itself was okay.

3/5.

I'm generally interested in these millennial novels but I find that most of 'em are, unfortunately, quite boring.

If you want to read contemporary female authors I'd try My Year of Rest and Relaxation.

>>15779989
>incels
It's funny that you're trying to claim that you're alienated while using the terms normies use to insult alienated people.

>>15779993
I think that very wealthy people probably feel very alienated, owing to the lack of real genuine human relationships. Your problems aren’t the only legitimate ones. There are people with problems way worse than yours that would probably scorn your problems in the way that you scorn other peoples. You lack empathy and perspective.

>>15780012
>Bro just think of the billionaires and the guys getting their cocks sucked right now. They're alienated too and your problems aren't that bad.
Suck my cock normalfag.

>>15779998
>>15779976
Yeah i think i should give it another read. I read metamorphosis and I almost wept, is Book of Disquiet good too?

BBBBBBBOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRINNNG
Salley Boringey

>>15780018
You completely missed my point and interpreted it in a way suitable to your pathetic narrative of victimhood. It’s almost like you want to be sad and depressed, like there’s a kind of comfort and peace in wallowing in self-pity, a level of indulgence and allure to giving up. There a people with facial disfigurations, people who are paralysed from the neck down, people who got testicular cancer and had to be castrated who are happier than you.

You guys really watch the tv show instead. it's way better and fully realized

>>15779941
>Sally Rooney is the personification of the death of Irish literature
what makes you think Irish literature is dead?

>>15780039
should*

>>15780038
Good for them.

>>15780046
Ireland only had for the briefest time in history an idenity that was fully Irish, before that we had a massive English influence and after that American. The modernist writer Ireland produced were the best of the best you are going to have to try very hard to people who wouldn't put Joyce or Yeats in at least the top top 10 of their craft and personally I don't think anyone is better than Joyce overall but that's a different story. After Joyce died you had some other writers leading the way like Montague and Heaney but there hasn't been a steady crop of writers since. Most Irish literature now is basically rehashing what Joyce has done in different ways, attacking the church, trying to write about the ordinary person but there's nothing new or interesting there, along with that American influence has just poisoned us, utterly killed anything good that might have sprouted up. Sally Rooney is a prodcut of that culture poisoning. She would rather tear down the actual good writers we had like Yeats and replace them with people like her, little college manufactured and media consumed robots that write with the sensitivites of others in mind.

>>15779809
In contemporary society schizophrenia and other mental illnesses are a sign of conformity and normalfaggotry.

>>15779628

I discussed with a friend how cinematic writing often works as a hindrance to the novel than enhancement, as is this case with this book. Unfortunately, I think it’s due to the fact that the subject addressed in this novel is almost exclusively handled on the screen whether in angsty indie films or bourgeoisie hipster portraits like Lena Dunham’s “Girls”. This novel surpasses them of course, but its reliance on the cinematic style, a la “The Fault in Our Stars” and “the Perks of Being a Wallflower” keep it from realizing the breadth of its poetry. Hopefully she’ll fall away from that technique and cultivate something more focused in the future.

>>15779692

This covers alienation quite well, in fact, I just had this exact discussion with my girl about this. Men are used to finding these subjects in books like No Longer Human, Notes from the Underground, and Hunger, so when it’s presented in a much less brooding, but effeminate and awkward tone, the reader feels emasculated rather than represented and it’s a fault of his own really. The fact is, most millennials likely have more in common with Conner than the Underground Man, but as I mentioned in the OP, we’d like to see ourselves more in the shoes of 19th century betas than the 21st. We refuse to grapple with how pathetic we really are.

>>15779941

Not bait, Rooney is writing more in the tradition of Salinger and George Eliot than Joyce and Beckett, so it makes sense you’re picking up on the qualities which distance her from her predecessors. That said it’s brilliant in its colloquialness, and if the contemporary classicist will only settle for good fiction in the form of imitation to the greats, then he’s undoubtedly wronging himself more than anything. It’s fair to not like the bourgeois subject, but don’t deny her the right and potential necessity of treating it with sophistication. The fact is that these people exist and therefore will find themselves in fiction whether we like it or not.

>>15780152
>Not bait, Rooney is writing more in the tradition of Salinger and George Eliot than Joyce and Beckett, so it makes sense you’re picking up on the qualities which distance her from her predecessors. That said it’s brilliant in its colloquialness, and if the contemporary classicist will only settle for good fiction in the form of imitation to the greats, then he’s undoubtedly wronging himself more than anything. It’s fair to not like the bourgeois subject, but don’t deny her the right and potential necessity of treating it with sophistication. The fact is that these people exist and therefore will find themselves in fiction whether we like it or not.

You're not from Ireland, you dpn't know what you're talking about and you don't know why you don't

>>15780152
>most millennials likely have more in common with Conner than the Underground Man
Most

>>15779938
Sorry for the delay, I was doing something else.

Here's my trashing of that passage:

>Suddenly [unnecessary word] he can spend an afternoon in Vienna looking at Vermeer’s The Art of Painting [why this particular work?], and it’s hot outside, and if he wants he can buy himself a cheap cold glass of beer afterwards [he may also buy it before; besides, whenever people buy stuff it's assumed that they want it, unless it's explained to be otherwise; notice the repetition of ''he can'' in the same sentence, even though there are many synonyms for the word ''can''; also, ''cheap cold glass of beer'' is a cliche, just write ''glass of beer'']. It’s like something he assumed [what terrible noise!] was just a painted backdrop all his life [''all his life?'' - this expression has a useless tail, write ''always'' instead] has revealed itself to be real [cliche writing]: foreign cities are real, and famous artworks, and underground railway systems, and remnants of the Berlin Wall. That’s money, the substance that makes the world real [empty thought, and false; newspaper writing]. There’s something [again the word ''something''?] so corrupt and sexy [''sexy'' is an adjective people use all the time to mean pretty much anything, please find me another, more specific one!] about it.

>>15780094
interesting. can you roundabout date the Irish heyday of literature in years? what can you tell me about Montague?

>>15780190
then why tf didn't her editor notice all this?

>>15780224
For the same reason they didn't notice it with J. K. Rowling, Stephenie Meyer, Paulo Coelho, Dan Brown...

>>15780177

What? The book starts with a George Eliot quote and very obviously takes many notes from her style. And the Salinger is clear as well in how often body language is used to express feeling rather than narration, among other things. I can’t speak on how Irish it is of course, but I’m not trying to, only pointing out her very clear influences to better outline her form.

theyre gen z

>>15780199
About 1890 until 1939 would be about that. Montague is good but I haven't read him in about 4 years now so I wouldn't feel confident talking about him in great length.

It’s Sally Rooney’s revenge fantasy where all her bullies turn out to like her and the jock who she fancies becomes a snivelling wreck over her, it’s pathetic and transparent

>>15780251

The same could be said about Jane Eyre in different lights, there nothing wrong with it inherently.

>>15780251
lol. good point

>>15780259
No you’re right, it is boring tho, which Jane Eyre ain’t, JE also manages to be about more things and in a deeper way than NP does

>>15780269

Well I think Rooney can do better than this, Bronte is a great after all so I don’t mind a new writer falling short. I think when Rooney decides to step out of the YA sphere she may develop nicely.

Is this a meme? Am I now obligated to read what looks like some YA novel so I can have opinions on /lit/ shitposts?

>>15780244
>. I can’t speak on how Irish it is of course, but I’m not trying to, only pointing out her very clear influences to better outline her form.

You're missing basically everything the book is trying to achieve then you dope. It's about "normal Irish young adults" which Rooney fails to create on literally every level.

>>15780307
Read whatever you want unless you spend your entire day shit posting here and want to fit in

>>15780307
I'll read it to get big litty thot gf

>>15780190
>Sorry for the delay, I was doing something else.

>Here's my trashing of that passage:

>>Suddenly [unnecessary word] he can spend an afternoon in Vienna looking at Vermeer’s The Art of Painting [why this particular work?], and it’s hot outside, and if he wants he can buy himself a cheap cold glass of beer afterwards [he may also buy it before; besides, whenever people buy stuff it's assumed that they want it, unless it's explained to be otherwise; notice the repetition of ''he can'' in the same sentence, even though there are many synonyms for the word ''can''; also, ''cheap cold glass of beer'' is a cliche, just write ''glass of beer'']. It’s like something he assumed [what terrible noise!] was just a painted backdrop all his life [''all his life?'' - this expression has a useless tail, write ''always'' instead] has revealed itself to be real [cliche writing]: foreign cities are real, and famous artworks, and underground railway systems, and remnants of the Berlin Wall. That’s money, the substance that makes the world real [empty thought, and false; newspaper writing]. There’s something [again the word ''something''?] so corrupt and sexy [''sexy'' is an adjective people use all the time to mean pretty much anything, please find me another, more specific one!] about it.
Anon, I know you posted it because we do this type of meme criticism, and "hate" popular lit and so on. But hoping you don't troll but accept my words, you actually are quite good at dissecting literature, that's something I've always wanted to learn, please teach me, how did you learned? Any books, pages, whatever?

rooney isnt even a real irish shes a fucking euromindrapebaby from the pale and projecting her perverse cosmopolitan degeneracy onto the public at large. the book would have been banned even 20 years ago

>>15777553
okay so I read all of that shit you wrote but you still didn't describe what it is about or how it is structured

>>15779692

>>15780320

Well if they’re not Irish then they’re certainly something because thousands of people find it quite relatable. Rooney feels so American at times I find it hard to believe she had such an insular goal.

>>15780403
>Rooney feels so American at times I find it hard to believe she had such an insular goal.
this>>15780094

thanks op but you should know by now that the only lit that flies on lit is ”loner outcast complaining about normies for 600 pages in feverish schizo prose”

>>15780190
While your alternatives would make her writing less purple, which means less pretentious and more to the point, one can easily argue for her decisions. The paragraph is obviously about a young man being able to act out his dreams because of money which has some sexappeal to it. That's how normies think (Money = Substance of material reality). Given all this Rooney may use repetitions of "can", clichés of consumerism, tourist attractions self-referential works of art with no deeper meaning, and lazy adjectives like "sexy", because she writes about a formal mindset. I'm not defending Rooney here. This prose is not good, but it serves the given purpose.

tl;dr: Line editing must be done in the bigger picture of the novel's purpose and the author's intent.

'Normal People' comes across as a chiclit/young adult romantic tale with erotic and slightly Marxian elements. I mention the latter element because the book depicts a bit of class and economics, but in a visceral way. First and foremost, this book is a love story. It should not be taken as anything else. Personally, I did not like Rooney's descriptions or her prose style. It lacked 'poetry' and engendered within me the same repulsion I get whilst listening to, or reading the words of, politicians who seem nothing more than grey middle management. The characters are unrealistic (as is their dialogue), which the reader is particularly sensitive to if he/she is from Ireland. I did like the romantic plot. It was compelling. The story seemed needlessly long at times, though the conclusion felt fitting. Frustrating, though hopeful. I could sympathise with them. I wanted Marianne to tell me to stay as well. You could say it touched me (and not in a Weinstein way).

I still think it is overrated and over-hyped, but that is the modern publishing industry for you. I hope she writes something better in the future. At the moment, I would not give her a pedestal in Ireland's literary pantheon. She stays out with the other women!

Moreover, the television series is what will stay in the mind the of plebeians, not the book. 'This Side of Paradise' (a similar novel in my opinion) is a better.

>>15780338
If you can read French, then Albalat's L'art d'ecrire won't actually teach you how to write well, but it will teach you how to not write badly.
Such writing ''manuals'' are out of fashion nowadays, but were very popular in the 19th century; they mostly help you with basic stuff like avoiding cliches, repetitions, language ''vices'', and more. Albalat's aesthetics is outdated, but it's decent enough for a beginner: you need to learn the old style if you wish to be original, much like Joyce first had to write Dubliners in order to be able to write Ulysses.

Other good books are Ezra Pound's ABC of Reading, Aristotle's Poetics, Horace's Ars Poetica, Longinus's On The Sublime, and any essay by Borges, George Steiner, T.S. Eliot. The American ''new critics'' are also good when it comes to in-depth analyses of literature.

>>15780559
>This prose is not good, but it serves the given purpose.

Yeah, that's the usual excuse.

>>15780640
"is a better read.

>>15780407
>>15780437
meant for you

>>15780640
"in the mind of the plebeians

>>15780152
>most millennials
Once you start talking about "most millennials" you're no longer talking about alienated people, you're just talking about normalfags. I don't know why you're even disagreeing with me since you're only confirming what I said.

>>15780681

I noticed.

>>15780640

I liked her prose quite a bit actually, it felt breezy yet with a certain gloss to it. I found the characters to be familiar as well, as I’ve met at least a handful of Marianne’s but would probably beat up a Conner if I knew one. And I thought the pacing was fine, although ironically I didn’t care for the romance so much as each character’s own introspections, that’s what sold the book for me personally.

>>15780759

You’d be surprised actually. One bizarre thing I found when I was just starting uni was the amount of “normies” I’d meet who constantly expressed a sense of detachment from their peers. The feelings are more common than you think, albeit not always talked about in a Dostorvskian manner, but present still. I think that’s what’s good about the book in fact, it expands these feelings beyond their usual scope into a world where they’re most commonly known.

>>15780052
Not that anon. What's the source on this?

>>15780790
No Longer Human

>>15779692
everyone is alienated nowadays in one way or another dude

>>15780657
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABC_of_Reading
Pound has some good points. "The honest critic must be content to find a very little contemporary work worth serious attention; but he must be ready to recognize that little..." Pound

>>15779692
Selfie, Suicide: or Cairey Turnbull's Blue Skiddoo

incel book
incel book

good though

>>15779958

see >>15781999

>>15780759
Alienation is really common in the 21st century thanks to technology, social media,and big populations. You are not special for being alienated.

>>15782325
>Listen, bro, me and my girlfriend are very alienated. We're getting married next week and all our friends from the tech startup we work at are coming. But sometimes I just feel so disconnected, you know? Like what if instead of having 100 semi-close friends, I had 10 close friends? This modern world is terrible.

>>15782354
What the fuck are you talking about, schizo?

>>15782375
Cool it with the ableist remarks.

>When you haven't touched another human being in over a decade and some zoomer starts telling you about how alienated his generation is

>>15782438
KEK anon, I understand how you feel.

>>15779958
Soumission
Temple of the Golden Pavilion
The Silent Cry
Jill (by Philip Larkin)
Journey to the End of the Night
The Tunnel (by Gass)
Empire of the Sun

>>15782438
go out and touch someone then you fucking spaz

>>15782382
You mean the casual psychophobia.

>>15780038
>like there’s a kind of comfort and peace in wallowing in self-pity, a level of indulgence and allure to giving up.
Yeah, pretty much this
t. depressed person

>>15779692
Evola.

>>15780377
Twenty years ago you had things like American Psycho being published, so I highly doubt this anon.

>>15782438
It's more common than you imagine, perhaps not to the same extent as you, but people who go on for months or year without human contact aren't that rare in the younger generations.

>>15782438
You seem to think alienation equates being an incel. All incels are alienated, sure, but not all alienated are incels.

>>15782325
If that's true then why does everyone look at me funny when I say that I say that I don't have a job? If they truly were alienated from society, as you say, then surely they would realize that the economy is rigged against us, so the only rational response is either to not play or to seize control for ourselves, but this does not happen. It is plain to see that the current system is in fact built on the passive consent of the normalfag and if the normalfag were at any time to decide to take matters into their own hands, that this state of affairs was no longer acceptable, then the system would collapse overnight. But the normalfag is slavish by nature, he would rather accept his meagre scraps than to dare risk his pathetic life in order to change the world in his favor.

She is unironically better than Bukowski.

>>15785333
They're normalfags that want to pretend that they're alienated. They're seriously arguing that people with jobs, successful human relationships, and a well-adjusted personality are alienated. Some guy earlier in the thread appealed to billionaires to show that normal people are alienated.

>>15780657
>If you can read French, then Albalat's L'art d'ecrire won't actually teach you how to write well, but it will teach you how to not write badly.
>Such writing ''manuals'' are out of fashion nowadays, but were very popular in the 19th century; they mostly help you with basic stuff like avoiding cliches, repetitions, language ''vices'', and more. Albalat's aesthetics is outdated, but it's decent enough for a beginner: you need to learn the old style if you wish to be original, much like Joyce first had to write Dubliners in order to be able to write Ulysses.

>Other good books are Ezra Pound's ABC of Reading, Aristotle's Poetics, Horace's Ars Poetica, Longinus's On The Sublime, and any essay by Borges, George Steiner, T.S. Eliot. The American ''new critics'' are also good when it comes to in-depth analyses of literature.
Thanks man, I'm taking note.

>>15779657
although i agree with this, I would take Rooney's novels over Taipei anyday.

>>15779993
>having sex in "current climate" = not being alienated by society

sex is easily attainable by all and has no impact on whether or not you are alienated by society at large, fucko

>>15780006
I really enjoyed Normal People so gave My Year of Rest and Relaxation a try, and although I was much more intrigued by the premise, I didn't really enjoy it. Normal People seemed more solid as a novel.

>>15780027
Book of Disquiet is less a story, more just fragments. I read about a third of it and stopped; it's not so much the sort of thing you sit down and try to read through at once. Seems more like a strange short story collection, to be picked up and read through intermittently.

>>15780039
i read the book and enjoyed it and then watched the show when it came out. it made me very depressed. so yeah it's probably more successful in its goals than the novel is.

>>15779809
>"The concept of “mental health” in our society is defined largely by the extent to which an individual behaves in accord with the needs of the system and does so without showing signs of stress."

>>15787726
>sex is easily attainable by all
If you actually think that it's proof that you are a normalfag and not alienated.

>>15780006
read delicious tacos

>>15780094
>write with the sensitivites of others in mind.

i wouldn't say Rooney does this at all, at most she tackles class differences but doesn't really touch into sexual preference, trans, race (very white writing), etc.

>>15780152
i realise everyone is picking on you but this is the first well thought out comment on this post, and you bring up things like Salinger that really drive the point home. all the arguments against Rooney are stupid. just because she was born in Ireland doesn't mean she has to have some sort of literary affinity to the place, or write in a way that imitates classic Irish literature. if she did that you'd just complain she was ripping it off anyway, fucks.

>>15777553
Am I actually missing out on anything by being near totally disconnected from my peers?
>t. 22 year old reclusive, diagnosed sperg that only has two friends he talks with, neither of which are from his uni

>>15787755
i haven't had sex in over a year.
doesn't mean sex isn't easy to achieve.

>>15787818
Holy shit a whole year. That's must truly be an accomplishment for a normalfag such as yourself.

>>15787826
get laid

>>15787842
Are you capable of saying something that isn't a normalfag slogan?

>>15787847
i understand where you are coming from and drawing lines between people who have sex and people who don't have sex is unfortunately not going to achieve anything and is instead trying to create borders in society where they shouldn't exist.

just because i've had sex doesn't mean i'm not someone who is socially retarded, or has a deep seated anxiety of many everyday things.

i get it, you haven't had sex. don't try and make out like that makes us of different species and gives us different emotional experiences and thus greater social standing on a Mongolian underwater basket-weaving forum

>>15787867
I'm find with there being borders in a society I'm not part of.

>>15787951
faggot

>>15780177
>>15780244
I think the anon had your reference to 'colloquialness' in mind. Assuming that you are praising the linguistic style of communication used by the characters in the novel, then, I would have to agree with the anon. You are unfamiliar with Ireland. Rooney does not write good dialogue for her young Irish characters. Every sentence they utter is stilted (and that is not addressing how unnatural her characters are either).This is obvious to any Irishman.

However, if you mean her casual prose style is brilliant, then, I disagree. I want to read good literature, not writing that could have been pulled from the Facebook post of an Irish arts student.

>>15787778
No. You are wrong, you senseless seoinín.

Please use proper capitalisation the next time you type whatever dribbles out of your brain.

>>15779938
>There’s something so corrupt and sexy about it.
>sexy
i'd risk travelling half the pandemic ridden globe just to punch the author on her tits for the laziness she shows here...wtf does sexy money even mean?

Lol this book is apparently about an ugly girl who has a secret relationship with chad in high school and then they go off to college (the same college the author went to) and she exceeds while he under performs. Talk about wish fulfillment. This is the ugly bitch that thinks she is better than everyone and deserved chad lol. Many such cases!

>>15788214

Connor is far from a Chad, in fact he’s just a typical onions. And Marianne is an honest character in that she is described with a clearly false sense of “specialness” although it’s made understandable through her portrait. You’re critiquing the characters for an attitude they’re not handled with.

>>15787984

I meant the prose style, it’s not genius but it’s successful in the context of this book’s overall aesthetic. She also manages to weave in some genuine poetry within that style which is imo under appreciated in this thread.

>>15787867
>>15787951

Yeah, alienation occurs in degrees like any societal ailment. It’s unrealistic to confine it to particulars for the arbitrary sake of elitism I’m suffering.

>>15787778

I don’t mind, most of the replies come from people who seem to not have read it or generally don’t know how to respond to this type of literature holistically. She’s not Irish or enough of an incel to be taken seriously by a bastion of lonely pretentious men, this isn’t surprising, but it makes for a funny thread.

>>15789049

*Connel

Oh and I forgot about that filter so “typical soft boy” I guess.

>>15789049
I ask this in a tone of kindness: What makes you ascribe this sophisticated story composition to Rooney? How can you be certain of any of this? As far as I know, you could just be projecting what you think she thought whilst writing the story. Moreover, you may just be painting her failings as intentional style, which is all too easy a cop out.

I would like to believe you, but I don't.

>>15789164

Because I can trace the Eliot, Woolf, and Salinger influences with ease and I see that they’re being used well. Her use of body language, the dialogue between atmosphere and psyche, her close study of relationships between people, these all have hands in different moments of realism. While certain descriptive elements take note from Woolf in that they bring an ethereal quality to the every-day. I’m not saying she’s a great herself but surely knows what she’s doing to a point of suggesting that there’s great potential for her. There book isn’t perfect but gets way too much slack from this board and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s in part due to the gross unfamiliarity with George Eliot, who is likely the largest influence on the book.

>>15789164

Because I can trace the Eliot, Woolf, and Salinger influences with ease and I see that they’re being used well. Her use of body language, the dialogue between atmosphere and psyche, her close study of relationships between people, these all have hands in different moments of Realism. While certain descriptive elements take note from Woolf in that they bring an ethereal quality to the every-day. I’m not saying she’s a great herself but surely knows what she’s doing to a point of suggesting that there’s great potential for her. The book isn’t perfect but gets way too much flack from this board and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s in part due to the gross unfamiliarity with George Eliot, who is likely the largest influence on the book.

>>15789254

What I’m trying to say is that Rooney is writing within a specific literary tradition that involves Eliot, James, Salinger, Bronte (Charlotte) and to an extent Woolf. So when understood in that light her talents become clearer.

>>15789335
a chart with specific books might be helpful

>>15789349

Wish I had one but off the top of my head

George Eliot’s Middlemarch
J.D Salinger’s 9 Stories
Henry James’ Portrait or a Lady
Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse
Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre

Seem to be the literary frame under which this book operates. And you don’t NEED to be familiar with these authors to appreciate the work, but it helps to know where her decisions are inspired before deciding that she’s more tactless than she is. I would say knowing Salinger and Eliot decently isn’t best to appreciate the style of the book as a whole but obviously a good book need not rely on prior knowledge to be good and this certainly doesn’t. But there’s enough people bashing her from a technical standpoint that I’d defend her on these merits. To take techniques as adroitly done as the two aforementioned and contextualize it for the modern day in such accessible language is more impressive than most here will admit.

>>15789477


Sorry meant to say knowing Salinger and Eliot IS best

>>15787760
On a quick glance this looks like meme-y right wing hurr durr women suck writing. Is it?

Imagine reading something from an Irish peasant. Read the Heptaméron and you'll realize the world of difference in literary quality.

>>15779958
You feel alone because of media and big tech propaganda which is designed so that it makes people who go against elite determined agenda/viewpoints feel like they are isolated when in reality they (still) make up the large majority, which however is silent because they are bullied into isolation. This is why people pretend like Trump being elected vs Clinton was a surprise and all the polls showing like 90% Clinton lead. The media is fake and the big tech is fake, they are designed to make you feel alone if you don't follow elite determined narratives, even if you are in the actual majority.

>>15789706

This too

>>15789049
Ok Sally, your book is good. JFC.

>>15789477
I shall take on board your considerations (they have value) though I stand by my criticisms. I hope she put as much thought as you think she did into her novel.

>>15789867

Thanks xx

>>15777609
Fantastic post.

>>15780027
you should probably see a therapist

>>15788214
College is different, anon. You don't need to be that smart desu, it is more about persistence and resilience than anything else.

>>15789572
You are peasant and a pleb, why do you act with a false sense of superiority?