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May. 2nd, 2023 11:21 amBeautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
The first two chapters of this book jump us in in media res to the life of Alice and Eileen, college best friends navigating their late twenties in parallel. The third chapter of the book tries to take a step back and give us their backstory. That third chapter is one of the single best pieces of writing I've read in years. The rest of the book is kind of fine? Parts of it are kind of grating, there's a strident political tone that a number of critics have complained seems somewhat superficial or self-righteous or performative. Parts of it are pretty insightful and interesting. But that third chapter is a masterpiece of writing technique on display.
It's full of short Hemingwayseque declarative sentences, with a very Hemingwayesque flow, that sort of flurry of words that should feel choppy but somehow is softer than it ought to be, each word carefully chosen for how it nestles into the next. But then it does these sudden sentence-to-sentence time or location jumps that remind me a little bit of Woolf's Orlando, except less subtle, so that you're never disoriented even as the flow of time and space moves unpredictably forward. The combined effect is a strong sense of efficiency, that every word has been measured to give you the most relevant information in the shortest way possible. There's a whoosh whoosh of information flow that I found incredibly satisfying to read.
Rooney goes back to this technique later in the book at times for a few paragraphs, but never as effectively as in that third chapter. It's the sustained effort of detailed, specific, and yet broad exposition that I found stunning.
The first two chapters of this book jump us in in media res to the life of Alice and Eileen, college best friends navigating their late twenties in parallel. The third chapter of the book tries to take a step back and give us their backstory. That third chapter is one of the single best pieces of writing I've read in years. The rest of the book is kind of fine? Parts of it are kind of grating, there's a strident political tone that a number of critics have complained seems somewhat superficial or self-righteous or performative. Parts of it are pretty insightful and interesting. But that third chapter is a masterpiece of writing technique on display.
It's full of short Hemingwayseque declarative sentences, with a very Hemingwayesque flow, that sort of flurry of words that should feel choppy but somehow is softer than it ought to be, each word carefully chosen for how it nestles into the next. But then it does these sudden sentence-to-sentence time or location jumps that remind me a little bit of Woolf's Orlando, except less subtle, so that you're never disoriented even as the flow of time and space moves unpredictably forward. The combined effect is a strong sense of efficiency, that every word has been measured to give you the most relevant information in the shortest way possible. There's a whoosh whoosh of information flow that I found incredibly satisfying to read.
Rooney goes back to this technique later in the book at times for a few paragraphs, but never as effectively as in that third chapter. It's the sustained effort of detailed, specific, and yet broad exposition that I found stunning.