SALLY ROONEY : MARXIST MILLENNIAL

Economic class and the precariousness in which young people are forced to live their lives under late capitalism is a central concern of Irish writer and Marxist Sally Rooney. Hailed as 'the voice of her generation' she still has doubts about her vocation: 'I’m very sceptical of the way in which books are marketed as commodities like accessories that people can fill their homes with, like beautiful items you can fill your shelves with and therefore become a sort of book person.'

SALLY ROONEY was described as an 'Irish literary sensation' when her first book, Conversations with Friends, was published in 2017. She attracted even greater acclaim when her second novel, Normal People, was published in 2018. Suddenly Rooney was being hailed as the voice of her generation or as her publisher decided to label her, the 'Salinger for the Snapchat generation'. Normal People was nominated for the Booker Prize and has since been made into a  BBC drama series. Her third novel,  Beautiful World, Where Are You? has just been published.

All of this passed me by and I would probably have remained completely unaware of Sally Rooney and her novels, especially since she is often unfairly tagged as a purveyor of 'romantic fiction' and 'chick lit'. Which, for me, conjures up images of Mills and Boons books and Rene Zellweger in Bridget Jones's Dairy.  Thanks, I'll pass.

However, purely by accident, I stumbled across an interview with the thirty year old Irish writer. In that interview she not only had some wonderfully critical observations to make about the liberal and middle class nature of the publishing world, she also described herself as a 'Marxist'. Intrigued, I did some further investigation.  

One of the best left wing assessments I could find of Sally Rooney's work was at Jacobin. In an article published in June last year, Anastasia Baucina writes that 'its not easy to imagine a Marxist love story. But in Normal People, Sally Rooney shows how our personal relationships - and the troubles we encounter - are extricably bound to the society around us'.

Rooney's young characters are resolutely working class, living lives that are determined by the material conditions of the time. According to Rooney:

'It would of been really difficult to write about young people leaving home in the west of Ireland. moving to college, and not confront the economic disparities that were emerging at the time, like the stripping back of protections for people from working class backgrounds who were going to college.'

I can't obviously comment on Rooney's work since I haven't read any of her books. To remedy that I have checked to see what's available at the Christchurch Library. Although it has multiple copies of her novels they are very much in demand. None are available at this moment in time. 

Dawn Fraser, also writing in Jacobin, makes the observation that 'For millenials struggling to make it in the post-crash economy, class is everywhere: in their friendships, their sex lives, their doctor's office. That's why Sally Rooney's novels have been so successful...Simply put, the books sell well because they are so rare, reflecting the trappings of young life in a way that the novels of the old guard have mostly not bothered even attempting.'