Literature does not escape marketing labels. In 2017, when her first novel was released, Conversation With Friends, the British publishing house Faber had presented Sally Rooney as the “Salinger of the Snapchat generation”. A slogan with unconscious irony: in the book, as in the two that will follow, the characters born from the pen of the Irish author never snap – they favor emails and SMS.
Certainly, in his works, of which Where are you, wonderful world?just published in France by Éditions de L’Olivier, it is a question, as in The Heart Catcher, of a youth prey to disenchantment and to which the adult world spins the vertigo. But the 31-year-old Irishwoman, whom the Times called “the first great millennial novelist” is not comfortable with this label of generational writer. “I never intended to speak on behalf of anyone other than myself. I already find it difficult to speak for myself, she declared to theIrish Times in 2018. I don’t want my books to fail to speak for an entire generation, which I never intended. »
The “Normal People” box
Recently, with Teleramashe spoke of her desire to talk about “ordinary life” and “the tangle of destinies of the members of [sa] family, of [ses] friends, of [ses] colleagues. Where work or study unfold, the routine of domestic life, leisure…”
Sally Rooney therefore writes about “normal people”, as the title of her second novel proclaims, Normal People, published in its original version in 2018, three years before its French translation. A tumultuous love affair, over several years, between the solitary Marianne and the popular Connell. The adaptation of the book into a series has greatly fueled the popularity of Sally Rooney who signed the scripts for the first six episodes. The critical and public hit was instantaneous. A figure: during its first broadcast, the BBC site recorded 16 million views in one week. After a first online release in 2020 on Starzplay, France.tv Slash in turn offered it in early 2022 in France.
This Thursday, it’s the turn of Conversations With Friends to arrive on Canal+ a few months after its programming in Great Britain. The twelve episodes tell the story of Frances and Bobbi, two best friends in college – having been in a relationship in the past – who meet Melissa, a best-selling author, and her fellow comedian, Nick. The latter will soon get closer to Frances.
A “Marxist” author
The Rooney touch is based on a direct prose that does not bother with figures of speech. She has a sense of ellipses, which can occur from one line to another, but also descriptions whose precision can go to the point of detail to translate a feeling, a state of mind.
Do not be mistaken and limit these stories to light blues. It is question, in the fictions of Sally Rooney, in a more or less pronounced way, of class violence, of economic crisis, of climatic anguish. In their correspondence, the two heroines ofWhere are you, wonderful world?thus discuss the limits of capitalism, between two secrets about their private life.
Sally Rooney, daughter of a telecom technician and an arts center director, defines herself as a “Marxist”. The British conservative press did not need more to fall on him. the DailyMail criticized him for having “filled with communist ideas” his bestselling books. the Telegram headlined about the strange and misguided cult surrounding the author.
“In the line of Sally Rooney”
That the latter announced four years ago her refusal to tweet her opinions at all costs, deploring that “we give too much political importance to novelists”, obviously did not reassure them. It is true that she did not put her convictions in the closet. Last year, she refused that an Israeli publishing house translate her latest novel into Hebrew because she considered it too close to power. Power to which she blames her policy vis-à-vis Palestine.
Sally Rooney is not smooth enough to be given any label. The universality of her novels – which “speak” easily to readers – coupled with the cerebral nature with which she approaches her profession as a writer, makes her one of the contemporary authors to follow. She has already planted a milestone. The proof: on the strip covering real-lifeBrandon Taylor’s novel which has just been published by La Croisée editions, we can read a quote from a review of the Literary Review : “A new talent in the line of Sally Rooney. »