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Child Item

Sally Rooney disappears up her own etc

An Claidheamh

Sally Rooney romance, teen angst and chick lit author appears to be offering her rent-a-clichés to the Germans

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/ireland-s-break-with-its-catholic-past-incomplete-says-sally-rooney-1.4671855

"Rooney recalled how, as a result, (Sinéad) O’Connor was “ostracised in the cultural and social life of Ireland” in the 1990s."

"Rooney was asked by Der Spiegel magazine if she had endured pushback against her books from Ireland’s “Catholic milieu” similar to that endured in the past by Sinéad O’Connor."

(Re: SNL and tearing up Pope photo)

What's interesting is that Rooney was aged 1 in 1992 and I'm not aware of any ostracisation against Sinéad O'Connor, nor of Rooney ever studying Irish social history of the 1990s

I do recall S O'C being distanced by the British (and therefore Irish) media due to support for the Provos and lying about being in a Magdalene laundry despite overwhelming evidence she was in fact living a middle class life in Bray

Is there a reason why Rooney and her likes (e.g. Louise O'Neill) get so much air time whem they clearly don't have a clue and can Irish female writers not sell books on their own merit without a 'woe is me' agenda?

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[Deleted User]

I actually thought the same recently having seen way too much of her in a couple of weeks never having heard of her before..

Hangdogroad

Sinead O Connor received a major backlash in the States over the tearing up of the Popes picture all right including being booed off the stage when she supported Bob Dylan a couple of weeks later. I'm not so sure about being ostracised in Ireland. Certainly the usual suspects were outraged but I don't recall the Irish media going after her in a big way over it.

John Doe1

I have a similar background to her, grew up in the rural west of Ireland (Donegal), same age and did Arts in Trinity at the same time as her but I do not remember the Catholic having much of an impact on my life. The last time they had true power was the 80's/early 90's. I am not sure why this is a topic of an interview for her as It has nothing to do with her books which are basically softcore pornography with some teenage marxism thrown in.

Peregrinus

Guys, this is the Irish Times paraphrase, with few snippets of obviously incomplete quotes, of an interview with Rooney in Der Spiegel.

I'd hesitate to rush to judgment without actually, you know, reading the interview. (Which is paywalled. And is in German.)

Burt Renaults

She's a very good writer - that's why she gets so much airtime. Although I think the kind of people who post on here probably aren't her target audience. When's the last time any of you read a work of fiction written by a female author? I don't think she's said anything terribly controversial, inaccurate (or original) there.

Although I'm not entirely convinced that the decline of the Catholic Church was solely down to paedophile priests. It was on its way out anyway, dying with our grandparents' generation. My parents stopped forcing me to go to mass when I was around 12. They stopped going themselves too. It sort of gradually fizzled out. There was no big reason - they'd balk at the idea of not believing in God, and would ruefully shake their heads when I suggested that it was all a silly fairytale. They'd still quietly pop into a church every now and then, light a candle or whatever. But dragging three kids to 10:30 mass on a rainy Sunday morning? Not worth the hassle.

NIMAN

Wish I was a euro behind her.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117887950#Comment_117887950

Chuch was well in decline here before most people knew anything about the abuse scandals.

The big decline in vocations started in the mid 1970s.

Also I get annoyed when people try to shift the blame by saying "we all knew, we were all to blame" etc.

Usually this is RCC apologists doing this, not the likes of Rooney.

Well we all did NOT know and are NOT all to blame. I never had any notion that Magdalen laundries even existed until it was in the news in the mid 90s that the last one was closing down. As regard the so-called "homes", most people my age had heard stories about "girls in trouble" having to go off to "the nuns" but that was a previous generation not ours (born early 70s) and again something we can bear no responsibility for.

But if somehow everyone is to blame, then nobody is really to blame... and blaming the Irish people for their own oppression (like the British did a century before) gets the perpetrators off the hook nicely.

Thelonious Monk

Fair play to her, successful author, new book getting great reviews, Normal People the TV show was great and I think they're making another series of one of her books. More power to ya Sally.

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117887950#Comment_117887950

I enjoy plenty of works of fiction written by women, but the reason Sally Rooney (and Louise O’ Neill in the same vein) get so much critical acclaim is because their writing is miserable, not because anything they write is actually well written.

It’s true I’m definitely not the target audience for their books, not because I’m not a woman, but because I’m not miserable. EL James wrote works of fiction that were popular with women too, and they were truly examples of awful writing, but they weren’t dripping with misery so didn’t receive the same critical acclaim.

”Salinger for the Snapchat generation” seems about right, though I’m sure it’s meant as a positive critique.

https://www.oprahdaily.com/entertainment/books/a35195152/sally-rooney-new-novel-beautiful-world-where-are-you/#:~:text=Irish%20novelist%20Sally%20Rooney%20has%20spent%20the%20last,2017%2C%20Conversations%20with%20Friends%2C%20to%20rapturous%20critical%20acclaim.

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117888584#Comment_117888584

Just curious, have you actually read 'Conversations with friends' and 'Normal people'?

In my view, the TV adaptation of 'Normal People' was excellent. In fact, it was significantly superior to the novel, which is somewhat repetitive and replete with pretty uninspiring prose.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117888826#Comment_117888826

No I don't think I'm the target audience for the books but I did enjoy the TV show

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117888834#Comment_117888834

Cool. I'm not their target audience either, but read both novels, due to the Booker prize buzz around 'Normal People'. I was distinctly underwhelmed by the caliber of the writing.

I'm not saying this to undermine Sally or out of begrudgery for her success. I was expecting more and simply did not enjoy the novels. I also found the studenty marxist discourse pretty grating. Thankfully, they minimized this dialogue in the TV adaptation of 'Normal People'.

Having said all that, 'Conversations with friends' just wrapped filming and I'm sure I'll take a look when it's released.

conorhal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117887944#Comment_117887944

We've raised victimhood onto such a high pedestal that it's practically fashionable, these sorts of people feel victimised by the normality of their upbringing so they have to pretend to be afflicted to retain their social status. There are whole swathes of Ticktoc and social media fakers out there with self diagnosed 'conditions' looking for clout. Hell some people are developing conditions through 'social contagion' they are so desperate to feel 'unique':

https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgx3en/gen-z-is-developing-unexplained-tics-after-going-online-and-doctors-are-concerned

There are no shortage of boring spoofers out there like Rooney that have never darkened the door of a church, so desperate to seem interesting that they co-opt victimhood onto themselves just for the clout, because it's a subtitute for a personality.

Beechwoodspark

her books are just very ....tiresome

listermint

Yay someone else to get upset about. A continuation of 'you know what really grinds my gears'

Padre_Pio

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117888466#Comment_117888466

I don't think it's right to say "we didn't know". Seems more like "we didn't want to know".

People in Tuam knew of the graveyard back in the 1970s when two children found the remains of all those children, but the locals did not investigate it further. Catherine Corliss brought it to the wider public attention through years of effort.

Stories of abuse were largely ignored by the populace. I believe a book was written in the 1980's but never published.

The last Magdalen Laundry was closed in the mid-1990's in Waterford, with a lot of controversy about the use of women as unpaid (read-slave) labour for Hasbro.

Sinead O'Connor was written off as a crank and an attention seeker.

People didn't want to know, and people didn't care. The attitude is the same now as it was back then. The perpetrators are still alive and walking the streets. How many priests have been charged with abuse? How many higher-ups who aided and abetted were ever charged? Sean Brady is still walking around, having participated in the Brendan Smyth cover-up.

The Church put 100million in a survivors fund in the early 2000's, but anyone who accepted the money was forbidden from taking legal action or naming their abuser. Absolutely shocking stuff and the government of the time allowed it.

So I have no issues with Sally Rooney, or anyone else taking a shot at the Church. The organization is rotten from the top down.

Mad_maxx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117890932#Comment_117890932

But Sinead o Connor is both a crank and an attention seeker ?

Padre_Pio

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117891154#Comment_117891154

A stopped clock is right twice a day.

kowloon

Is Rooney not a bit on the young side to remember auld Catholic Ireland?

Mad_maxx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117891249#Comment_117891249

She's one of those who enjoys pretending the CC is a monster that needs slaying

" stunning and brave "

blackbox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117891154#Comment_117891154

I don't know anything about Sally Rooney, but no matter what you say about Sinead O'Connor, you cannot deny that she is a truly superlative singer.

An Claidheamh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117891249#Comment_117891249

She hasn’t got a clue

She was a teenager in the noughties, privileged background, went to TCD around the 2010s

Give me a break

Might as well be Maura Higgins from Love Island claiming she’s affected by the Catholic Church

She certainly knows there is an audience for adopted victim hood and mentioning religion to the media, then again she’s writing trashy novels, not works of genius for a scientific review

Also, the Marxism angle is old hat, it’s like what old people think young people thought about maybe 40 years ago

An Claidheamh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117886262#Comment_117886262

Apparently Sally does, as she was born a year later …

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117892015#Comment_117892015

I know somebody who vaguely knew Sally in Trinity. Apparently, she heavily involved in student politics and debating and sees herself as a Marxist. This person said that she is clearly very bright. She won ‘schols’ for English in the early 00’s, which entitled her to free tuition and college accommodation. Despite her obvious intelligence, she’s a tiresome person to be around by all accounts.

The team who developed ‘Normal People’ made a very wise decision to subtly modify the Marianne character. In the novel, she espouses stridently immature political views. All round, she is quite dislikable and possibly semi autobiographical. Instead, the TV series pretty much ignored the politics angle and used a very pretty actress (Daisy Edgar Jones), who elicited sympathy for the plight of her character. This sympathy would surely not exist if the audience had been exposed to the more ‘raw’ Marianne of the novel.

Anyway, agree with other posters here. I’m also from a similar background to Sally Rooney. From the west and went to university in Dublin. The only difference is that I’m 8/9 years older than her. The Catholic Church had very little influence throughout my life. In fact, I’ve recently returned to it a little, by choice, due to family circumstances. It’s safe to say that it played an even less significant role in Sally Rooney’s life and it’s totally disingenuous of her to claim that it’s been a vehicle of oppression for her at any stage, throughout her relatively privileged existence.

In my view, Sally should stop with the personal deep-dive portraits in the media and focus on becoming a better rounded, more durable writer. If she doesn’t manage to evolve from a literary perspective, she’ll find that the appetite for her millennial oeuvre will be satisfied in the very near future.

kowloonkev

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117887950#Comment_117887950

If a writer has a 'target audience' then they are not a serious writer. Just because someone is female shouldn't mean they can't appeal to everyone if they are inspired authors with something worthy to say.

They will be judged by the test of time. I wonder if Mary Shelley had a target audience...

Peregrinus

Lookit, back to the point I made in post #5 of this thread:

First, we haven't seen the interview with Rooney; just a rather piecemeal account of it in the Irish Times.

Second, going on what's in that account, it doesn't appear that Rooney brought up Catholicism or that she complained that Catholicism had restricted or constrained her in any way.

The interviewer brought Catholicism up; they asked her if she had experienced any pushback from "Ireland's Catholic milieu" (so appealing to a trope about Ireland which no foreign journalist has ever been known to resist).

It seems that in response Rooney talked about how this had been a factor in the past, affecting people like Sinead O'Connor (again, an example brought up by the interviewer, not by Rooney); that things were dramatically different now; but that the "pivot away from the Catholic era" is not quite complete.

Nothing in the OT report suggests that she suggested that Catholicism had at any time been a "vehicle of oppression for her" .

And, when she talks about the break with the Catholic past being still incomplete, it seems - based again only on what's in the IT article - that Rooney may be suggesting that we have too conveniently identified "the Catholic church" as the villain; they did all these horrible things to us; we, the Irish people, were victims. And therefore we as a people are no way responsible for or complicit in the things that were done, and we do not need to examine our own values, our own culture, our own attitudes to ask why as a community we went along with this.

Rooney is perhaps hinting that maybe the Irish catholic church was conservative, judgmental, puritanical, etc because it emerged from the Irish people, who were conservative, etc, due to various socioeconomic issues that need to be unpacked and explored (Rooney is a Marxist, remember).

And, the implication is, as long as we don't confront that, and take the easy option of blaming those men in black suits over there, we have failed to break completely with the conservative, judgmental, etc attitudes and values that gave rise to the problem in the first place.

On edit: Fr what it's worth, I think she's a terrific writer. I have loved both her novels. If she has a "target market", which I seriously doubt, I am definitely not part of it. I cannot understand the view that she writes "trashy fiction", unless perhaps you take the view that any fiction that deals with sex/sexual relationships is automatically trashy — which would be a neat illustration of the very point that I think Rooney is making about Ireland not having come to terms with its puritan values and attitudes

backwards_man

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058208661/sally-rooney-disappears-up-her-own-etc

SOC was sent to a laundry in Drumcondra for 18 months when she was 14. Why do you say she was lying about it?

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117893071#Comment_117893071

She has three novels now :)

BettyS

I didn’t particularly enjoy Beautiful World, Where Are You. I enjoyed her other books far more. I found the pseudo-intellectualism rather jarring. It felt so deliberate to try to convey to the reader how clever these people were. I also found the despair element that the characters felt to be irritating. They kept talking about the oppression of the people in the developing world. They assume the pain that is not theirs to take. More reprehensible is the fact that they live by all accounts in massive houses and have iPhones (I am not condemning these things, I just think that if you do this alongside a long diatribe about economic suppression of the underclasses, you undermine credibility). I wish that she would select characters that were relatable. The characters were by all accounts beautiful, extremely intelligent or famous. I know that it may not sell a book. But I want to read about somebody mired in utter mediocrity. These tales are not supposed to be fantastical. But the characters are. Finally, despite all her professions in the book, it ends up a hackneyed tale of girl and boy. It all ends up neatly in a package. This is not real life.

My opinion is obviously in the minority. People seem to be fawning over the book. I read it, wanting to love it. But I didn’t

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117888826#Comment_117888826

The TV series was better. Good acting and direction. Makes a difference.

last week sally Rooney was called a white supremacist for not including enough about Asians in her stories set in western Ireland.

https://www.smh.com.au/culture/tv-and-radio/surely-there-are-better-literary-heroes-for-our-generation-than-sally-rooney-20210817-p58jfp.html