Thoughts on Beautiful World, Where Are You?
It’s been a week since I finished this book and I still don’t know how to feel about it. I thought it was good, but I also didn’t. Is anyone else feeling this way?? I figured I’d write something out to organize my thoughts.
First of all, I was way more invested in the Eileen/Simon storyline than Alice/Felix. Is it possible I was projecting onto Eileen a little bit? Yes, absolutely. Simon reminded me really strongly of someone I know in real life which didn’t help. But I found that I kept reading just to get to the next part of their story. I was tempted to skip the emails towards the middle of the book because I was so much more invested in what actually happened. But obviously the emails contributed a lot to the story and to the characters of Alice and Eileen. Anyways, I think Sally Rooney’s writing really shines here because I felt every emotion Eileen was feeling as her story played out. The careful but intentional flirting over the phone, wondering how far you can push it. And when it finally happened the relief of knowing he had feelings for her too and the power that gave her when he’d been the one with power over her for so long. It was like she could finally see herself as his equal. And then when everyone was talking to Eileen about Caroline I felt it in my stomach too. Feeling used, and worst of all, not special like you thought you were. And of course he makes up for it with all the flowery quotes everyone’s posting now. But the raw emotion when she was writing and deleting a text to him, and the instinct to protect herself from getting hurt later came across so well for me. Right at the end when Eileen tells Alice she’s pregnant was the only time I cried while reading this book. I think the Eileen/Simon story on its own would have been a fantastic read, although I would have missed the relationship between Alice and Eileen.
In later chapters I did find myself enjoying Alice and Felix’s relationship. I was horrified by what Felix confessed to in Rome and it made me uneasy for the rest of the book, but I do think the exploration of class was really well done. That’s about all I can say about it I think.
The issue of whiteness is something else that came up for me while I was reading this book. I don’t know about anyone else, but I was imagining Eileen as a woman of color right up until she was straight up described as white. I did the same thing with Marianne in Normal People. I do wish Sally Rooney would at least try to write people of color. Do other POC have thoughts on this? About two thirds of the way through the book it started feeling like I was slogging through the chapters, and there were definitely moments where all I could think was “this is such white people bullshit.”
I did appreciate the inclusion of canonically queer people, especially queer men. Although I will say it didn’t really help me connect with Alice in the way that I might expect to connect with other queer women in literature. I don’t know- did other people relate to Alice? Without being rich and/or famous and/or published authors?
I don’t really expect anyone to get this far but if you do thank you!! Feel free to message me or reply to this post, I would love to hear other people’s thoughts!!!
