It really felt like my generation was deprived of a future that we believed was ours. I don't mean some hugely privileged future where we all have gigantic houses. I mean having a job.
Sally RooneyRead
When I read interviews with people like Kevin Barry or Colin Barrett, who I hugely admire, they don't really seem to come up against the question of likeability even though their characters, in some instances, are really horrible.
Interpretation
The likeability of characters can be secondary to their complexity and the admiration for the authors who create them.
Sally Rooney reflects on her admiration for writers like Kevin Barry and Colin Barrett, noting that their characters, despite being unlikable, do not elicit questions of likeability in the authors' works. This observation suggests that depth and authenticity in character creation hold greater significance than superficial appeal, challenging the traditional notion of character assessment in literature.
In practice
In a book club discussion about character development, this quote can illustrate the complexity of unlikable characters.
It really felt like my generation was deprived of a future that we believed was ours. I don't mean some hugely privileged future where we all have gigantic houses. I mean having a job.
I find myself consistently drawn to writing about intimacy and the way we construct one another.
Class is something that I think seriously about and try to organise my politics around. I think there are lots of novels that don't really engage with questions of class at all, and they get less conversation about issues of social privilege than I do. But it's better to try and talk about it and maybe fail.
I gave myself the small task of writing honestly about the kind of life I knew. I believe there is some value in carrying out that task, however limited.
There is a tendency to presume autobiography in fiction by women or minorities. Guys named Jonathan write universal stories, while there's this sense that everyone else is just fictionalizing their own small experiences.
And I desperately needed books that would take me out of my environment and show me a world where being smart and brave and prepared was more important than being cute or cheerful or knowing the right thing to say. And that's what science fiction and fantasy gave me.
I demand that my books be judged with utmost severity, by knowledgeable people who know the rules of grammar and of logic, and who will seek beneath the footsteps of my commas the lice of my thought in the head of my style.
...in other words, all I want to be is the Jane Austen of south Alabama Interview - March 1964
Nobody knows that in reading we are re-living our temptations to be a poet. All readers who have a certain passion for reading, nurture and repress, through reading, the desire to become a writer.
Novelists are stamina merchants, grinders, nine-to-fivers, and their career curves follow the usual arc of human endeavour.
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