'The Interview': Sally Rooney Thinks Career Growth Is Overrated

[@thisopinionwillexpire]

I think the title “conversations with friends” is itself an answer to the question, “Why do you keep writing about the same world?” I come to Rooney’s books the way I come to conversations with friends. I don’t need them to be new people or new personalities every time I see them. Sometimes I want the opposite. I want to think something new with old friends, inside a familiar place. I want to feel my friend’s words becoming an inside joke in real time-creating new history together. Then, frenetically skimming the passages with them. Rooney’s books feel that way. SO excited to read this new one.

[@jasperpeterpershing7165]

Very insightful! Couldn’t agree more!

[@Magda_li]

It's interesting that men are never asked if it was difficult to write form female perspective...

[@Diana-gx3tx]

I find the questions wild 😢

[@KellyKerrigan-pv9mf]

It is ironic to see that mostly the only negative comments in this section come from men & that additionally they've admitted in their negative sprawls to say that they've never read her work. It speaks quite immensely to the lengths men will go to dismiss female thinkers, and even so often times without intention or any recognition internally that they're doing so. Just goes to show how ingrained it is in socioeconomic discourse to devalue the ideas of a woman thinker should she not submit to what the expectations of a woman in the public eye and equally the assumption that women thinkers are bland or prude for not giving the public what they desire - which is something male thinkers do often in refusing to discuss their personal lives in conjunction with their work. Men are so rarely asked to discuss how what they encounter in their personal lives are reflective to their work. None the less, I adore Sally's work deeply for it feels so present. I often find myself thinking about the things I think, or better yet the way in which I think about things about before bed, or in the morning, or on my walks to work - and I wonder, if this we're the same way my great grandmother thought before bed. This is clearly not all the way Anais Nin dispelled her thoughts in her journals. This isn't the way I often see characters think in films or certainly not in novels from the past. And I think a lot about the cultural loop work can often times get stuck in, cycling in and out of the same ways and standards that conversations between characters must occur and have always occurred. And this very experience, and these very thoughts often make me feel very alone, and stranded, and isolated - as though there was a time prior to the internet and social media existing the way it does now - and then there was the after. And that every generation prior to myself had some basis in the way they saw the future, evolving straight ahead, and that my future seemed futile in producing any newness and would be stuck in this loop until it ends. And so my thoughts and conversations consume themselves in brevity, submerged in what we see online, the lonliness that comes from this online life - and while Rooney's books directly don't delve into that specifically, the effects and the experiences and thoughts of her characters feel like the first time I've seen the thoughts and experiences of my own, modern, life reflected so accurately and with beauty and care and therefore I feel less alone and I know this experience is shared by the many readers who connect so deeply to her work.

[@Amaz0nica]

Did not really liked these questions… Asking too much of a writer’s personal life and “ideas” means you don’t really understand what literature is. This interview was a bit empty and shallow tbh

[@kasiadolato]

Yeah the way he led the interview was sjockingly cheap and unprofessional. Sexist almost - did PeterMa stream of consciousness style came from the character or was it your choice to experiment? Was he genuinely asking or did he just phrase the question clumsily

[@roseblue7159]

Love her books, love the way she express human nature. Great talk.

[@sarvasrika]

so sorry she had to sit through this with such an uninteresting, insensitive interviewer.

[@victorvazquez3042]

Is the interviewer a comedian, isn't? From snl?

[@anaturmanidze8219]

As someone who is passionate about both books and films, I would be thrilled to learn that a film adaptation of Intermezzo is in the works. This book has immense potential to become a fantastic TV show. It has a plot that is easy to visualize - you can vividly picture the characters, their actions, their surroundings… I completely understand that Sally prefers not to be involved in adaptations, but I hope she will consider granting permission to a talented team to bring it to life.

[@officialnicholas1]

This interview was good, love hearing Rooney talk maybe because she’s so private. When the interviewer started crying that was weird. Imma need him to hold it together and be professional

[@RobertaTMS_]

Who cares if she doesn't like interviews? Who cares if she doesn't like that silly bureaucracy? She's a writer, that's all that matters.

[@seriousbinch3749]

The interviewer sounded ridiculous in that moment. It seemed he was stirred by his assumption that Sally is disconnected from a love of living, and that made him emotional? Like wtf? You can be grateful and thankful to your beautiful family etc but it seemed like he was pitying her and people not as emotionally "in-tune" as he.....idk sis it just seemed kind of unstable and self-aggrandising. It made me uncomfortable as a listener.

[@andrewrichardson2079]

Really enjoyed this, there is something special about a public figure who is selective with the press they do, makes the interviews you do get seem more special

[@jasperpeterpershing7165]

Thanks for this

[@aaronrey2658]

Very good books, solid good shows.. really like her even more. Her response to being a some NYT read everything writer hack is awesome. I love she doesn't care about biographies or her ability to separate art & her own Irish politics etc.. Also, her ability to be a european marxist while her writing has almost nothing to do with it. Not caring about her career just heads down writing. She doesn't care about other POVs, Novelty, all the growth bla bla.. Rooney has a very strong voice and writes with economy in the post-modern era of very average writing. NYT has so much over the top, elite, everything is all politics, culture, social, interlinked whatever you are doing 100% of the time. Its boring and exhausting after so many years of the same interviews. NYT is so overloaded with standard elite, ivy, little ivies, Ivy+, they are so tiresome.

[@eliasE989]

She's great!

[@patit0terminator]

Where is the video?

[@helloitsdaniel]

i love this writer so much . normal people will always have a special place in heart. i hope she lurks in this comment section (even though she wont do that) and then see my comment and name her character after me

[@CamillaInc]

The interviewer is an odd ball.

[@alanrifkin1909]

"Would much rather let her work speak for itself".... Pay no mind to the embarrassing antiZionist fatwahs.

[@thisopinionwillexpire]

25:43 such a writer thing to say you’re “uninteresting”, then give a very interesting answer to why you’re “uninteresting”.

[@RobertaTMS_]

She does whatever she wants, I couldn't care less if she doesn't like this or that. It doesn't matter, she's a writer.

[@ericrizzotti9995]

This is the 2nd interview I've heard with this interviewer, and he feels like an absolute bonehead

[@bjwnashe5589]

If Sally doesn’t care about her writing “career,” why is she participating in all of this publishing industry PR? Why is she doing the interviews, events, etc.?

[@idax471]

promotion is usually an obligation that’s part of your book deal. if you want to write and make a living from it, you have to play this game

[@bjwnashe5589]

@@idax471 Sally may have enough clout at this point to take a stand, though, and refuse to do marketing events (like Elena Ferrante has done).

[@idax471]

@@bjwnashe5589 ferrante is anonymous so it’s a different situation. most authors do PR such as interviews as is their obligation, it’s very rare not to. clout doesn’t really pay your bills, book sales do.

[@RobertaTMS_]

@@bjwnashe5589 Elena Ferrante is a character in itself, it doesn't exist.

[@bjwnashe5589]

@@RobertaTMS_ A pseudonym, a pen name, for a writer who surely does exist.

[@altaifland3577]

The utter banality of her answers can only be justified by the sheer mediocrity of the interviewer's questions.

[@2msvalkyrie529]

And matched by the utter banality of her " novels " ?

[@staykinduniverse]

🫶

[@roberthostetler2982]

Could not care less about her politics.

[@S62r]

She sounds super insecure - def not interested in these books

[@paulanthonycorbett]

Even if that's true, which I don't think it is, you'll be missing out on a lot of great art if you avoid any artist who is insecure. Van Gogh, to take one example, was full of self-doubt.

[@biggity_blake]

Wow um that's pretty insecure of you. You should be more secure with yourself and then maybe insecure people wont get to you so much. Just some friendly helpful life advice because you seem like you could really use it.

[@sfrentals4769]

She’s an antisemitic dilettante. Boycott her books!

Utter rubbish. She has a right to her opinions.

[@sfrentals4769]

No sh!t Sherlock. And I have a right to my opinion. Especially towards a public figure that is so blatantly and pathetically biased.

[@joelharris4399]

Listening to her for the first time in an interview and she comes across as average. I don't know what all the fuss is about

[@kardra9714]

Just wondering: have you read her books? I'm not really a fan, but you should judge her (or any author) by her books rather than how compelling (or not) she might be as a public person or interviewee

[@joelharris4399]

Actually, speaking and writing goes hand-in-hand. Compare interviews let's say with someone like Donna Tart, or Martin Amis, there is a kind of symmetry between articulation and the craft of writing to the point you feel motivated to engage with their narratives. I don't get that with Sally Rooney, speaking as a millennial myself. Feels flat. Just my honest opinion. I 'll leave it there🙏

[@paulanthonycorbett]

Average at... speaking? Cool, yeah, ignore her books for that then I guess.

[@joelharris4399]

@@paulanthonycorbett 🤣

[@RelBamb]

@@joelharris4399why should we compare her interviews with anyone let alone people much older. I love her talking she is not pretentious at all and it is a fresh breeze. Stop putting authors into drawers.