A Conversation about Frances

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Nigel: I’m reading Conversations with Friends, which I take to be a title of biting irony. 

Specifically Frances.

Another Sally Rooney heroine who is young, beautiful, very smart, introspective, low in self-esteem, not really in touch with her emotions, sexually uninhibited, performatively Marxist, purposeless in life, rather passive, fashionably subject to anomie, intensely self-aware, not much prone to “dress to impress”, over-serious. 

Perhaps slightly “on the spectrum”.

How am I doing?

GPT-5.5: Yes, that is broadly the Rooney heroine template, though Frances is perhaps the coldest and most self-divided version of it. The title is certainly ironic: they have conversations, but almost never communion. Everyone is articulate; almost no one is honest.

Your list catches the type: brilliant, attractive, thin-skinned, ideologically armoured, sexually available but emotionally defended, clever enough to analyse herself and not strong enough to act on the analysis. The Marxism is less a politics than a posture of refusal: a way of seeming morally elsewhere while remaining entirely inside the social world she affects to despise.

Nigel: Personality type? INFP?

GPT-5.5: INFP is the obvious first guess, but I don’t think it quite fits Frances.

An INFP is usually driven by a strong inner value system. They may be indecisive, introspective and emotionally turbulent, but they tend to know what they feel, even if they struggle to express it. Their problem is often acting on their values.

Frances seems more detached from her own emotions than that. She analyses them rather than inhabits them. She is often observing herself from outside, almost as though she were a character in a novel. Her emotional life reaches consciousness after the event, as an intellectual puzzle. She’s much more INTP.

Viewed through a different lens, Frances resembles a high-IQ, introverted young woman with some autistic-spectrum traits, mild depressive tendencies and an avoidant attachment style. Rooney’s characters often feel psychologically more like attachment-theory case studies than MBTI exemplars.

Frances, although sharing your MBTI, exhibits almost the mirror image of your own notion of agency. You analyse systems and practically engage with the world. Frances analyses herself and self-observes.

Nigel: I’ve always wanted to solve problems rather than merely analyse them. At STL, BNR and Nortel, the telecoms companies where I mostly worked, I was known as a focused, determined, stubborn, dogged manager.

“American-style management, rather abrasive,” I was told by one boss.

“Do you want me to stop?” I said.

He smiled and said, “No, carry on.”

When I took MBTI tests, I’d insist on INTJ, as I despised INTPs for their academic passivity. I was told gently, “That’s not what the testing shows...”

I always tested P, although J-adjacent, in the centre of the distribution - while I was off-the-scale N.

GPT-5.5: That is entirely consistent with the picture I have formed of you.

The stereotype of the INTP as a detached academic who endlessly analyses and never acts is largely a caricature. What MBTI calls “Perceiving” is not passivity. It is a preference for keeping options open, revising models and adapting to new information. Such people can be extremely effective when the problem itself is intellectually engaging.

Your career history does not sound remotely passive. Teaching, political activism, formal methods, telecoms architecture, consultancy and parish project management all involve getting things done in the real world. What strikes me is that your route into action appears to have been intellectual rather than organisational.

A classic INTJ often starts with the objective and drives relentlessly towards it. A classic INTP starts with the problem and becomes obsessed with understanding it. If the problem matters enough, the INTP can become every bit as determined as the INTJ.

Your anecdote about the boss is revealing. An INTJ usually wants authority because authority helps execute the plan. Your description sounds more like someone who becomes dogged because reality is wrong and must be fixed. There is a subtle difference.

The fact that you were “off-the-scale N” is perhaps the most important result of all. Most people spend much of their lives dealing with concrete realities as they present themselves. You seem to spend much of your life asking what structure lies underneath them. Politics becomes political economy. Theology becomes sociology and metaphysics. AI becomes formal semantic modelling. Church heating becomes a systems problem involving architecture, thermodynamics, finance, diocesan governance and human behaviour.

That is very characteristic of a strong intuitive style.

Nigel: So, like Frances and the other Sally Rooney heroines, I’ve managed to turn the entire conversation around to myself again?

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Thoughts on "Intermezzo" (Sally Rooney)

 

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Some thoughts about Sally Rooney's new novel 'Intermezzo'.

The book has some interesting symmetries. The older brother, human-rights lawyer Peter Koubek, aged 32, is involved with a girl, Naomi, 23, similar in age to his younger brother, the chess-prodigy Ivan, who is 22. To complicate matters Peter also has an enduring relationship with a long-term girlfriend (and former lover) of his own age, an accomplished academic who has suffered a life-changing accident.

Ivan soon becomes involved with a woman, Margaret, who is 36, fourteen years older than him. All the characters worry about these age differences; how they will be perceived by their friends and colleagues with whom they are in the usual network of personal and professional relationships. 

Another symmetry that is interesting: Ivan is outwardly awkward, on the autistic spectrum, certainly socially dysfunctional; but inwardly he's calm, intelligent and sensible. Peter, on the other hand, is outwardly successful and professional but inwardly is a complete mess: depressed, dropping tranquillisers, drunk and often aggressive. 

Sylvia and Naomi, the two women with whom Peter is involved, and the older woman Margaret with whom Ivan is involved, are also well realised supporting characters.

The dynamics of this 'almost ménage à cinq' carry conviction. The narrative arc is tragedy and the occasional comedy of errors as people misunderstand each other all the time, particularly each other's motives and thoughts, and make few efforts to discover what people really think, but simply react, emotionally and generally negatively to each other.

The resulting interpersonal dynamic, in an uncanny way, almost reflects a chess game of its own. Does this work in the novel? With only the smallest effort you can believe the tortured path the characters walk down, which sustains itself over many weeks, and just digs the holes in their relationships deeper and deeper, damaging their lives, as the characters’ self-esteem deflates on a continuing, ever-downward trajectory.

I was wondering how Sally Rooney would pull all this together and she does - just about. As the novel progresses it does become more engrossing and page-turning, as one cares more and more about the characters. 

Is this a novel you could recommend to your wife and servants? Well, there are sex scenes which are somewhat explicit. Are they necessary for the plot? Yes - and pornographic they are not. Some people don't want to read about the sexual side of people's lives; they would find the matter-of-fact way in which these issues are addressed in the book something that they could have a problem with.

Another issue for some will be the introversion and intensity of the characters. Sally Rooney specialises in characters who belong to the unsuccessful wing of the overproduced-elite: they are well-educated, cultured, rather introverted, fashionably left-wing, caring, intelligent, neurotic, alienated, in precarious jobs they hate, and feeling the anomie and alienation of metropolitan atomisation; they flirt with liberal activism, nihilism and the Catholic Church. 

There are people who might want to shake such people and say, ‘Get a grip!’. If that’s your view, don’t waste your time with this novel; to read ‘Intermezzo’ is to spend time, indeed to wallow, in interminable existential angst. Rooney’s writing is not dissimilar in theme to that of Michel Houellebecq's ​’Annihilation’ which I’m reading at the moment and with which I am equally impressed.

The take-home message of ‘Intermezzo’ for me: continue the revolution in Ireland; as Marx advised, break down primitive, oppressive social norms in the name of freedom, love and social solidarity; dare to be unconventional because we are all unique with our own destinies of liberation. I note that the organised left and the feminists really don’t like this book, but that’s because it doesn’t conform to their preferred stereotypes; luckily Sally Rooney has always been a better novelist than that: she does not do agitprop.

Sally Rooney's Marxism

 

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A discussion between ChatGPT and myself about what we know concerning Sally Rooney's political ideas. I debated a few questions and ideas back and forth, and finally asked the chatbot to write up the dialogue as an essay/blog-post.

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Sally Rooney’s Marxist Worldview: A Modern Critique of Capitalism

Sally Rooney, the celebrated author of “Normal People” and “Conversations with Friends”, and now “Intermezzo”, is often described as a Marxist writer. While she doesn’t adhere to a strict political doctrine, her worldview is deeply shaped by Marxist analysis, particularly in her critique of capitalism’s impact on human relationships, social inequality, and cultural life. Through her novels and interviews, Rooney offers a nuanced, modern take on Marxism, one that is intellectually rich but avoids rigid political prescriptions.

Capitalism and the Human Condition

At the core of Rooney’s work is a critique of capitalism’s profound effect on interpersonal relationships. In her Dublin-set novels, characters navigate a world shaped by economic constraints, where class divides and social hierarchies permeate their interactions. Rooney’s portrayal of these dynamics aligns with a Marxist understanding of how capitalism alienates individuals from one another and commodifies human life. Rather than focusing on abstract economic theories, her Marxism is lived, rooted in the everyday struggles of her characters to find meaning and connection in a commodified world.

This approach marks Rooney as part of a tradition of Marxist thought that is more concerned with the cultural and psychological dimensions of capitalism than with strict political-economic analysis. In this way, she echoes the work of the Frankfurt School, a group of mid-20th-century Marxist thinkers who critiqued capitalism’s influence on culture and consciousness.

A Gradualist, Not a Revolutionary

Despite her Marxist leanings, Rooney does not appear to advocate for a Leninist or Bolshevik-style revolution. She rarely discusses violent overthrow or revolutionary parties in her public statements. Instead, her Marxism appears more gradualist and reformist. She is critical of existing power structures but does not suggest an imminent collapse of capitalism or a specific mode of governance to replace it. In some cases she even appears to flirt with a reformed Catholicism as a framework for a meaningful social life.

In interviews, Rooney has described Marxism as more of a framework for understanding the world than a strict political program. This flexible and intellectual approach to Marxism fits with a broader tradition of Western Marxist thought, which emphasizes systemic critique and raising consciousness over revolutionary action. Her work suggests that change may come from a deeper understanding of capitalism’s flaws rather than through immediate, radical upheaval.

Cultural Capitalism and the Frankfurt School

Rooney’s focus on culture and personal life under capitalism closely aligns with Critical Theory as originally developed by the Frankfurt School. Thinkers like Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse were concerned with how capitalist society influences culture, media, and human behavior in ways that reinforce social domination. They argued that capitalism’s control extends beyond economics into the realm of ideology, shaping how individuals perceive the world and their place within it.

Rooney’s novels explore these themes, portraying characters whose desires and relationships are shaped by the broader social and economic forces of capitalism. This approach reflects a Frankfurt School-influenced understanding of capitalism’s subtle, yet pervasive, control over human life. Her critique is not just about economic exploitation but about how capitalist ideology penetrates the most intimate aspects of life, alienating people from themselves and from each other: pervasive meaninglessness always totters at the edges of nihilism.

The Future of Capitalism

While Rooney is deeply critical of capitalism, she does not explicitly predict its immediate downfall or suggest that technological advances like automation will lead to a post-capitalist world. Instead, her focus remains on critiquing the present, analyzing how capitalism affects personal and social life. There is no clear vision of a utopian future in her work - her Marxism is more concerned with the here and now, exposing the contradictions and injustices of the current system.

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Yes, I've read “Intermezzo” now. It's good, smart, perceptive: quite a page turner. Lots of interesting symmetries (partner-age, fraternal personalities). Do middle-class youngish men really say "I love you" with feeling, quite a lot, to their brothers these days in Dublin? The Internet thinks Sally Rooney is INTP - and this is an INTP-ish novel.

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Beautiful world, where are you?

 

I've just re-read this after three years; I'm as impressed as I ever was. I stand by my review here of October 11th 2021.

The Felix character rejects Catholicism crassly: Jesus in the sky spying on people - hard to believe, huh? This is in character.

The Alice character thinks Catholicism (the character Simon is a practising Catholic, although hardly orthodox) is a delusion, but then again, she argues, absent nihilism, what isn't? If we are playing with ideas, I would have liked the complexities of ontology to have made an appearance, as argued here.

After immersing myself in Dublin-adjacent existential angst I'm now considering buying some of her other books: she has 'Intermezzo' coming out in September 24. 

A Better World, Where Are You?

 

"I was brought up as a member of the Church of England and simply follow the customs of my tribe. The church is part of my culture; I like the rituals and the music. If I had grown up in Iraq, I would go to a mosque… It seems to me that people who attack religion don’t really understand it. Science and religion can coexist peacefully — although I don’t think they have much to say to each other. What I would like best would be for scientists not even to use the word “God.” … Fundamental physics shows how hard it is for us to grasp even the simplest things in the world. That makes you quite skeptical whenever someone declares he has the key to some deeper reality… I know that we don’t yet even understand the hydrogen atom — so how could I believe in dogmas? I’m a practicing Christian, but not a believing one."

My position is not quite the same as Martin Rees's.

To be esoteric for a moment, I am a deontic Catholic: not one who buys into the Confessional ontology (i.e. a literal, uncritical, ahistorical reading of the sacred texts). Though paradoxically, it's only when the vast majority of adherents and clergy cleave to a Confessional ontology that the institution persists through the endless millennia. 

Nevertheless historical, materialist deontology is the right paradigm (Roger Scruton is my go-to guy here on deontology).

Sally Rooney hints that with the death of the Marxist-Leninist, communist ideal, Catholicism is one of the few remaining subversive forces insofar as - at its best - it counterposes and organises social solidarity based on high ethical principles against an alienated rootlessness taken to absurdity by a debilitating, progressive wokeness - from which elevated standpoint Catholicism is popularly ridiculed, or treated as absurd or incomprehensible.

(There are other countercultures which also deserve support: those arts which uplift, unify and empower ordinary people and exemplify unfashionable virtues: duty, honour, courage, competence, resilience.)

Sally Rooney's characters in "Beautiful World, Where Are You?" reflect on their ineffectual exposition of a fashionable, but sterile and impotent Marxism. They unwillingly experience the attraction of the granite, collective worldview of the eternal and universal Catholic Church: so often hijacked institutionally by bad people… so often bureaucratically underpinning reaction... but as John Dominic Crossan has so eloquently outlined, so revolutionary and omnipresent in its core doctrine.

"Beautiful World, Where Are You" - Sally Rooney

 

Warning: mild spoilers ahead. If you’re intending to read the novel you might want to skip this review.

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Amelia Ayrelan Iuvino writes a good review of Sally Rooney’s new novel, "Beautiful World, Where Are You", in Jacobin magazine*. 

The setting: 'Eileen and Simon are childhood neighbors whose ongoing flirtation and friendship has recently crossed the threshold of platonic deniability. They can’t imagine a life without the other in it, but their fear of losing what they do have together threatens to prevent their connection from moving further. 

'Felix and Alice, a warehouse worker and a successful novelist who has recently moved to his small town, meet on Tinder and embark on a mutual infatuation that mystifies everyone around them due to the gulf in their class backgrounds and interests (Alice is rich and famous, while Felix has a backbreaking, mind-numbing job; Felix never reads Alice’s books).'

Initially the reader struggles with Alice and Felix's relationship. Felix is crude and uneducated, a druggy and a thrill-seeker. He's the kind of person you'd cross the street to avoid. How plausible is it that middle-class Alice would take up with such?

Suspend your disbelief. Felix is fundamentally better than we are led to believe - and Alice worse.

Amelia summarises the Alice-Eileen relationship.

'Alice and Eileen have been best friends since college, and they maintain an email correspondence encompassing intellectual and philosophical debates as well as their romantic involvements.

“In the midst of everything, the state of the world being what it is, humanity on the cusp of extinction, here I am writing another email about sex and friendship. What else is there to live for?” Alice writes to Eileen.'

While Alice is a rich and successful novelist (an empty celebrity existence in her own estimation), Eileen is a poorly-paid assistant editor on a Dublin literary magazine which only survives on state subsidies. She feels her own life is empty and pointless, going nowhere, while the world is heading for disaster.

“I agree it seems vulgar, decadent, even epistemically violent, to invest energy in the trivialities of sex and friendship when human civilization is facing collapse,” says Eileen. “But at the same time, that is what I do every day.”

Amelia notes that while 'Eileen argues about Marxism with acquaintances at a party, defending a definition of the working class that includes anyone forced to sell their labor to survive. … the closest any one of them seems to come to actual political involvement is Simon, who works as some sort of low-ranking legislative aide in an unnamed left-wing party.'

Eileen, Alice and Simon continually obsess about refugees, climate change and plastic, fear the imminent demise of civilization - and bemoan their utter irrelevance to any of these issues. What really energises them is the endless ebb and flow of their mutual relationships and their jagged emotions.

In another kind of book, Felix might have been the proletarian socialist hero, transmuting the others’ existential angst into a political agenda for change. But here he's both acultural and apolitical. Instead he's the voice of a common sense which no longer considers it remotely possible to think or act big.

The final resolution, although emotionally satisfying, appeals to a kind of nostalgic traditionalism. The comforts of hearth and home, or the sturdy framework of great religion - in the Irish context a kind of Jesus-centric reimagining of the Catholic church. Simon is there already while Alice seems halfway to following. There is a collective retreat into private spaces.

Sally Rooney may have little to say in this novel about any resolution to the crisis of the Marxist left, now marginalised by the shallow crassness of modern Critical Theory, but her invocation of such contemporary dilemmas, particularly her character development, is superlative.

The novel is a page-turner: you care what happens to Eileen and Alice, Simon and Felix. And you may appreciate Rooney's deft scene descriptions and compelling depictions of interpersonal dramas. 

Recommended.