This piece is part of a collection compiled by scholars and recent alumni from various educational institutions in Ireland. In her recently published novel, titled Intermezzo, Irish author Sally Rooney encourages university students to dedicate as much time to reading as possible. Looking back on her university days, she regrets not having spent more time on reading.
She voiced this sentiment during a discussion with two guest authors of this week’s Irish Times Magazine. Adding that she never felt a sense of regret after finishing a book, but has many times regretted not reading one. She opines that reading as much as possible should be a crucial part of student life, irrespective of other subjective experiences they encounter during their university years.
Sally Rooney further offered insights into her method of employing quotation marks in the dialogue of her books, responding to an inquiry if this practice might be an allusion to Cormac McCarthy’s style. She also cited James Joyce’s unorthodox method of not separating dialogues with quotation marks, drawing a line between reality and fiction in the process.
She explained that in non-fiction she uses quotation marks to highlight the words of others, comparing it to a pair of tongs to hold something alien. However, she argues that in her novels, as all the words are her own, there’s no need for such a marker. Using quotation marks to signify dialogues in her opinion artificially disconnects them from the narrative. She rather prefers a seamless flow in her works, without further clutter on every page.
These engaging inquiries came from Jenny Maguire from Trinity College Dublin and Tess O’Regan from University College Cork.