I have always known that Sally Rooney doesn’t write only romance books. She is more interested in relationships. There were moments when I expected to read a romance from her, and instead I found intimate moments: different ways of expressing love, different ways of looking for love. I came to realize that people attach themselves to someone for reasons that go beyond simply loving them. This is not news. However, the way Rooney handles the question of what makes two people interested in one another, and what makes them choose to stand next to each other or not, is unique, authentic, and inspiring.
In an interview with Louisiana Channel, Rooney explains that when two people are alone in a bedroom, no one is thinking about class and gender, but the structures are there. To observe intimate relationships closely, she says, means also observing the structures that make those relationships possible and limit what they can become (Louisiana Channel, 2019). That is why her novels cannot be read as only love stories. The question of why two people stand next to each other cannot be separated from who they are, what they have, where they live, and what their habitus (Bourdieu, 1984) makes it possible for them to want. Her novels also become a mirror, showing our own opinions, perspectives, and positionalities within the very structures she points out.
In her latest novel, Intermezzo (2024), one of the relationships in the storyline triggered me so much that I stopped reading for a while. I tried to remember why I had stopped, and the part I remembered is what inspired this article. Naomi and Peter’s relationship is marked by a difference in economic status. Naomi is a student with neither a stable income nor a place of her own whereas Peter is a prestigious lawyer and has the opposite lifestyle. What unsettled me was how much they talked about money and how natural these conversations seemed to them. They are not formally together and don't call each other boyfriend or girlfriend, yet she can ask for money whenever she wants, and Peter is willing and able to provide whatever help she needs. Midway through the book, I reached a point where I could no longer keep reading those conversations.
A relationship built around money is not inherently a problem. It becomes one only in the way I see it. Mary Douglas, in her work on purification rituals and what they symbolize, writes that there is no such thing as absolute dirt: it exists in the eye of the beholder (Douglas, 1966/2002, p. 2). Something that is a stain for one person is nothing for another, and makeup can be dirty to someone else. It is dirty according to someone, in someone’s perception.
I bring up this discussion of dirt because I was triggered by their dynamic for a reason. Adopting an autoethnographic lens, I can use this reaction as data: it says something about my biographical background and the kind of relationships I am capable of wanting. I am capable of wanting only the kind of relationship my world allows me to want. There are things I am not capable of bearing. I might be able to bear them, but only if I understand the different parameters involved, rather than treating my reaction as an individual problem. What helps is recognizing the social structures I inhabit and understanding how they have shaped me into someone who reacts this way.
Just as I interpreted my reaction through this lens, I also interpret state regulations, such as censorship or indirect censorship, that lead people to self-regulate their own art and businesses in this way. A society’s culture is not something that simply emerges naturally from its members. It is shaped by what authorities and institutions allow, forbid, and label as acceptable or dangerous. Our world, first and foremost, is socially constructed. If dirt exists in the eye of the beholder, then what a state calls dangerous tells us about the beholder rather than about the thing itself. Douglas makes a related point when she argues that where there is dirt, there is a system (Douglas, 1966/2002, p. 44). To call something dirty is to reveal the order one wants to protect. Sometimes authorities find certain ideas dangerous, such as “gender ideology.” I find those moments interesting, not because the ideas are inherently dangerous, but because who finds them dangerous, and in which circumstances, tells us more about the system of thought they want to preserve.
Nowadays, Sally Rooney is facing a situation closely related to indirect censorship by the UK. After the UK proscribed Palestine Action in July 2025, she wrote in the Irish Times that she supported the group and would use her royalties for it, whatever the legal label (Rooney, 2025). Two months later she could not travel to London to receive an award for Intermezzo, because she had been advised she risked arrest. Her statement was read out in her absence (The Irish Times, 2025). In October 2026, her publisher Faber announced it could no longer supply her books in the UK, because it could not legally pass her UK earnings on to her (Associated Press, 2026).
In the eyes of the UK, being part of Palestine Action is an offence under criminal law. This legal regulation affects many people’s lives both economically and socially. Even an artist had to withdraw her novels from sale in the UK. This may lead other artists to self-censor their work and silence their political existence as well. Legal regulations cause a chilling effect, where artists, in order to stay away from possible problems, shy away from acting in opposition to those very regulations (Schauer, 1978). It affects their work, their stance, and the way they deal with contemporary political issues. Here we can interpret this regulation as the UK trying to preserve a community where there is no criticism of authorities. The authorities cannot stand an artist who speaks up freely and stands up for human rights. This fragility of politics leads to strict regulations, where people eventually find themselves trapped in the ways the authorities find appropriate. The very system of law, supposedly constructed in favor of human freedom and in protection of human rights under the name of democracy, is being used to protect a system of thought that benefits some groups of people in the world.
To conclude, if we keep trying to live in a world where other people determine our living conditions, we only get better at recognizing the escapes in the maze. As the system itself is a complex one, there is no one easy solution to it. What we can do is deconstruct the way we think, and observe and interpret what happens around us. This starts with being able to interpret our own system of thought, to be critical about what we do, what we represent, and about where we stand in certain circumstances. I believe change starts from the inside and moves out to the world around us, where we can together rebuild our consciousness and become self-aware beholders. Novels are one of the places where this begins. I am glad there are people like Rooney who do not blame individuals but show that underlying structures are involved, and who have a cause and act accordingly.
Bibliography
Associated Press. (2026, October 14). Sally Rooney’s publisher withdraws her books from UK sale over support for Palestine Action. ABC News. https://abcnews.com/International/wireStory/sally-rooneys-publisher-withdraws-books-uk-sale-support-137262542
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste (R. Nice, Trans.). Harvard University Press. (Original work published 1979)
Douglas, M. (2002). Purity and danger: An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo. Routledge. (Original work published 1966)
Louisiana Channel. (2019). Sally Rooney interview: Writing with Marxism [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1S5bOdJq3U
Louisiana Channel. (2019). Writer Sally Rooney on transforming life into novels [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho5ja2trqrs&t=399s
Rooney, S. (2024). Intermezzo. Faber & Faber.
Rooney, S. (2025, August 16). I support Palestine Action. If this makes me a ‘supporter of terror’ under UK law, so be it. The Irish Times. https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/2025/08/16/sally-rooney-i-support-palestine-action-if-this-makes-me-a-supporter-of-terror-under-uk-law-so-be-it
Schauer, F. (1978). Fear, risk and the First Amendment: Unraveling the “chilling effect.” Boston University Law Review, 58(5), 685–732. https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/facpubs/879
The Irish Times. (2025, September 18). Sally Rooney says she cannot safely enter UK without facing arrest over Palestine. https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/2025/09/18/sally-rooney-says-she-cannot-safely-enter-uk-without-facing-arrest-over-palestine
The Irish Times. (2026, October 17). Sales of Sally Rooney books surge in Northern Ireland after publisher stops distribution.
