This is the writer's voice, new fiction from the New Yorker. I'm Deborah

Treisman fiction editor at the New Yorker. On this episode of the writer's voice,

we'll hear Sally Rooney read her story opening theory

from the July 8th and 15th 2024 issue of the magazine.

Rooney is the author of three novels, Conversations with Friends, Normal People, and Beautiful

World Where Are You. A new novel in Trometso from which this story was adapted will be published

in September. Now here's Sally Rooney.

Opening Theory

Ivan is standing on his own in the corner, while the men from the chess club move the

chairs and tables around. The men are saying things to one another like,

back a bit there, Tom. Mind yourself now. Alone, Ivan is standing, wanting to sit down, but uncertain

which of the chairs need to be rearranged still, and which are in their correct places already.

This uncertainty arises because the way in which the men are moving the furniture corresponds

to no specific method Ivan has been able to discern. A familiar arrangement is slowly beginning to emerge,

a central U shape composed of ten tables, with ten chairs along the outer rim of the shape,

and a general seating area around the outside, but the process

by which the men are reaching this arrangement seems haphazard.

Standing on his own in the corner, Ivan thinks, with no especially intense focus, about the most efficient method

of arranging, say, a random distribution of a given number of tables and chairs into the aforementioned

shape. It's something he has thought about before, while standing in other

corners, watching other people move similar furniture around similar indoor spaces.

The different approaches you could use, if you happen to be writing a computer program to maximize process efficiency.

...