Rating: 99% | A+ | ★★★★★ Warnings: + Sexual Content + Mental Illness Synopsis (from Goodreads): At school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school soccer team while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her housekeeping job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers - one they are determined to conceal. A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other. Spoiler-Free Section: Normal People grabs you by the hair, tugs at the roots in your scalp until it is almost painful, and never lets you go. I picked this book up the same week I had a chemistry final and a ten page research paper to submit. Though my stress had already led to several uninterrupted days of migraines, I somehow believed it was a good idea to pick up a book and cram more activities into my already packed schedule. I don't regret it. (Although I could have definitely done better on my chem final.) I first encountered Normal People--oddly enough—not through book-related media, but on my Youtube explore page in late March, when BBC released the first look at its television adaptation of the book. The trailer is indelible and mesmerizing for one reason: its normality (no pun intended). There is no grand political backdrop, or fantastical magical world surrounding Connell and Marianne. Instead, there is only the two of them, endlessly orbiting each other in the ordinary world that they live in. Normal People is not beloved because it is a masterpiece. It value lies in its unflinching analysis of ordinary life and ordinary people—the decisions, the tragedies, and the dreams that make us ruinous and ruined. (Click "Read More" for spoilers.) Plot (29/30)
Beginning (9/10) The beginning of the book starts slowly. Rooney throws the reader in the deep end; there is no explicit explanation of the characters' backstories. However, there is an incredible amount of care put into the details of the story that allows the readers to draw conclusions even without much exposition. She wears ugly thick-soled flat shoes and doesn't put make-up on her face. People have said she doesn't shave her legs or anything. Connell once heard that she spilled chocolate ice cream on herself in the school lunchroom, and she went to the girls' bathrooms and took her blouse off to wash it in the sink. That's a popular story about her, everyone has heard it. In just a few short sentences, Rooney rounds out three things: Marianne's character, Connell's character, and the society they live in. It is the work of someone who is intimately acquainted with the human condition (in fact,The New Yorker once published a profile of Rooney titled "Sally Rooney Gets in Your Head"). The other beautiful aspect of this story is how the setting mirrors the plot and the pace of the plot. In Connell and Marianne's sleepy little town, little happens. Or, if scandals do occur, they are hidden away—Marianne's domestic abuse, illicit romantic pursuits at school, Connell and Marianne's affair. In Carricklea, they are who they will always be, sculpted in stone by their childhoods—but elsewhere, they can shed their birthrights. As Marianne says (in one of my favorite quotes in the book), Marianne had the sense that her real life was happening somewhere very far away, happening without her, and she didn't know if she would ever find out where it was and become a part of it. [...] All she knew was that when it started, she wouldn't need to imagine it anymore. Though it is still very early in the story when Connell and Marianne begin their relationship, the reader cannot help but feel attached to them. Every interaction between them opens new wounds between them. Most people, I think, will recognize their own human struggles in the characters. Connell's yearning to tell Marianne everything that he thinks is too much. Marianne's need to remove herself from and judge the people around her to avoid facing her own demons. Even in memory she will find this moment unbearably intense, and she's aware of this now, while it's happening. She has never believed herself fit to be loved by any person. but now she has a new life, of which this is the first moment, and even after many years have passed she will still think: Yes, that was it, the beginning of my life. And of course, Connell's devastating decision to take another girl to the Debs instead of Marianne. The first tug at the threads between them. Middle (10/10) I expected Connell and Marianne to cross paths again, but I was rather asininely surprised when they met at the first Trinity party. However, it's not just their reunion that makes this section of the book so much more intense than the last; no, it is also the deterioration of the protagonists as individuals. Their realizations that their new environment is not all they thought it would be. Back home, Connell's shyness never seemed like much of an obstacle to his social life, because everyone knew who he was already, and there was never any need to introduce himself or create impressions about his personality. [...] Now he has a sense of invisibility, nothingness, with no reputation to recommend him to anyone. Connell's lack of money and inherited aristocratic poise makes him an outcast at Trinity. Despite being near the top of the class, he remains painfully isolated and overlooked. Meanwhile, Marianne is in her element. No longer branded the "weird" girl, she has thrown herself into the school social scene and is thriving amongst her peers—even though she knows that they are far too self-absorbed for her. Marianne's point of view doesn't show up for a few chapters, but we do have the opportunity to see Connell's reaction to seeing her again. He had recurring dreams about being with Marianne again, holding her peacefully the way he used to when they were tired, and speaking with her in low voices. Then he'd remember what had happened, and wake up feeling so depressed he couldn't move a single muscle in his body. One night in June he came home drunk and asked Lorraine if she saw Marianne much at work. When Connell and Marianne reunite, you almost wish they wouldn't. The book is not even halfway done yet—a telling sign that this brief calm will not last. And it doesn't. The two of them continue dancing around each other, indiscriminately repressing both their demons and their emotions. His eyes were hurting and he closed them. He couldn't understand how this had happened, how he had let the discussion slip away like this. It was too late to say he wanted to stay with her, that was clear, but when had it become too late? [...] When he left her building he did cry, as much for his pathetic fantasy of living in her apartment as for their failed relationship, whatever that was. Despite their breakup, neither of them can stay away from each other. That much is evident. When Connell meets Marianne to discuss her new boyfriend, Jamie, he cannot help but feel alarmed when she tells him that that Jamie is a sadist. Or when she tells him that she was the one who suggested that Jamie be rougher with her. Maybe I want to be treated badly, she says. I don't know. Sometimes I think I deserve bad things because I'm a bad person. [...] You never said any of this to me, he says. When we were . . . It was different with you. We were, you know. Things were different. And then, when Connell shows up unexpectedly at Marianne's door one night, drunk and broke, she begins to question her relationship with Jamie. And for the first time in a long time, she begins to hope. Just being near Connell makes her long for old times, happier times. That is, until he tells her that he's already seeing someone. Are you in love with her? she says. Yeah. I do love her, yeah. Now Marianne starts crying, the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to her in her entire adult life. Her back is turned but she feels her shoulders jerk upwards in a horrible involuntary spasm. End (10/10) The last third of the book comes and goes as quickly as the first third. Connell's relationship with Helen is, by all accounts, a healthy one. His mother likes her, he has much in common with her, and she's good-natured. Yet he cannot stop himself from thinking of Marianne and the impact she has had on his life. And as time goes on, Marianne's absence becomes a destabilizing effect on his life. Just as his absence destabilizes her life. I don't know what's wrong with me, says Marianne. I don't know why I can't be like normal people. Her voice sounds oddly cool and distant, like a recording of her voice played after she herself has gone away or departed for somewhere else. When Marianne and Jamie in effect break up, Connell is right there to pick up the pieces. And it is only with Connell that Marianne can be vulnerable. She tells him about her brother's abuse and her mother's tacit approval of it. Connell expresses little pity; instead, he offers her comfort and compassion. He meets her as an equal, as someone who is willing to listen and understand—two abilities that the rest of the people in her life lack. But, as is the motif in this book, their calm in Italy is transient. Connell continues his tour of Europe and Marianne goes to Sweden to study abroad. There, she encounters Lukas, another figure much like Jamie. Marianne says, There's always been something inside her that men have wanted to dominate, and their desire for domination can look so much like attraction, even love. Back in Dublin, Connell isn't doing much better. After the suicide of one of his high school friends, he seeks out the help of a therapist. So much of this story revolves around guilt. Marianne's guilt over her imagined wrongdoing. Connell's guilt over the death of his friend, even though he was never a particularly good person. It's rare that media of any sort depicts characters receiving mental health assistance, especially male characters. Normal People is so intimately acquainted with depression, anxiety, and guilt that it is almost an obligation for Rooney to at least mention ways in which people who see much of themselves in Connell/Marianne can seek help. (Rooney is often hailed as the mouthpiece for the Millennial generation, and in an age where mental health issues are skyrocketing, such topics are the burdens of the young authors of our time.) When Connell refuses to hit her, I think Marianne realizes the extent to which she has revealed her true self to him. It has always been easier for her to sit upon her perch high above the rest of the world and categorize people. If she knows who they are—or if she can play on their most distinguishing qualities—she can construct an appropriate version of herself to respond to them. Connell, however, is the only one who has known who she is from the start. And that frightens her. Something has come over her, she doesn't know what it is. It reminds her of how she used to feel in Sweden, a kind of nothingness, like there's no life inside her. She hates the person she has become, without feeling any power to change anything about herself. But when Marianne runs home, she finds a new monster waiting for her. Her brother lashes out at her simply out of the pleasure of doing so. And the first—and only—person she can contact is Connell. There is a large time jump between that night and the last chapter. Rooney leaves the events of the interim to the reader's imagination. Both Connell and Marianne have hit their lowest points; yet seven months later, they have somehow managed to pull themselves up out of the abyss. Marianne still thinks about their old lives: their school days, their reunions at the start of university, her boyfriends, and all of their shared specters that occasionally rise again. But she knows that they have both left those old shells of themselves behind, for the better. The future is unknown yet, but she knows where she has been and how far she has come. You should go, she says. I'll always be here. You know that. Characters (30/30) Development (15/15) Marianne and Connell's respective evolutions are stunning. At the start of the story, there is a certain precocity to both of their characters. It appears as if they have both already decoded the truths of the world and have nothing left to learn. But over the course of the novel, that mindset proves to be naive, especially for Marianne. At the novel's conclusion, Connell has transformed from someone who has been both popular and ostracized to someone who is secure in his own goals and identity. Marianne also transforms from a coldly intelligent and emotionally repressed figure to someone who is raw, hurting, and healed. Lure (15/15) Many authors have attempted to write characters chafing against the trappings of contemporary society, but none of them have succeeded as tenderly or as ruthlessly as Rooney. Rooney performs a sort of vivisection on her main characters, seizing them by their deepest secrets. It is so easy to judge Marianne as a stuck-up, albeit intelligent girl and Connell as a boy whose only defining characteristic is kindness. But just as these judgments arise in the reader's mind, a sense of suspicion creeps up on them—the sense that these two-dimensional profiles are exactly the ones that Rooney wants them to build, just so that when she does obliterate them, it will be all the more satisfying. The characters' allure is so difficult to explain, or to even attribute a single phrase to it. Marianne and Connell are so excruciatingly human—in the things that they love, the masochist activities they force themselves to deserve, and in the stumbles they make. Everyone has seen or will see themselves in Marianne and Connell at some point in their lives, that much is true. Though one may not grow up in a household with an abusive brother, or attend the foremost university in Ireland, or find their paths constantly deviating from and intersecting with one single person, this novel—with its details of excruciating loss, heartbreak, and tentative triumph—is a stunningly universal text. Writing (20/20) Descriptions (10/10) Rooney's most laconic sentences are her most descriptive. Admiration of such a feat seized me from the very first page (see Beginning) and continued throughout the novel. But it is not just the brevity that makes Rooney's writing so cutting—it is also her flawless ability to see into the depths of the human soul and pull out unsaid hopes and fears. He finds himself crossing things out in his journal as if he imagines some future person poring over it in detail, as if he wants the future person to know which ideas he has thought better of. Flow (10/10) It took me a little while to become used to Rooney's writing style, particularly the lack of quotation marks around her dialogue. But as the story progressed, I found myself appreciating the absence of such punctuation more and more. The writing style also makes use of abrupt turns, both in dialogue and thought, immersing the reader in a constant stream of activity. Closure/Set-Up (20/20) Logic (10/10) and Lure/Closure (10/10) Enjoyment of the ending depends purely on whether or not the reader is a masochist. In all seriousness, I believe the ending of Normal People is one of the best open-ended endings I have ever read. Rooney does a phenomenal job of emphasizing that it is less about the ending of the story and more about the journey. Marianne and Connell may part ways and finally not come back to each other, but they will be better for it. If they truly never meet again, they will at least know that they brought each other as far as they could bring each other—that this latest and perhaps last split confirms their security, their autonomy, and their peace. He brought her goodness like a gift and now it belongs to her. Meanwhile his life opens out before him in all directions at once. They've done a lot of good for each other. Really, she thinks, really. People can really change one another. Thank you for reading!
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