Normal People: A Novel

5/5 ☆☆☆☆☆ #andreeareviews

I have finally read Normal People! I watched the show last year and loved the refreshing portrayal of a relationship that is not black and white; it’s complex, both joyful and painful, and follows the growth of the protagonists.

Needless to say, I loved the book. I’ve been putting it off because this is the last Rooney novel that I haven’t read, and I am left with a massive book hungover that only another Rooney novel can fix. It’s impossible not to feel with the characters, from the awkwardness of the relationship to the impact of their personal trauma on it. It feels like Rooney reaches into your soul, turns it inside out and says: “Here, deal with this now.”. The writing is deceptively simple yet cuts straight to the heart.

We met Marianne and Connell in high school. On the surface, Marianne is an ostracised, weird girl with no friends and an aloof attitude that puts people off. Connell is a popular guy, having lots of friends and being the object of interest of many girls. Connell’s mother works for Marianne’s household as a housekeeper; thus, Connell meets Marianne outside of school whenever he picks up his mom. Their brief interactions give birth first to a form of hidden friendship that turns into lust and then love as they get closer and more intimate.

Their relationship is complicated in the true sense of the word and is deeply influenced by their trauma. Marianne was physically abused by her father; upon his death, the abuse continued with both her mother and brother physically and emotionally abusing her; she was ignored at home and at school, growing up without any friends and without being loved; in school, she was bullied and ostracised, becoming an apparently cold person, incapable of healthy attachment or love. She does not think she deserves to be loved, and I don’t think she knows what being loved really means.

On the other hand, Connell has grown up with a single mother, never knowing her father. He felt loved and appreciated at home; however, he is an introverted, quiet person; nevertheless, this doesn’t stop him from making friends in school and being easygoing and attractive. Later on, however, in college (they both go to the same college), connecting with people becomes harder, and he feels burdened by his social background, coming from a working-class family and hanging out in a circle of rich individuals (such as Marianne). Their relationship evolves and devolves like a mesmerising dance from youth to young adulthood. They bring complexities into each other’s lives, driven by personal trauma, comfort, and a sense of having found home in that person who knows you and understands you fully. Connell, the quiet, brooding intellect, and Marianne, the sharp, unapologetic force of nature - their dynamic is a study of contrasts.

Connell’s internal struggles, the perpetual feeling of not being “enough”, and Marianne’s journey from isolation to self-discovery and perhaps self-love (I am not certain she reached it by the end of the book, but it does feel like she’s on her way) - Rooney peels back the layers, revealing characters so achingly human. And this is what makes Rooney’s writing stand out for me: the incredibly relatable characters, with awkward moments, misunderstandings, and hardship, to communicate feelings and thoughts. The plot becomes, therefore, a canvas where their insecurities, desires, and mistakes point to a poignant picture of love, friendship, and the quest for identity.

I said it before: Rooney is a master of dissecting the nuances of human connection. The themes of power, vulnerability, and societal expectations are woven into the narrative's fabric. The on-again-off-again nature of Marianne and Connell’s relationship isn’t just about love; it’s a mirror reflecting the intricacies of self-worth, societal pressures, and the messiness of growing up.

The exploration of intimacy, both emotional and physical, is raw and unapologetic. Rooney does not shy away from the uncomfortable, and that’s where the magic happens. The power dynamics at play, the impact of societal expectations on individual choices - it’s a literary feast for readers hungry for substance.

Finally, Normal People is not just a book for me; it’s a mirror reflecting the jagged edges of human relationships. Rooney doesn’t hand you answers on a silver platter; she hands you a mirror and says: “Look closely.”. In the end, you’re left with a breathtaking yet heartbreaking portrait of love and the messy, unfiltered journey toward self-acceptance, pondering long after the final page.

Do you ever consider the profound impact significant others have on your life? Decades ago, when our son was toddlerish, my husband and I took him into the country for a weekend. We rented a tiny, Eskom-free stone cottage in a dark valley. One night, with the boy asleep, we sat outside, dazzled by the night sky, and drank a bottle of wine. We’d been a couple for more than a decade by then and somehow began talking about how being together had shaped us as individuals and influenced our life decisions. It was a gentle, but remarkably illuminating discussion for both of us and about both of us. It's a conversation I regularly replay to myself to remember how lucky I am.

I thought a great deal about that night as I read Sally Rooney’s novel, Normal People last week. Normal People tells the story about Marianne and Connell’s relationship, which begins when they’re at school in a small town in West Ireland and continues – on and off – for another four years while they’re at college in Dublin. It’s a tale with so many layers that, while my experience of reading it bordered on compulsive, I find it difficult to analyse – suffice to say that it’s not about the plot; it’s about the characters and their inner lives, and the writing.

Rooney, who is 27-years-old, is widely feted as the next best thing, “one of the most exciting voices to emerge in an already crackerjack new generation of Irish writers”, and a “Salinger for the Snapchat generation”. I don’t dispute the praise. Her writing is extraordinarily elegant. Confident and uncluttered, it conveys an immediacy and ingenuousness that drew me in and held me from beginning to end, which came too soon. The story, I felt – shocked to discover I'd reached the final full stop – was unfinished, there were loose ends to tuck away. But, once I recovered, I realised the way it ends is part of its magic. Real relationships are forever evolving, eternally incomplete, and so it figures that a novel about relationships will be too.

Normal People is told from both Marianne’s and Connell’s points of view. It reminded me how, no matter how well you think you know a person, your perceptions and understanding of what they say and mean can be skewed. The novel also shows how our identity, self-esteem and who we become as adults are bound to our upbringing – indefinitely. Marianne is from a wealthy, but unloving and dysfunctional family. Connell is from a poor, but loving family. It largely shapes who they are and how they relate to the world. The novel also examines the impact of bullying – both on victims and perpetrators.

Ironically, I might not find the book easy to analyse, but I could go on forever, waffling about the many layers in Normal People. I daren’t though because then you might not feel compelled to read the book yourself, which would be a pity. A huge pity. Here’s a tiny sample of the writing to demonstrate what a humungous pity it would be:

“Helen has given Connell a new way to live. It’s as if an impossibly heavy lid has been lifted off his emotional life and suddenly he can breathe fresh air. It is physically possible to type and send a message reading: I love you! It had never seemed possible before, not remotely, but in fact it’s easy. Of course if someone saw the messages he would be embarrassed, but he knows now that this is a normal kind of embarrassment, an almost protective impulse towards a particularly good part of life. He can sit down to dinner with Helen’s parents, he can accompany her to her friends’ parties, he can tolerate the smiling and the exchange of repetitive conversation. He can squeeze her hand while people ask him questions about his future. When she touches him spontaneously, applying a little pressure to his arm, or even reaching to brush a piece of lint off his collar, he feels a rush of pride, and hopes that people are watching them. To be known as her boyfriend plants him firmly in the social world, establishes him as an acceptable person, someone with a particular status, someone whose conversational silences are thoughtful rather than socially awkward."

I’m not sure I feel changed after reading Normal People, but I do feel upgraded. And reminded about how life is a series of relationships, and how a few of them help shape who we are and how we live our lives. And that thinking about that and acknowledging those who positively influence us is important. And yes, Sally Rooney has a fan in me. My current read is her first novel, Conversations with Friends.