“All these years, they’ve been like two little plants sharing the same plot of soil, growing around one another, contorting to make room, taking certain unlikely positions.”
Title: Normal People
Author: Sally Rooney
Publication: April 16, 2019 by Hogarth Press
At a Glance:
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.
My Thoughts:
I'm conducting an experiment where I read all of the candidates for the Women's Prize for Fiction of 2019. I've begun to learn that to make it on the list, the book has to be great, but it also has to be something deeper with noticeable social commentary.Normal People flew by for me - I just could not stop reading. Sally Rooney's writing felt so unique to me (maybe because there were no quotation marks for conversations?) But even that caused me confusion in conversations between the main characters, Marianne and Connell, where they were also confused, which sounds a little meta. I guess what I mean is that I felt like I was participating in the confusion and misunderstanding between the characters, driving the novel's message further.
The main themes I took away from Normal People is despite how abnormal Marianne and Connell feel, I found their thoughts completely normal. Although at points their misunderstandings and miscommunication would be exaggerated and frustrating, I think that it could also be realistic between partners. I don't believe anyone goes through life constantly asking a partner, "Well, what did you mean by that?" Instead, partners learn to interpret the other person because they feel like they "know" them. Simple issues between Marianne and Connell could have been solved by that one question, but they were heightened by the lack of answers.
There are also constant references to public perception and making life choices based on what other people would think. There are elements of abuse that cause successive trauma, which also felt genuine to me. Connell is sometimes in awe that Marianne goes through life not caring about being judged, but she is also dealing with her own self-loathing and beliefs that she is damaged and not special. Both characters go through the novel thinking that the other is the only one that truly understands them, but the internal monologues show that no matter how close two people can be, there are still things that can be lost in translation.
My Rating: 📱📱📱📱📱
Women's Prize for Fiction 2019 Longlist
Booker Prize 2018 Longlist
Andrew Carnegie Medal 2020 Longlist
TIME's Must-Read Books of 2019
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