Life is the thing you bring with you inside your own head
Read it already? Check out my list of other suggestions for Ireland!
This was the obvious choice for Ireland for me, because I bought the physical copy of Normal people in an airport over a year ago. and for some reason, I never got around to reading it.
And maybe that was for the best, because you absolutely shouldn’t read this book in the confinement of an airplane seat. You need room to squirm, let out loud exasperated sighs, and kick your feet in frustration.
There are a million reasons for me to hate Normal People. But I don’t. In fact, I think I sort of loved it.
I have not watched this yet, but I think I must.
The story follows the tangled relationship between Marianne and Connell, two young people from a small fictional town called Carricklea in County Sligo in Northwestern Ireland, whose lives become deeply intertwined.
Marianne is book-smart and comes from a wealthy but abusive family. At school, she’s ostracized and lonely, while Connell, the popular athlete, is everything Marianne isn’t: popular, seemingly at ease, and from a poor working-class background. Connell’s mother works as a cleaning lady in Marianne’s house.
Despite these two teenagers’ differences in both social status and character, they enter into a secret passionate relationship and form a bond that will keep on bringing them back to each other again and again and again.
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 or become part of it.
As the story moves through their university years in Dublin, the smart Marianne gains popularity, while Connell struggles more and more with depression and crippling anxiety. But Marianne has her own demons.
There’s no shortage of reasons to be frustrated with this book. Marianne and Connell are deeply flawed characters. They are both, quite frankly, very unlikeable for most of the book. Their relationship is marked by repeated misunderstandings, and an almost laughable inability to communicate their feelings to each other. I guess Normal People is a love story, but it is a deeply depressing one.
The constant miscommunication is infuriating, and I repeatedly wanted to rip my hair out, and scream at the two of them to get their act together and just talk to each other. Or just throw the book across the room.
And yes, there is a long list of things I could choose to hate about this book. I read a couple of deeply critical one-star reviews (never do that before you write your own), and yes, critical people, I largely agree with you. I do.
It is true that the book is mostly plotless, that the character development is somewhat disappointing, for Marianne especially, and that all of the side characters are one-dimensional caricatures. And yes, you can indeed question if these people’s lives and first world problems are actually as interesting and unique as they (and the author) seem to think. And yes, you can absolutely discuss how well Rooney handles the aspects of mental health and abuse.
He has sincerely wanted to die,
but he has never sincerely wanted Marianne to forget about him.
That’s the only part of himself he wants to protect,
the part that exists inside her.
And yet, inexplicably, despite all of that, I just could not stop caring about Connell and Marianne. I rooted for them, I cried with them, I raged and I hoped and I kept coming back to this relationship, just like they did. I was deeply and irrevocably invested.
Even though the communication is exactly the problem in this novel, in my opinion Sally Rooney is a master of writing dialogue. Every word, every pause, every silence between Marianne and Connell is precisely crafted and almost unbearably realistic.
The book made me feel. It annoyed me to no end, it made my heart hurt, and it made me think.
Normal People is not a comforting read, but it is honest. Normal life is messy. Normal people are flawed.
I think I kind of loved it. I’m still not sure.
