If you haven’t already been bombarded with recommendations to watch the BBC adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel, Normal People, then what rock have you been living under?
Much like Tiger King a few weeks ago, Normal People has caught us all in our vulnerable, quarantined states and quickly become something of a national obsession. Unlike Tiger King, however, Normal People’s popularity hinges on its incredibly honest, raw, and emotional depiction of characters in whom we can all see elements of ourselves. Where Tiger King presented real people who could have been works of fiction; Normal People gives us fictional characters who are so recognisable that you feel like you know them.
Normal People is one of those truly rare creatures, a tv adaptation that does justice to the book. A feat I thought would be impossible given the weighty emotion, sensitivity, and sheer lack of communication between the characters of Connell and Marianne.
How could such a deep and fragile connection be adequately portrayed on the screen with the same delicate vulnerability as Rooney’s writing? The answer: get Rooney to write the script (well half of it, she worked alongside screenwriter Alice Birch). Between them, the result was a perfect translation of the book.
Actors Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones brought these characters to life as if Rooney’s words had danced straight off the page and on to our screens. Mescal’s stuttering, guttural, half-formed responses show how he struggles to put words to his emotions or even make sense of them. In moments of intense emotion, you can almost see the blockage forming in his mouth as he rigidly chokes on his feelings. When these feelings are finally unlocked in a particularly difficult therapy session, the release of emotion is visceral, upsetting, and so long overdue. Likewise, Edgar-Jones’s Marianne perfectly captures the delicate balance between the inner world of pain, trauma, and insecurity which she masks with a defensive, and at times downright unfriendly public image.
Watching this series reminded me so much of my own experience of leaving home for the first time, those first bambi steps towards working out who you are. It is not easy for anyone, my personal experience was clouded with a heartbreak I didn’t even realise that I didn’t know how to process, many misfired friendships, and a complete confusion around what it even means to know yourself and others. Watching Marianne and Connell on this same journey brought all those feelings back and made me aware of how much I have grown.
I looked back on what I had written about the novel when I read it last year and it seems it had much the same impression on me then:
‘This book had my heart racing at points and a dull achey lump in my throat at others. Sally Rooney has perfectly captured the awkward, loving, sometimes hurtful, side-stepping waltz of two people drawn together and pushed apart throughout years of a relationship. In a sense it reminded me of David Nicholls’ One Day, but the tragedy in Normal People is more subtle and this just makes it all the more powerful.
Everyone can relate to that awkward first relationship, the impossibility of articulating your true feelings and the misplaced importance on silly, irrelevant things. But not everyone is lucky enough to experience a connection as strong as described by Rooney. One that will last through the all hurt and the anguish and the inelegant words.
As I read, I was reminded of my own early relationship and how I haven’t always found it so easy to express myself either. Rooney inspired in me a strange, melancholy happiness for the relationships I have been through and the wonderfully rare connection I am lucky to have now.
Her subtly-weaved ending expertly leaves it up to the reader to write the future of these flawed and beautiful characters. This novel deeply moved me, I wish I could have read it at age 18, before all the inelegant words of my own.’
So, what is it about Sally Rooney’s Normal People which has us all obsessively hooked and has even spawned instagram pages dedicated to that symbol of restrained emotion and intense sexuality: Connell’s chain?
The truth of it.
This is a work of fiction in which our own realities are reflected. The messy, hard bits which we don’t talk about. The parts we don’t show on social media and the stuff we struggle even to share with our friends.
Rooney’s work is delicate, nuanced, and oh-so-human; she writes in a way that I could only dream of.
As Marianne says to Connell about his talent for words: ‘I am completely jealous’.
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