normal people
sally rooney's 2018 novel: on miscommunication, love stories, and the human condition
Life is the thing you bring with you inside your own head.
“I’m not a religious person, but I do sometimes think that God made you for me.”
This quote, spoken by Connell, has become one of the most well-known quotes in contemporary literature. Normal People is centered around Marianne and Connell as they navigate their lives from adolescence to adulthood. Their relationship, which is a large part of their young adult lives, is wrought with misunderstanding after misunderstanding. They struggle together, they struggle apart. They yearn together, for each other, for a better life, for a different life, and they yearn apart.
When I first finished reading this book, I had no idea how to rate it. I either was feeling nothing at all or was overwhelmed by emotions, and I had absolutely no idea which side of the spectrum it was. Reading it was such a humanizing experience that I felt absolutely lost for a bit after this. I was also knee deep in the depths of my literature degree, which included a lot of Shakespeare and Russian literature (my concentrations); Sally Rooney’s style, while perhaps imitated and perhaps even caricatured into oblivion now, was very new to me.
Having read all three of her books multiple times now, I can say that Normal People, while it is her biggest commercial success thus far, is my least favorite of hers. Least favorite is not an accurate way of phrasing it because I do love it, I just love her other two books so much astronomically more.
Unlike her other two novels, however, Normal People is insular to Marianne and Connell, hyper-focused on the examination of their characters and relationship. This is why Normal People oftentimes is categorized as a romance, but I am always so adamant it is not. It is a literary fiction about a relationship because Marianne and Connell’s relationship (or at most times, a lack thereof), is not supposed to be romantic. Rooney’s signature sharp prose and acuity in examining human relationships are abundantly evident in this book. like her other books, Normal People is not a romance, but it is a character study that has a love story as its scaffolding.
Sally Rooney makes sure to drive home the fact that the two main characters have nothing in common from the start. Marianne is an outcast in school and from a wealthy family. Connell is one of the most popular boys in their grade from a working-class background. Their paths had never really crossed before they talked; they were acquaintances at best. this made the connection that they had even more jarring because they created their own little world. They believe that they shine the best when they are with each other.
While they attempt to find happiness and their own place in the world even when they are apart (what it means to be ‘normal people’ in their own definitions), they draw together like two poles of a magnet. There is something electric in their interactions with each other despite Rooney’s clinical prose. At one point, Connell tells Marianne, “I’m not a religious person but I do sometimes think God made you for me”, and I think that’s exactly how I would describe them.
So what happens when the person that ‘God intended’ for them is actually incredibly toxic? Such is the nature of Marianne and Connell’s relationship. The thing that catalyzes their relationship is loneliness and they invariably gravitate back to each other because they mirror and parallel that isolation and sadness (and they think nobody else will be able to understand that). They walk across a tightrope of thinly veiled codependency misconceived as true love.
The thing that really distinguishes Marianne and Connell’s relationship from most is the emotional intensity of their connection. In a way, when they are together, reality sort of falls away. All their social and economic differences don’t seem as big because they connect on a very insular level. It is easy to romanticize their relationship, but I cautiously advise you not to.
While their dynamic (“I’m not a religious person, but I do sometimes think that God made you for me”) may seem romantic, the objective truth lies in the fact that their entire relationship depends on shutting others out. At many points throughout the book, their relationship and the way they approach it becomes so claustrophobic and insular that they basically deprive each other of oxygen in a way.
I think their physical separation as a resolution, leaving an open end for their relationship, the “I’ll always be here”, is the kindest thing they’ve done for each other. Their love exists in a vacuum that’s basically on another plane in a way, from all their other relationships. And if their relationship exists, other ones in their lives can’t.
They attempt to self-medicate through feeling this emotional intensity, which makes it easy for them not to try and seek other healthy outlets and relationships. They always fall into the same toxic song and dance, enshrined in self-loathing and sacrifices (mainly Marianne). While Connell feels isolated within a group of friends, Marianne doesn’t even have that, which results in her world largely revolving around Connell in their adolescence. He is placed on an incredibly high pedestal, and this constitutionally warps their relationship from the start, setting it up for failure in the future.
This sort of insular vacuum between them even affects the way that the side characters are portrayed. One of the main qualms about people who disliked Normal People is that the side characters felt too rudimentary and their personalities were too two-dimensional, falling flat compared to the protagonists. I thought it was actually a testament to just how blinkered Marianne and Connell were, especially in the later chapters.
In the same vein, I know there are a lot of mixed reviews about the very open ending, but it was one of the things I loved most about this book. Making it an open ending marks a fresh start for Marianne and Connell, hopefully, free of miscommunication and full of possibilities (and without each other).
I do think it is worth examining Connell and Marianne’s characters separately before I talk about them as a couple. One of the quotes that stand out to me the most about Marinane’s character is this: