Normal People: How to Wreck a Person’s Day in Two Hours or Less

I finished this book in two hours flat before texting “F*ck you” to the friend who recommended Sally Rooney.

It’s kind of ironic that I complained about needing an American edition of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter because I can’t read international dialogue formatting and then immediately picked up a book with no dialogue formatting whatsoever.

Sally Rooney has wrecked me. I knew Normal People would going in, because I’ve heard nothing but raving reviews about this book, the HBO adaptation, and Rooney’s first novel.

The review on the front cover even warned me I would lose my whole night to this book — ”[A] novel that demans to be read compulsively, in one sitting” according to The Washington Post — but I didn’t expect to get bowled away the way I did.

Of course this book won like every Irish novelist award in 2019. Of course it did.

Initial thoughts: Dialogue can still be the central point of a novel without standard formatting

It took me a while to get into Rooney’s writing style, mainly because she doesn’t use quotation marks in dialogue.

However, once you get used to it, this style is extremely compelling because it puts you right in the driver’s seat of the narrative. I believe it also adds a layer of confusion and complexity similar to what Connell and Marianne are experiencing as they grapple with their complex feelings for each other.

Here’s an example:

Are you all right? Karen says.

I’m fine, says Marianne. I’m sorry. I think I just had too much to drink.

Leave her, says Rachel.

Here, look, it was just a bit of fun, says Eric. Pat’s actually a sound enough guy if you get to know him.

I think it was funny, says Rachel.

At this Karen snaps around and looks at them. Why are you even out here if you think it was so funny? she says. Why don’t you go and pal around with your best friend Pat? If you think it’s so funny to molest young girls?

How is Marianne young? says Eric.

We were all laughing at the time, says Rachel.

That’s not true, says Connell.

Everyone looks around at him then. Marianne looks at him. Their eyes meet.

Are you okay, are you? he says.

Oh, do you want to kiss her better? says Rachel.

His face is flushed now, and he touches a hand to his brow. Everyone is still watching him. The wall feels cold against Marianne’s back.

Rachel, he says, would you ever fuck off?

First of all, love the realism — the dialogue here is a perfect clipping from the conversations of actual Irish teenagers. (And I would know, because I spent four months there because I’m so worldly and traveled and God, Maggie, you’re so cool.)

There’s also something in Rooney’s writing style that reminds me of the way I text with my friends. (There are a few text conversations too, and they’re not full of stilted chatspeak the way most non-Millennials think Millennials talk to each other.)

General effect: Two hours of getting repeatedly sucker-punched in the lungs

I think part of why this novel affected me so much is because I was attending school in Ireland in the mid-2010’s, when this story takes place. I was also going through a similar “will we, won’t we” long distance relationship and struggling with the intense alcoholism that seems to permeate everything about Irish colleges.

(No offense, but that stereotype is totally true. Whose idea was it to make the drinking age 18? Yikes.)

I loved this book. It was nontraditional in a few ways, traditional in others — a classic love story, but fraught with modern complications and the melodrama that tends to define Millennial relationships. (Again, no offense, I am one of you, I get it.)

One thing I struggled with in Normal People is its treatment of submission.

(**MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!**)

Portrayal of BDSM: Not fetishized, but could still be finessed

Marianne, who grew up in a psychologically and physically abusive household, struggles to find her sense of worth in her relationships with others, particularly in her sexual relationships with men. This takes the form of a power struggle with Connell, who realizes that he has complete control over everything Marianne does in relation to him — if he gives her an order, she’ll obey it.

For Connell, this is difficult, because once he realizes it’s there, he doesn’t know how to handle this power dynamic. (And also, he’s a right prick to Marianne when they’re still in secondary school, which further complicates their already complicated relationship.)

In other relationships, Marianne experiments with BDSM and being a “submissive,” but Rooney alludes to the lack of safety in these relationships. Marianne describes being “beaten up” during sex, rather than the traditional safety rules and give-and-take relationship that one associates with modern (and real) BDSM interactions.

I always struggle with portrayals of BDSM in fiction. Since 50 Shades of Gray came out, BDSM has been inappropriately portrayed in all kinds of trashy romance novels and handkerchief-fluttering mysteries alike.

In Normal People, the sex described is NOT real BDSM, but I think that’s Rooney’s point. The relationships and interactions Marianne finds herself in are NOT examples of healthy and equal BDSM relationships. In fact, they’re violent and abusive, and a representation of Marianne’s descent into self-abuse as she struggles with her own feelings of self-worth.

Toward the end of the book, there’s a pivotal scene in which Connell and Marianne start to have sex: Marianne asks Connell to hit her, and when he refuses, she stops wanting to have sex and runs from his house. After that, Connell cries in his room and Marianne gets into a physical altercation with her abusive brother (who is a complete asswipe, by the way, and targets Marianne although she’s done absolutely nothing to "antagonize” him, another frequent theme).

I had some issues with this scene, not because “ooh BDSM/submission/domination is so spicy” but because it represented the troubling nature of Marianne’s sex life. The violence and abuse she experiences help to characterize Marianne, and show the depths of her trauma.

However, I wish Rooney had been more straightforward about whether she intended for Marianne’s sexual relationships to be interpreted as “healthy.”

It would have been heavy-handed to have someone sit down and talk to her about safety in BDSM, but the character of Joanna presented a good opportunity for that kind of intervention. Instead, Joanna makes some halfhearted swings at the “rumors” surrounding Marianne’s “kinks,” and Rooney ultimately dodges the conversation. I wonder if it was there, and pulled out in further drafts?

Eventually things work themselves out. I won’t spoil the ending in regards to Connell and Marianne’s relationship, but I was pleased with Marianne’s growth and healing as a character.

My point is that the conversation surrounding “violent sex” and “BDSM” is one that needs to happen among people (especially women) in my generation. I felt like Rooney missed out on an excellent chance to take a stand on this subject by being too vague about Marianne’s feelings towards it — or Rooney’s own.

In different circumstances, I’d say this was in an effort to “not be vulgar,” but the rest of Normal People deals with plenty of vulgarity, swearing, and graphic descriptions of sex and the like, so it just felt like a cop-out to me.

Closing thoughts: Sally Rooney, I’m mad at you

When I reached the end of the book, I literally said out loud, “That’s the end?!” and then pouted at the ceiling for a solid hour. And I’m not exaggerating when I say an hour.

I’m not sure that Normal People is the kind of story I’d write myself, although damaged people like Connell and Marianne are definitely the types of characters who populate my narratives — and the people I find most fascinating to follow around in my head.

It’s the kind of novel that’s going to stick with me for a long time, I know that for sure, and I almost don’t want to watch the HBO adaptation because I don’t want it to impact the beautiful portrait I have in my head.

This was a good way to kick off my Official Highway MFA April Reading List (yes, I know it’s still March, but A Little Life is like 800 pages and I gotta start somewhere). Hopefully I can get to a real workday now and not lounge around on my bed all day, waxing nostalgic about my complicated and not-entirely-magical four months in Ireland.

Until next time,
Maggie