Notes on Normal People by Sally Rooney
A simple story about two people trying to live "normal" lives.
I. Introduction
Normal People was unexpectedly touching to me. This is my dip into the world of literary fiction. I finally understand why those who love Jane Austen or Virginia Woolf or Sylvia Plath love Sally Rooney. I am one of those girls now.
II. Review
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me, says Marianne. I don’t know why I can’t be like normal people.”
– Normal People, p. 181 (July 2013)
After watching and reading countless negative reviews of Normal People, I was sure I would think this book was boring. Sceptical but intrigued, I found myself compelled to pick up one of those insular books where nothing happens and it simply lives and breathes the feelings and relationships between a small set of characters. I yearned for a book that was like an Austen or Woolf novel, but in a modern setting; and so on a whim, I picked this book off my sister’s bookshelf and read.
Normal People revolves around Marianne and Connell through their late high school and university years as they pull away and gravitate towards each other over and over. It’s about feeling unworthy of love, lost hope, awful friendships and relationships, human psychology, and loneliness. The novel examines the co-dependent dysfunctional relationship between Marianne and Connell; here, their presence is all encapsulating, leaving no room for any other person. In metaphorical terms, Marianne and Connell are in searing colour, while other characters are dull and grey.
There is no one way to summarise either their character or their relationship. Every person who reads this book will perceive it differently, some simply see two people who simply break up and get back together, but I think their relationship is much more complicated than that. Mariane and Connell have ever-changing identities as people, alternating in the power and trust the two have over each other, and yet even as they break apart they seem to inevitably fall back together like gravity, in a slightly different way each time. As the book ends four years after their relationship began, it still garners whispers of being destructive for both of them by the end. However, I loved how both Marianne and Connell could see and recognise the harmful aspects of their connection from years of mistakes and reckless decisions.
The ending of Normal People is hopeful like the better parts of Marianne and Connell’s lives and relationships are only about to begin as they rebuild themselves into being “normal people” with normal lives.
III. Analysis
“Marianne answers the door when Connell rings the bell.”
– p. 1 (January 2011, first line of Normal People)
“You should go, [Marianne] says. I’ll always be here. You know that.”
– p. 266 (February 2015, last line of Normal People)
The first and last lines of Normal People capture the quintessence of Marianne and Connell’s relationship. It encapsulates the power dynamic that may always be present between Marianne and Connell even before their relationship began. The first line illustrates how Marianne automatically answers Connell’s will, without expecting anything in return. The use of present tense captures Marianne’s in-the-moment reaction while employing active voice emphasises the direct nature of her action. Meanwhile, the last line still demonstrates the imbalanced power dynamic between Connell and Marianne, as Marianne says she “always” be there for him regardless, showing her willingness to lean into the power Connell has over her. However, by actively saying it through her dialogue, she demonstrates that this is more of an active choice rather than an instinctive reaction. Marianne’s last sentence telling Connell, “You know that,” implies that both are now aware and conscious of this power dynamic and how it affects their relationship. Marianne’s words encourage Connell to take an opportunity (being vague so as not to spoil the book), despite it meaning Connell leaving Marianne, her words reveal her readiness for the two to be apart and grow as individuals; to be separate rather than co-dependent.
Nonetheless, Marianne’s last words are comparatively more vague and open-ended than the overt statement in the first line. The first line is clear and opens up how their dynamic begins simply, putting the two at the focal points of the reader’s attention. Marianne does not directly tell Connell she’ll always be there for him, instead, she says she’ll “always be here”, which makes her statement more ambiguous. I think that she implies the fact that she will never be gone from Connell, that she would constantly circulate back “here”—back to Connell and their life together—and in spirit, she would live in his mind too. Marianne’s last line envelops the story of Normal People as a whole; despite falling apart time and time again, Connell and Marianne’s connection sustains even without contact. They have enough trust for both to know that they will come back to one another, like magnets, in some eventual way. It’s a sign that if he wants to find her again, she will welcome him back with open arms.
In three simple sentences, Marianne’s words exemplify how both are equally aware of their relationship dynamic, how Connell unintentionally holds power over Marianne, how they need one another, and how now they are conscious of those little traps they had fallen into that broke them apart. This encapsulates how their relationship is much more conscious, changed from the simplicity of opening a door for the other, but still holding echoes of who they once were.
IV. Favourite Quotes
“Marianne answers the door when Connell rings the bell.”
– p. 1 (January 2011)
“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 and become part of it.”
– p. 11 (February 2011)
“One night the library started closing just as he reached the passage in Emma when it seems like Mr. Knightley is going to marry Harriet, and he had to close the book and home in a state of strange emotional agitation. He’s amused at himself, getting wrapped up in the drama of novels like that. It feels intellectually unserious to concern himself with fictional people marrying one another. But there it is: literature moves him.”
– p. 68 (November 2011)
“Now he has a sense of invisibility, nothingness with no reputation to recommend him to anyone.”
– p.70 (November 2011)
“Marianne, he says, I’m not a religious person but I do sometimes think God made you for me.”
– p. 113 (July 2012)
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me, says Marianne. I don’t know why I can’t be like normal people. […]
In what way? he asks.
I don’t know why I can’t make people love me.”
– p. 181 (July 2013)
“You should go, she says. I’ll always be here. You know that.”
– p. 266 (February 2015)