Written by contributor Megan Laing
Chances are (if you’ve clicked on this!) you’ve probably heard of Normal People, Waterstones Book of the Year in 2018 and the ensuing immensely popular BBC production which premiered during the dark days of the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns. My recommendation for both the book and the show came from an unusual source – my nearly 80-year-old grandad, who soon set out on a quest to read everything Sally Rooney has ever written.
So, curiosity got the better of me. A couple of weeks after it aired, I watched the show first (a sin for booklovers, I know) and was blown away by the intimate, thoughtful depictions of Marianne and Connell, whom we follow from their final year of school until their graduation from university. Then, my flatmate got me the book for my birthday, which I read in August and, once again, was stunned.
Something about Normal People either engages people or completely shuts them off. I’ve found the book is very divisive. My grandad, as I mentioned, loved it and my granny who read it afterwards, did not. Many BookTubers have also said that something about Sally Rooney’s writing is hard to get on with, and their enjoyment of the book is either 1) heavily impacted by the show if they watched it first (like I did), or 2) non-existent the first time around but after watching the show, is enjoyed slightly more afterwards when they go back to re-read.
Here’s what I thought:
The book is written in a style which I, upon first hearing about it, deemed to be lazy rather than stylistic. Similar to her first novel Conversations with Friends, Sally Rooney doesn’t use speech marks. It takes a little bit of getting used to in the first couple of chapters but you soon find you either get on with it or completely put the book down. I think this is quite understandable, seeing as the use of speech marks is drilled into us in the early stages of schooling as a punctuation essential.
This, along with the third person narration, creates a feeling of detachment which I question maybe there shouldn’t be in a book that’s supposed to be an intimate depiction of two peoples lives and relationships. Maybe I’m wrong, food for thought.
The emotion that radiates from Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal is incomparable. They truly are Marianne and Connell, it’s like they’ve been plucked right off the page or somebody has put a camera on a real. I think part of this is attributed to the fact that both actors were relatively unknown coming into the roles – would we have believed the characters were actually the characters if more well-known actors would have been cast instead?
One scene in particular – when Connell first goes to a therapist – I find particularly hard to watch purely because of Paul Mescal’s heartwrenching portrayal of grief and mental illness. The same scene in the book, however, I found didn’t have the same effect. The show as a whole really brings to live a writing style that can perhaps be a bit isolating for some.
Whilst the plot remains almost identical and the reader still experiences the same ‘episodic’ narrative style in the book as they would do watching the show, there are little insights, tidbits of information and themes that definitely come across more when reading the book. For example, the issue of class.
If you’re familiar with either the book or the show then you’ll know that Marianne is the product of a wealthy family, for whom Connell’s mum Lorraine works as a housekeeper. Marianne, living in a flat owned by her family already, swans through university with no financial worry or trouble unlike Connell, who finds himself working long hours in a restaurant and (when that restaurant closes) has to move back home because he can’t afford his summer rent in Dublin. Then there’s the issue of scholarship and bursary, which is a lifeline for Connell but just another accolade and prize for Marianne.
In conclusion, I don’t think there is anything at all wrong with choosing to read the book or watch the show first (in general as well as in regards to Normal People). The show, more than anything, really brings the book to life rather than offering a secondary interpretation to Sally Rooney’s work. The book is raw and moving, as is the TV show, but although I rated the book 4.5/5 stars, I’d say that the show offered just that little bit more for me that I felt the book had lacked.
I too, am an 80 year old guy living in Cordova, Alaska. I read the book the first time shortly after it came out in the US and since the beginning of the year, have read it an additional 6 times, most in between near binges of the series on Hulu. I have recently begun, albeit somewhat at a slower pace than before, because I am also addicted to both the book and series of “The Queens Gambit,” which has me nearly unable to think of anything else. Both of these series are beautifully filmed. They both capture the emotions of the characters with closeups and not always much dialog. I find it hard to visualize either of them with different actors. Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal have a chemistry between them that is almost unbelievable. In “The Queens Gambit” it is Isla Johnston as the young Beth and Anya Taylor-Joy as the older Beth who give stellar performances.
I am on my 4th read of “The Queen’s Gambit” and am finishing my 10th viewing of the series in a bit less than a month. I can’t seem to get enough of either of them.