“Marianne, I’m not a religious person but I do sometimes think God made you for me."
Normal People by Sally Rooney takes a look at how normal people live. TW for domestic abuse and suicidal themes.
In Normal People by Sally Rooney, senior Marianne Sheridan lives in a big, empty mansion in a small town in Ireland with her mother and brother. She doesn’t have any friends. The only person she talks to is her cleaner’s son, Connell Waldron, one of the most popular boys in her grade. He acts like they’re the best of friends, but never talks to her once they’re not alone. If this book’s premise feels like it’s shaping up to be run-of-the-mill, you wouldn’t be wrong: but Rooney somehow manages to transform these two characters into anything but normal.
As the first few chapters unfold, we learn that Marianne is a loner by choice: even though her prestigious family name makes her approachable, she uses her intellect to keep others at a distance. Connell, on the other hand, is an almost insufferable people-pleaser: Rooney does an amazing job of making him unlikeable as his and Marianne’s relationship slowly buds. They’re both smart, care largely about world events, like to read, and are interested in social justice: the only two in the quiet school ecosystem who understand one another. Surprise surprise, Connell is the only person Marianne can be vulnerable around: they have to keep their relationship secret, as Connell doesn’t want to ruin his reputation. Even though a plot like this feels like it’s been wrung out and reused before, Rooney’s use of passive voice and plain, relatable language helps tie scenes to the present. Connell wrestles with his own love of popularity and his harboured feelings for the oblivious Marianne, who believes they’re only together out of convenience. In a moment that makes him hopelessly human, he writes down ‘long, run-on sentences’ about Marianne to sort out his emotions, then ‘turns a new page in the notebook so that he doesn’t have to look at what he’s done.’
In high school, Marianne and Connell never end up working out. Socially-conscious Connell ends up asking a popular girl to a dance, but then he finds that he can’t be as comfortable around her as he is around Marianne. Marianne drops out of school out of humiliation.. Since they applied to the same college (typical awkward coincidence, am I right?) They end up crossing paths, in an amusing turn-the-tables situation: Marianne’s now the one with lots of friends and an older boyfriend, while Connell is now the quietest boy in his class. Of course, they’re still inexplicably attracted to each other. They get together yet again, and break up since Connell feels a sense of inferiority around his own social standing compared to Marianne’s. Money problems now come into the already convoluted mix, with Connell being the less privileged one: after all, his mom used to clean Marianne’s house.
This circuit of getting back into intimate terms, then breaking up again continues for the rest of the book. You’d think it would be getting tedious by now, but Rooney writes this frustrating cycle in a masterful way, encouraging the reader to keep chewing on and on, tempting us with a small glimmer of hope each time the two reunite. Eventually, after a slew of failed and reignited relationships, we finally think the two are settling down. And then Connor has to leave for a graduate program in New York. And the book ends. But it makes sense, somehow.
All in all, this book feels like something you’d hear about other people go through. Marianne develops a habit of dating men who are physically violent towards her; we later find out that this is because of an inferiority complex she’s developed after abuse at the hands of her privileged mother and brother. Connell develops a slide into near-suicidal depression after he hears about the suicide of a highschool friend, which leads him to break up with his stable girlfriend at the time, Helen. The book’s message is abundantly clear here: things just happen. These characters are far from perfect: besides their relationship with each other, they have issues that can’t just be solved by love. Somehow this is cathartic to read: we’re just people, after all, and these 3-dimensional situations Marianne and Connell go through feel like they could happen in real life.
But through it all, Marianne and Connell, in their own strange ways, are there for each other. Even though they might not be the most emotionally available, they still show up when the other person needs help: this is demonstrated time and time again. Case in point: Marianne rushes to tend to Connell’s injuries after he’s been mugged and shows up on her doorstep. Connell rushes to be with Marianne after her brother assaults her in their home, threatening to kill him if he touches Marianne again. They write emails to each other in their relationship limbos, text each other when clinging to their significant others at the time, talk too much about politics and scare people away.
We end up rooting for this pair, even though we probably know they won’t be the happiest couple on earth. Rooney fleshes them out in careful prose: they’re not loveable, or heroic, or superhuman: but they can be sweet and stupid at times, and mess up, and forgive each other. Probably the most normal thing people can do.
As I went through this book, I lingered on a quote that Connor says in the midst of his second relationship with Marianne. “Marianne, I’m not a religious person but I do sometimes think God made you for me." And if that’s not the most beautiful thing I’ve ever read, I don’t know what is.
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