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| Some "normal people", apparently. |
The TV adaptation of Normal People, the phenomenally successful
second novel by Irish author Sally Rooney, runs to twelve episodes.
This is the latest news to stagger your faithful correspondent, for
whom the success of Normal People exists at a similar level of
bafflement as the placement of the figs in the fig rolls.
Normal People is a
superficial, shallow, vain, vacuous, mutton-headed book about the
first-world problems of a poor little rich girl. The characterisation
would bring a blush to cardboard, the human insight is blind, the
subtly is that of a cavity block and, if Sally Rooney’s really is
the voice of a generation, that generation is an unusually stupid
one.
Novels are written
in three broad styles. These aren’t hard and fast guidelines, of
course, more like familial resemblances than any scientifically
rigorous classification, but useful for aiding our understanding and
comparing our experiences.
The first family is
the traditional story. There is a protagonist who does things, and
these things are described in the course of the book. These books are
generally set in a world that is real and recognisable. Emile Zola is
typicalof this school. He thought it the novelist’s duty to go out
in the world, and then report on what he or she saw there.
The second style is
the window-on-the-soul school, of which Henry James may be considered
the trailblazer. Acolytes consider such things as plots and story
arcs passé and, for some reason, particularly prize the composition
of the sentences in a novel, which are, ideally, exquisite. Colm
Tóibín would be a leading member of this school.
The third style is
avant garde, where the writer writes utter gibberish that can be
understood by neither man nor beast, but we all pretend that they’re
capital-P-Profound because we don’t want to look thick. Thomas
Pynchon is the pope of this church, and Gravity’s Rainbow its
sacred text.
To which school does
Sally Rooney belong? Well. That’s hard to say.
Normal People is set
in contemporary Ireland, rural Sligo and Dublin. Neither place is
recognisable in the novel. A quick example: early in the book, the
hero, Connell, is having an argument with his mother, Lorraine.
Lorraine is so annoyed with Connell that she tells him to stop the
car, she’s going to get out and get the bus home.
It is to be hoped
that Lorraine packed a lunch, because she could be waiting a long
time on that bus if she’s living in a small town in Sligo. I’m
not sure how many rural Irish towns have public transport, but if
there were any such towns in Sligo I feel I would have heard.
The book is full of
these chasms in reality. Marianne, the book’s heroine, goes from
social isolation at school to being the It-Girl amongst the freshers
in college. That doesn’t happen. It takes time to learn social
skills. You can’t just put them on like a hat.
Connell is from a
working class background. He also has his own car and can afford to
go back-packing in Italy while in college. Who pays that bill?
Connell is embarrassed to tell his mother that he voted for Declan
Bree, the venerable Sligo socialist. Lorraine voted for Bree as well
– she’s a big fan, and has educated Connell about “Cuba and the
cause of Palestinian liberation.” Why would Connell be embarrassed
to agree with his mother? It doesn’t make any sense. Connell is
appalled when a female teacher makes an advance on him in a
nightclub. Come on, now. On what planet does that happen?
Only one part of
Normal People feels real, and that’s in Italy, where Marianne is
entertaining her college set and the back-packing Connell in her
father’s villa. Marianne’s horrible college boyfriend Jamie – a
pantomime villan, if ever there were one – gets snotty when the
champagne is not served in flute glasses. Marianne points out that
these are champagne coupes, *actually*, but the damage is done. We’re
drinking out of gravy boats, sneers Jamie, and he means it to sting.
That part reads like
an eye-witness account. That exchange was only part of the novel in
which your correspondent was able to believe could have happened. The
rest is narcissistic, pseudo-intellectual rubbish and how in God’s
holy name the makers of the TV show have got twelve episodes out of
it is baffling.
They’ve either
stuffed it like a sausage with whatever offcuts or offal or dog or
cat they could lay hands on, or else they’ve stretched it out, like
someone buttering the bread for the harvest festival in the
Presbyterian Hall. James Marriott wrote in The Times that he
“finished the book determined to look at the world differently. I’m
not sure what higher compliment you can pay a novel.” Sooner you than me, hoss.
FOCAL SCOIR: The New
York Times previewed the TV show last week as “a rare TV show about teenagers that respects
intimacy as a powerful storytelling tool, both on and off camera,”
and praised the show for hiring an “intimacy co-ordinator.” Thank
goodness the intimacy co-ordinator never went to so far as to suggest
that the actress who portrays Marianne keep her clothes on. Nobody
would have known where to look.