Written by Sally Rooney, published in 2018, and superbly read, in my version, by Aoife McMahon, this novel follows the course of a relationship from the beginning of 2011, when the protagonists are still in secondary school in County Sligo, to the beginning of 2015, when they're handling the demands of university in Dublin.

I liked this book much more than Conversations With Friends. Good though that novel was, I really didn't end up caring for any of its characters (actively disliked them even). Conversely, I found myself really caring about Marianne Sheridan and Connell Waldron, the lead duo in this one. I really wanted things to work out for these two bright, fundamentally decent, but damaged, lonely, and struggling young people, who live out a contemporary version of the age-old can't-live-with-you-or-without-you dilemma.

And things did work out for them -- sort of, kind of, after a fashion. They did change each other's lives, probably in a good way (mostly, anyway). They are parting again at the end, but you feel they have some chance of getting back together again. Of course, you wonder whether at that point in the future they'll be enriched versions of themselves, a little further on in their life journeys, or whether they'll be reconnecting because they're needy and lonely, and eternally reconnecting is what they do. But you also start to wonder whether that latter option is actually not that bad a deal (more on that in a minute).


The beginning of my 2011, worlds away, in the Yarra Valley, Victoria, Australia



Though they have both grown up in Carricklea, County Sligo, the pair constantly find themselves in very different camps. Marianne, from a rich family, is the odd one out at school. Bright, but socially awkward, and unwilling to make any concessions, she is at the receiving end of verbal bullying and ostracism. Connell's mother, a single parent, is a cleaner at Marianne's house, and his family definitely comes from the wrong side of town, but he is popular at school, combining good looks with intelligence and athleticism. He enjoys his friendship with the odd and intense Marianne -- but he keeps it determinedly quiet. The relationship would not have been well received by his set of friends. From this initial point of betrayal -- sparked by a lazy cowardice on his part, and an overly submissive pliability on hers -- stem many of their future emotional zigzags.

Once they're at university in Dublin, the tables are turned. Marianne fits right in with the upper-crust students who apparently make up the bulk of the student body, whereas Connell is too hick, too awkward, too down-to-earth -- and frankly too poor -- to feel comfortable in this milieu. (Kudos to Rooney for so brilliantly portraying how class-ridden the supposedly egalitarian institution of university is.)





But class is only one aspect of the theme of power, the different dimensions of which vein the whole novel. The power we exert over each other, for example, is casually devastating. One simple decision -- such as the choice Connell makes to follow Marianne to Trinity College Dublin -- sparks life-changing pathways.

And power readily manifests as physical brutality. Brought up in a household where her late father was violent, her brother is violent, and her mother -- no doubt damaged herself -- is cold and critical, Marianne develops a pronounced masochistic streak. Even before he consciously recognizes this trait, Connell is scared at one point by the hold he has over her. She gives him too much power, more than he can handle. And of course, these proclivities lead her into abusive relationships with other men.

Communication breaks down regularly between Marianne and Connell. Usually the result is that Marianne is left feeling abandoned, while Connell never quite fathoms the effect his lack of communication has had. But Marianne is often opaque too. We're often not quite sure of the reasons she's doing something.

Despite these repeated failures, there are many moments when these two receive what they need from each other. Connell comes to Marianne's rescue several times when she is threatened by violent men. She comes to his rescue when he is mugged, and supports him loyally when he is suffering badly from depression.

Towards the end of the book, Marianne reflects that "they’ve been like two little plants sharing the same plot of soil, growing around one another, contorting to make room, taking certain unlikely positions".







This theme of interdependence is quite interesting. Rooney self-identifies as a Marxist, and a perceptive study by Annalisa Quinn is worth quoting at length in this regard:

"I don't think Rooney is garnishing her love story with politics. She's embedding politics closely and rigorously IN the love story, showing how relationships can function like miniature states, and how political principles can work on an intimate scale, in the interactions of two, three, or four people...

"In Normal People, characters have different things at different times: money, social capital, looks. The novel suggests the possibility of a setup in which these advantages are shared and redistributed according to need. Call it a Marxism of the heart...

"Eventually [Connell and Marianne] come into a kind of mutual dependence, something fundamentally at odds with the mainstream, if hazy, acceptance of independence as an obvious good (and, particularly, a feminist good). The message of the current moment can often seem to be: Limit your emotional labor; be your own best advocate; don't let your relationships compromise autonomy or empowerment. 'How strange to feel herself so completely under the control of another person, but also how ordinary, Marianne thinks. No one can be independent of other people completely, so why not give up the attempt, she thought, go running in the other direction, depend on people for everything, allow them to depend on you, why not.'...

"The book suggests that people can use their advantages for one another -- that personal qualities, abilities, status, and other advantages can act like wealth or goods in a socialist society, for common benefit... From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs."

Thought-provoking. It's true that society encourages us to be terribly self-reliant. But actually we never can be. In any relationship, we end up giving and receiving in accordance with the distribution of our talents and proclivities. It simply makes no sense for everyone to do everything.



Anyway, what else?

I'm not a fan of time jumps (which also don't lend themselves that well to audiobooks), and I feel they were somewhat over-used here.

But I appreciate Rooney's style. The realism we met in Conversations With Friends is here too. People wipe down surfaces, wash glasses, fill kettles, put sugar in their coffee -- and it somehow matters that they do. It is in such details that our lives subsist, after all.

And her dialogue is brilliant. Just brilliant. This is absolutely a book to listen to.

My only criticism of Rooney's story is that there's a bit too much going on. The emotional canvas is enormous. Domestic violence, peer pressure, school life, undergraduate life, class conflict, youth suicide, depression, eating disorders, life in a post-recession world of anodyne commercialism... It's a tad exhausting, and there's just not room to fully develop all the characters necessary to support the huge framework.



Nevertheless, I came away feeling that not only had I learnt something (this is not my demographic, remember, and yet so many of these scenarios do seem essentially timeless), but also that I would miss the characters.

At one point, Connell, studying English at uni, and struggling to fit in, spends a lot of time reading:

"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 walk 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."

Yep, that's it. Sally Rooney may or may not turn out to be a Jane Austen, but she writes literature that moves me.