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A review by gajanperry
Normal People by Sally Rooney
1.5
I borrowed Sally Rooney’s short story Mr Salary from the library the other day and opened it and read the first few words and I genuinely without a word of a lie almost projectile vomited because it made me think about this book, and how pernicious it is.
Normal People is so horrendously awful that I can’t even finish writing my review of it because the more I think about it the more irredeemable it appears and I realise I’ve been too generous in everything I’ve already written.
One thing I will comment on for now is what I think is probably the most dangerous narrative in the novel: how SR represents abusive relationships. There's a complete lack of sophistication in portraying Marianne's pull towards abusive men. Implicitly, SR seems to suggest that victims of abuse actively and universally seek out abuse because they feel that they deserve it, or they romanticise it, or they feel 'completed' by it. This is a linear understanding of abuse which is at best problematically tunnel-visioned, and at worst a victim-blaming fallacy.
Why are people drawn towards abusers? Nothing I've ever heard would seem to suggest that there's a conscious desire for dehumanisation and degradation - or if there is, it is in interplay with a number of other more significant factors that aren't acknowledged anywhere in this novel. For example, the way in which abusers are able to perform and present traits that are associated with power, eroticism, value and attractiveness in our zeitgeist. Abusers draw in victims who are sensitive and perceptive of the good in people but ultimately still easily swayable to the opportunities people who display these traits offer of a kind of protection or validation of self which they often haven't consciously acknowledged, or aren't able to assert any conviction over.
I think as well one thing that is clear across Sally Rooney's books is the romanticism and even fetishisation of these dynamics, which is evoked not so much in dialogue or narration, but associations with place, nostalgia, ambition, etc. SpoilerWhy exactly Marianne has to travel to Florence (?) and Lund is unclear - it seems to be that the only subplots relevant to her character in these places is submission to abusers, where she is rescued (inadvertently) by other male characters. It's a strange development in the generally shitty effort to work Marianne's economic privilege into her character arc, which never seems to actually put up any stakes or risk of loss for her.
Finally, it's almost comic how the abuse in her relationships with her family is written. All of her interactions with her brother (who is named Alan these days??) are laughably unrealistic. He's a complete caricature of an abusive sibling, seemingly entirely devoid of even the slightest scrap of decency or affection, an irredeemable villain whom Marianne is unable to put up any resistance to in spite of her seeming superior sensibilities (another theme which serves to dehumanise her and her struggle further) to every other character like Alan in the text. The resolution of all of this of course is just Connell making one threat towards Alan and seemingly Marianne is now spared of any future tormenting for the remainder of her life - just completely misogynistic, and indicative of a pattern in Sally Rooney novels to write women who are intellectually and emotionally empowered, but seemingly cannot muster up any agency to save themselves.
Normal People is so horrendously awful that I can’t even finish writing my review of it because the more I think about it the more irredeemable it appears and I realise I’ve been too generous in everything I’ve already written.
One thing I will comment on for now is what I think is probably the most dangerous narrative in the novel: how SR represents abusive relationships. There's a complete lack of sophistication in portraying Marianne's pull towards abusive men. Implicitly, SR seems to suggest that victims of abuse actively and universally seek out abuse because they feel that they deserve it, or they romanticise it, or they feel 'completed' by it. This is a linear understanding of abuse which is at best problematically tunnel-visioned, and at worst a victim-blaming fallacy.
Why are people drawn towards abusers? Nothing I've ever heard would seem to suggest that there's a conscious desire for dehumanisation and degradation - or if there is, it is in interplay with a number of other more significant factors that aren't acknowledged anywhere in this novel. For example, the way in which abusers are able to perform and present traits that are associated with power, eroticism, value and attractiveness in our zeitgeist. Abusers draw in victims who are sensitive and perceptive of the good in people but ultimately still easily swayable to the opportunities people who display these traits offer of a kind of protection or validation of self which they often haven't consciously acknowledged, or aren't able to assert any conviction over.
I think as well one thing that is clear across Sally Rooney's books is the romanticism and even fetishisation of these dynamics, which is evoked not so much in dialogue or narration, but associations with place, nostalgia, ambition, etc. SpoilerWhy exactly Marianne has to travel to Florence (?) and Lund is unclear - it seems to be that the only subplots relevant to her character in these places is submission to abusers, where she is rescued (inadvertently) by other male characters. It's a strange development in the generally shitty effort to work Marianne's economic privilege into her character arc, which never seems to actually put up any stakes or risk of loss for her.
Finally, it's almost comic how the abuse in her relationships with her family is written. All of her interactions with her brother (who is named Alan these days??) are laughably unrealistic. He's a complete caricature of an abusive sibling, seemingly entirely devoid of even the slightest scrap of decency or affection, an irredeemable villain whom Marianne is unable to put up any resistance to in spite of her seeming superior sensibilities (another theme which serves to dehumanise her and her struggle further) to every other character like Alan in the text. The resolution of all of this of course is just Connell making one threat towards Alan and seemingly Marianne is now spared of any future tormenting for the remainder of her life - just completely misogynistic, and indicative of a pattern in Sally Rooney novels to write women who are intellectually and emotionally empowered, but seemingly cannot muster up any agency to save themselves.