In this I touch on themes of love, vulnerability, anxiety and authenticity,and explain how the TV adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel acts a mirror for our modern and lockdown times
Sitting here in the West of Ireland and stumbled upon this wonderfully articulated synopsis of why Normal People has had such an impact . This is the best review I have read so far. Thankyou for posting it. B.
Rachel, i was really struggling to see why Normal People TV adaption resonated so much on me and I found the answer through you careful review words. The TV adaption really invites you to see yourself in the mirror and to finally accept that vulnerability is the only way to save ourselves from our wounded past. Thank you very much for this review from the bottom of my heart.
Beautiful review and comentary, i couldnt agree more, am just in love and amaze whith this show, this was one of the most beautiful stories i ever see, whith this amazing characters portryal whith the oustanding Daisy Edgar -jones and Paul Mescal, their actig was so raw, so real so touching.i am just move by this show that i cry like for 5 minutes whith that ending, and you describe it perfectly, thank you. greetings from Guatemala.
I watched the series first then read the book. It was impossible to read the book without reflecting back to the series. The series was very moving but I also think the music and of course the great acting had alot to do with it. The book did not detail pauses in conversations, changes in personal expressions or tones quite as well as the actors of the show. Music helped alot. I liked how the show did not explain as much as the book on background or character's thought. It gets you thinking. And of course the ending was much more pleasing in the series. Best thing I've watched in a very long time.
That was my sequence too - movie and then the book since I wanted to get further into their heads. With the movie, I would have found the book's sequencing rather confusing and taking away from getting deeper into the characters.
Jabir, you are so right. I think it’s the little scenes that have the most profound effect (for example when you see Connell surrounded by his schoolfriends after having asked Rachel to the Debs, and he’s basking - both literally and figuratively - in sunlight. Hadley Freeman in the Guardian writes beautifully about that scene). When you go back and watch it for a second time you notice all of those. I’m just about to start it for the third time - I’m creating a Sixth Form PSHE programme for schools on the series, as I think so many of the themes and messages about communication, honesty, vulnerability and authenticity are such important life lessons for that age group. I will let you know which scenes I select, but one of them will certainly be their wildly different interpretations of the conversation about him not being able to pay his rent at the end of their first year. Thanks for sharing your feelings! Stay well, Rachel
Thank you that was beautiful and so true, I am one of the unlucky ones who has Lung and heart problems and had to shield from society, Normal People has kept me going after I found it on I player while looking for something else, I started watching and within a very short amount of time I was hooked, the acting I found wonderful, it took me back to being a young man with my first love at the tender age of 19, I will freely admit have watched it 3 times now, I will probably watch it all again
Your analysis is perfect. Im a middle aged Irish man who went to Trinity college thirty years ago. It broke me ! Long lost memories came flooding back ! Thank you
Goodness, Daniel - it must have shattered your heart into a million pieces. Nostalgia is the air we’re breathing in lockdown. It’s thirty years since my intense university experiences formed me for life, and they still feel like yesterday. Thank you for your kind words. Best wishes, Rachel
Your review is extraordinary. You summed up everything I felt - and the search for others who reacted as strongly to the telling of this story, the frustration at them simply not realising how important the relationship is and managing to communicate with each other. Frustration at Connell’s inability to tell Marianne that he wanted to stay with her over that summer in Dublin, that he was far from wanting to break up with her. I cheered when his mother told him that the way he behaved towards Marianne at school was shameful. I wept at the way her family had damaged her and Connell’s inability to see that. And I hoped for the happy ending that in truth may well have ruined the story...
Dear Margot Thank you for getting in touch. I agree that Connell’s character is drawn in such depth and I wonder if - as viewers - our relationship with him is, in many ways, the love story of the series. Do you listen to the Fortunately with Fi and Jane podcast? That exact comment is made in the latest episode. And, for me, having a greater insight into the depth and internal struggles of his character than the book provides made that all the more powerful. I think you’re right, too, the perfect ending - much as we yearn for it with every fibre of our being whilst watching it - would have made the story less perfect. I wonder if Sally Rooney and Alice Birch will collaborate on another series after the filming of Conversations With Friends post-lockdown? I hear that the brilliant Lenny Abrahamson is directing the first episode of that... Best wishes, Rachel
Rachel Hart - Dear Rachel - thank you for replying (I’ve only just seen it or I would have acknowledged it sooner). I’m off to hunt for Fortunately with Fi and Jane now, to see what it says...
Rachel Hart - oh Rachel, what a discovery you have led me to! Fi and Jane...Though I am in my 50s now, I was certainly 17 as I watched it but was he the hero? I thought he was, at first gallop - I binge watched, I couldn’t eek (though I am eking now, book chapter v TV chapter) but slowly I realised how mean he was being. His mother even told him M was vulnerable. And he is surely sensitive enough to realise that when she cries when she asks whether he thought about inviting her to the debs, and later says that he doesn’t want to touch her (in public) but he doesn’t want anyone else to either, how badly this is affecting her. Can he not make the connection between her treatment as a child and her submission to her boyfriend’s sadistic behaviour later? I felt I wanted them to be together - but began to feel a little bit ashamed. And she says they’ve been so good for each other, at the end? Really? She has saved him from his depression - but he seems to bring her back to her angsty self when he turns up. What do you think?
@@margotdarcy6254 So heres a simple question would her life have been better with him in or outside of it. The relationship was about two human beings who are both flawed fragile trying their best to get on in life. Was the relationship a symbiotic one I beleive so. Sound he have left her when she got drunk and wanted sex should he have ran for the hills when she asked him to hit her. Should he have defended her when her best friend was telling her about the S and M relationship with the Swedish guy. Should he have looked at the very disfuntional relationships she had with her other partners and left. Should he have left after he saw how disfuntional her family life was. I dont have any problem with any of your criticism of the character I do have a problem with your one sided view.
Thanks for this thoughtful, and thought provoking, review. Like you I read the book not long after it came out, spurred on by the polarised critical reception. Intrigued by their time at school, I was curious to see how the relationship would develop. but grew increasingly irritated by the characters' behaviour and the tempo of the second half overall, particularly in the screen version. Intelligently and thoughtfully constructed certainly but I found myself not really caring how it was going to play out. Maybe the "end", or rather where the book stopped, was less important than the emotional journey the characters followed. The development of their relationship was surely the 'plot', rather than the, at times, barely believable sequence of actual events. Very curious to hear say that you found the TV version more revealing than the book. The book contains a lot of internal dialogue which I found to be critical in revealing the motivations and anxieties of the characters, particularly Connell. The actors did their best but could not reveal the whole story. The TV version was, I found quite indulgent (Six Hours!) with long 'atmospheric' shots of landscape and people gazing into the middle distance. The differences to the book were at times quite marked. Wondered why the frequent sex scenes were translated from "They had sex" in the book to 5 minutes or more of detailed screen 'action'. Viewed at the end, the ability of the couple being able to establish a robust and lasting relationship were I would say minimal. One never able to articulate his true feelings adding to her feelings of insecurity. (note her constant quizzing of him as to his feelings towards other women right up to very end!) and her never being able to understand what "I love you" really meant for either of them. He in turn was bewildered by her emotional issues and hadn't a clue as to how he should react. The 'tragedy' of the ending (if there is one) is surely that they ARE still together. A mature recognition of their mutual issues would surely have resulted in them breaking up much earlier. They appear trapped in a self constructed bubble of cyclical break ups built on an intense 'teen' physical relationship which never went way. Both characters appear to lack real substantive friends who , providing the opportunity for 'third party' discussion, might have provided ways of breaking this cycle. Surely both need to experience a further range of relationships and indeed the wider world. If then, their feelings of mutual attachment remain as strong they would hopefully be better placed to ensure the long term survival of any potential relationship that might ensue. P.S. To anyone who hasn't read the book, please do so.
Thanks for making this video! I loved hearing you speak about the show with such passion. You are very articulate, and I can see why you're a teacher. It's great when teachers not only teach the subject but give students a wider perspective on life itself. Your wisdom truly shines through in this video.
The book was better.as the series was a bit padded out regarding sex scenes .I hope that both Daisey and Paul are offered the right roles in their next projects.
Thank you, Roman. Have you watched it a third time, though?! I’m about to restart, having put a little space abc perspective between myself and the show, to create a learning programme for sixth formers from it. Rachel
A very articulate and lucid critique. I know by listening to you that you must be a fine teacher. Shaw's line that "the tragedy of youth is that it is wasted on the young" springs to mind with Normal People. How could it be otherwise?
I’m Irish A mother of three grown sons I heard my sister gush about the series and she rarely likes anything I may get my skates on and watch it in its entirety Thanks for reviewing it so well x
Hello Mariesy Thank you so much for watching my review - I’m so pleased you enjoyed it. Everything your sister says will be true, so I definitely think you should sit down with a cup of tea and start bingeing today! Rachel x
I often wonder if Connell had not been a lover of books and characters, if that sensitivity in him, the need to question (nothing planned - it was innate in him), to expose himself to emotion would have been developed. In a world of growing technology skills (and critical too for economic development), how much of that sensitivity is being lost with our definitions of 'successful human beings'. There are risks with such sensitivity and one wonders about the costs of such emotional exposure? Will youth truly understand the depth of the book? [My only regret was that the Swedish artist, Lukas - had not been a 'black' artist. In the U.S., one is apt to draw racial conclusions with that depiction. ] As for Joanna - God bless her.
I also wonder about (1) Irish society with a wonderful sense of free spirit and quite distinct from Puritanical America (2) the privilege of true education that exposes one to questioning and interrogation and self doubt rather than pedagogic 'right' and 'wrong'. Was so very glad that the Church's demarcation of 'right' and 'wrong' was completely left out and therefore, issues of morality were set at bay.
To C Strughold I agree - it’s not a fair comparison to make, as the book and the series are different media, but I wonder if the fact that Sally Rooney worked on the screenplay (in collaboration with Alice Birch) makes the sense of one belonging to the other yet existing separately as an echoing form of art so perfect. Have you stopped crying yet?! I inhabited that world for days afterwards! Rachel
I really love your review of Normal People. I'm a mother myself and couldn't agree with you more. I find it amazing how it has pulled on the emotions of not just the younger generation but the older generation too.
