I was anticipating Sally Rooney’s new novel, Normal People, ever since I finished her debut novel Conversation with Friends. Her voice is fresh, witty, acute. She speaks to my generation, and often narrates an internal dialogue that runs through our current culture. Her precision in deciphering the ambiguity of relationships is unmatched by any other contemporary author I have read, but nonetheless I still prefer Conversation with Friends. After the many discussions I’ve had with friends, I realize part of the trouble stems from the fact that the two novels are very similar: the miscommunication and misunderstandings between the two main characters, the witty back and forth dialogue that brims the relationship, and the forbidden or secretive nature of the relationship.

Rooney decided to organize the novel through a succession of time intervals, jumping weeks or months ahead at a time. While I enjoyed seeing how Marianne and Connell’s relationship evolved over a few years, from high school to seniors in college, I also felt the speed was a disservice to the development of her characters. We see how the social statuses of the characters reverse, as Marianne gains the popularity that Connell had in high-school, but we never get close enough to the reasons behind Connell’s social anxiety or Marianne’s aptitude for abusive relationships. Their socioeconomic and family backgrounds provide tension and some explanation to the differing behavior and attitudes of Marianne and Connell but the real dynamics are lost in their constant juxtaposition.

The relationship in Normal People is just as convoluted and volatile as in Conversation with Friends, but in this case it felt like there were one too many loops on the rollercoaster. Rooney is a master at maintaining ambiguity, even until the end, but the accumulating speed of the novel- from time intervals to lack of quotation marks- overthrows the richness of the dynamic that is playing out. While there are stunning scenes, paragraphs, and lines that flesh out the world she has created, there are other aspects that retract my interest in that world. The dialogue which is short and snappy can make the scenes feel jerky and while it reads effortlessly like a scene playing out in your mind, it misses the prolonged emotional moments that we see in Conversation with Friends.  

The clarity, precision, and psychological acuity in Rooney’s dialogue elevates Normal People to a different level of story, a different experience of our reality. It is fast-paced and enjoyable, but it is also a story with less breathing room than the average novel. The excess of description and inner dialogue can suffocate the action; months and weeks go by and Rooney’s super-ability to describe the psychology of her characters is also part of the novel’s downfall. When in excess, it produces a hyper-awareness in the reader to the fact that a writer is writing the words that they are reading. And a story loses its emotional resonance if the words live and die on the page.