Normal People is a manual about under-parented, Americanised teens who turn to sex to get some pastoral care, hence the spiritless, anti-poetic language of Rooney’s book.The BBC series promised at first that it would be more than that and I think it tried to be. It’s just that Rooney and her co-writers don’t want to know what love is. What they settle on is that it’s about sometimes supporting your mindful sex partner …”having their back”, being there on Skype when they feel insecure or when they stumble into stupid places, counselling them about their career choices. All great things to have as far as they go.
But Connell and Marianne are no Romeo and Juliet except in their physical beauty and perhaps their passionate aliveness and intensity of attraction. They never sacrifice self-interest and security to make the commitment to their enormous mutual talent for comforting and supporting each other “¦a talent that might safeguard their futures like nothing else ever will. Outside of that all is deadened mechanical, pointless sex with outsiders who will never get in, the ongoing depressive bleeds from the wounds of their continual self-harming breaks from one another and unthinking returns to childhood dangers.
They have the beautiful connection that adults can only dream of and they toss it away again and again. Silly little narcissists. Even Marianne’s plaintive willingness for Connell to “do anything he wants with her” is just a cheesy masochism that the writers crumble over the top of the pornbake. Don’t forget the therapist who is deeply “caring” but who never does the psychoanalytic maths, the brilliant emails we are told that Connell writes to Marianne when the ones we get to see are full of hackneyed Irish secondary school jargon like “to be honest” “not my best self” “I’m so sorry”and nothing else. No ideas. All the boring babyish selfie talk about “feelings”. The genius Schols awards earned by both for work that we never glimpse except for Connell’s English professor’s mystifying enjoyment of his shovel-handed tractor-tracks through Emma”¦It’s upsetting. Oh and I can’t stop until I mention that the only girl in the story who we see actually working in the world at something real, her American Civil War project”¦is the fat girl with no personal life.
Neither real love not real feminism nor real wildness. The therapeutic journey without actual therapy.The intellectual high life without any substance. All of these are too big, too difficult and too grown-up for these writers and I guess for many readers. It’s fake fiction about sex and power like the chickswoon novels of the 80’s but dressed in the pared down, cubicle-minded, metaphor-free language of now
Andrew Best
4 years ago
Sounds terrible. But made by the BBC so it will be. Maybe he becomes an alt right skinhead racist and she can save him? Or she turns out to be transgender? No they are both gay and connect properly as good humans unlike the rest of us? Answers on a postcard to scrap the TV licence via the BBC
David Morley
4 years ago
In a world obsessed with policing violated boundaries and outing emotional discomfort, ‘normal’ means either ‘weird’ or ‘damaged’ ” which, therapeutic wisdom has it, are traits we should celebrate (unless they involve holding offensive political opinions).
Projecting as “weird” and “damaged” and not “normal” seems to have been a thing at the posh (university) end of youth culture since at least the seventies. If you didn’t have hang ups, you’d better cultivate some, and being “straight” was the last thing anyone wanted to be. If all else failed, the very least you could do was take illegal drugs.
Enjoyed the review – but not sure I’ll now be able to watch the show without shouting “get on with it for gods sake!” Ironically, of course.
Ralph Windsor
4 years ago
Suggestion: stop watching rubbish like this; stop writing about it (especially on UnHerd); and leave it to Mills & Boone!
Normal People is a manual about under-parented, Americanised teens who turn to sex to get some pastoral care, hence the spiritless, anti-poetic language of Rooney’s book.The BBC series promised at first that it would be more than that and I think it tried to be. It’s just that Rooney and her co-writers don’t want to know what love is. What they settle on is that it’s about sometimes supporting your mindful sex partner …”having their back”, being there on Skype when they feel insecure or when they stumble into stupid places, counselling them about their career choices. All great things to have as far as they go.
But Connell and Marianne are no Romeo and Juliet except in their physical beauty and perhaps their passionate aliveness and intensity of attraction. They never sacrifice self-interest and security to make the commitment to their enormous mutual talent for comforting and supporting each other “¦a talent that might safeguard their futures like nothing else ever will. Outside of that all is deadened mechanical, pointless sex with outsiders who will never get in, the ongoing depressive bleeds from the wounds of their continual self-harming breaks from one another and unthinking returns to childhood dangers.
They have the beautiful connection that adults can only dream of and they toss it away again and again. Silly little narcissists. Even Marianne’s plaintive willingness for Connell to “do anything he wants with her” is just a cheesy masochism that the writers crumble over the top of the pornbake. Don’t forget the therapist who is deeply “caring” but who never does the psychoanalytic maths, the brilliant emails we are told that Connell writes to Marianne when the ones we get to see are full of hackneyed Irish secondary school jargon like “to be honest” “not my best self” “I’m so sorry”and nothing else. No ideas. All the boring babyish selfie talk about “feelings”. The genius Schols awards earned by both for work that we never glimpse except for Connell’s English professor’s mystifying enjoyment of his shovel-handed tractor-tracks through Emma”¦It’s upsetting. Oh and I can’t stop until I mention that the only girl in the story who we see actually working in the world at something real, her American Civil War project”¦is the fat girl with no personal life.
Neither real love not real feminism nor real wildness. The therapeutic journey without actual therapy.The intellectual high life without any substance. All of these are too big, too difficult and too grown-up for these writers and I guess for many readers. It’s fake fiction about sex and power like the chickswoon novels of the 80’s but dressed in the pared down, cubicle-minded, metaphor-free language of now
Sounds terrible.
But made by the BBC so it will be.
Maybe he becomes an alt right skinhead racist and she can save him?
Or she turns out to be transgender?
No they are both gay and connect properly as good humans unlike the rest of us?
Answers on a postcard to scrap the TV licence via the BBC
Projecting as “weird” and “damaged” and not “normal” seems to have been a thing at the posh (university) end of youth culture since at least the seventies. If you didn’t have hang ups, you’d better cultivate some, and being “straight” was the last thing anyone wanted to be. If all else failed, the very least you could do was take illegal drugs.
Enjoyed the review – but not sure I’ll now be able to watch the show without shouting “get on with it for gods sake!” Ironically, of course.
Suggestion: stop watching rubbish like this; stop writing about it (especially on UnHerd); and leave it to Mills & Boone!
Or you can stop reading the reviews about stuff you don’t like.
This is a fantastic article, It managed to summarise all of the insecurities I felt from watching the show without knowing why.