two people who can't leave each other alone
when things would be much (much, much) better if they could
Fiction, 2018
I came back to my room after hanging out with a friend to write today’s newsletter on a different novel. But then something happened earlier that evening that I couldn’t dislodge from my brain. It burrowed into my night like a pesky insect until—when I finally sat down on my bed and my roommate asked me how I was—I started to cry. The questions I ask myself, and that the novel asks you, are: What happens when two people build opposing narratives around each other? What happens if they continuously engage with one another while they spin these different mental webs? Sally Rooney’s answer is: apparently, nothing good.
I have a complex relationship with Rooney. I’ve read everything she’s written, and the most rewarding by far is Normal People. The proof is that I’ve devoured it thrice. You follow Marianne and Connell as they grow up (and around, through, and under) each other against the backdrop of a hyper-class-conscious Ireland. Like parallel lines, they never seem to meet. It’s frustrating until you realise that this non-encounter is the point of contact itself.
The first time I read it, I fell in love with the writing and the characters. It seemed raw and real in ways that other contemporary fictions haven’t. The second time, I sensed something murky under the surface, but was too enchanted with the doom of the story to care enough to probe further. The third time, I realised that it would be the last time I would ever read the novel.
Song - Beast of Burden - The Rolling Stones
Film - In chronological order of my experience reading, and rereading, the novel:
P.S. - Sorry for the awful picture, I don’t have the novel anymore and thus, couldn’t take a better one. This is not an irrelevant sign.
I love u
Amalfi coast sucks ass fuck this Mahika