I think I’ve always been somewhat ambivalent about adapting books for the screen. As a reader, you instinctively want a faithful recreation, one that takes those incorporeal images in your imagination and makes them real. And as a reader, you will be inevitably disappointed because the best adaptations are the ones that are utterly faithless. So, as a reader, I always thought that the best I could hope for was an adaptation that didn’t utterly destroy its source material. Every time, the cycle would begin anew. At first, excitement and anticipation, followed by nitpicking and the inevitable letdown. And every time, the same voice would whisper, “Well, compared to the book…”. I couldn’t help but compare and bemoan every difference. Normal People seemed like it would be just the latest example.
It seems improbable that an adaptation would even be made. Sally Rooney’s second book is withdrawn, fragmented, and more than a little bit awkward. Although there are moments of pure poetry, most of the time the characters register their life in spurts, unable to fully translate their emotion into thought, much less spoken word. Thus, conversations in the book often flow by, quick and weightless. Words are left unburdened by the usual ‘he said’ or ‘she said’ or even a pause to reflect. It’s hard to even register that the wrong thing has been said, that there’s been some error in communication because the dialogue is so heedless. By the time a character realizes their mistake, a relationship has already been torn apart. In this way, Rooney expertly captures the confining sense of young adulthood. You always feel like you’re moving at someone else’s whims, captive to an external force that you can never quite define. Much of the journey in Normal People is Connell and Marianne coming to terms with how the world around them has shaped their sense of self. Connell and Marianne see the world but can’t quite place themselves in it. There is always a sense of disconnect, of remove. The relationship between Connell and Marianne is special because their connection anchors them, not just to each other but to the world. Normal People revolves around a fundamentally conventional romance. Boy falls in love with girl. Yet, it is not a conventional romance novel. The relationship between Connell and Marianne becomes radical because it has been put on the page, written about with care when usually only the most extraordinary or fantastical stories are featured. The greatest asset of Normal People is how stubbornly mundane it is, how it always chooses to understate instead of dramatize.
Which is why, I was doubtful. Restraint does not translate easily to the television screen. Television is inherently the louder, flashier medium. Certainly, television brings with it new and exciting possibilities such as the use of diegetic music to convey mood or the ability to engage in purely visual storytelling. But television also means that you lose the interiority of a book (I think we can all agree that voiceovers are a bad idea). Because of the nature of a television show, Normal People, the adaptation, is much more focused on the appearance of things. It cannot truly warp the perception of reality like a book can. For in a book, Connell and Marianne are subjective narrators. We can only see the world as they do. The camera is much more objective. Thus, the show works to demonstrate the starkness of the world around Connell and Marianne, place them among the scenery and watch them react. It is the same story but being shown from the outside instead of being told from the inside. While the book indicates that a conversation is meaningful by detailing a character’s thoughts, a television show might try to do the same with a slow song or a shoulder shrug. Having read other coverage of the show, I have found that the physicality of the adaptation has been especially striking to most. Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones give form, real form, to characters that were once just words. But as a reader, I instinctively add the context of the book anyway and somehow, that changes the experience too. When I was watching the show, I was always in two places, processing the book and the images on the screen simultaneously. Reading Normal People the book made the show’s choices, whether it was to adhere to the text or diverge from it, much more obvious. For instance, I am not sure I would have noticed the camera’s emphasis on ordinary objects if it had not reminded me of the book’s blunt descriptions. It is a change in perception that has affected how I read the book too; it is not just a one-way street. Although I can’t help but appreciate the distinct pleasure of being in the confidence of a stranger’s thoughts when I’m reading, I miss the fullness of seeing someone on television. And perhaps, that is why this piece is ultimately an argument for adaptations. Because the good ones will take those understandings that you have gained from the text and give them weight, make them manifest. By taking what was once only alive in the mind and giving it a body, adaptations can act as a complement to a book instead of a mere replica. All this to say, I enjoyed Normal People, both versions.