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Irish Literature - Blog Posts
The difference between old Welsh literature and old Irish literature is very simple. In old Welsh literature, there are five page runs of names. In old Irish literature, there are five page runs of adjectives.
Normal people by Sally Rooney
“All these years they´ve been like two little plants sharing the same plot of soil, growing around one another, contorting to make room, taking certain unlikely positions.”
I don´t really have an opinion on this novel, only emotions, which probably is the best compliment you can give a writer, even if the emotions aren’t entirely pleasant ones. But then, pleasantries are not what books are for. Normal people is an incredibly simplistic book, and I mean that in the best way possible. The language is light and easy, because it doesn’t need to be anything else to fit the story and its characters.
Marianne and Connell grow up in the same small town in the Irish countryside. Connell is, despite his shyness, quite popular and well-liked, while Marianne´s opinionated personality and her overall weirdness makes her an outsider for her classmates. Because Connell´s mother works for Marianne´s rich family, they get to know each other outside of school and start sleeping with each other, only to realise how much they like each other and how close they have grown. This ends before they go off to college, but there, they meet again. Now, Marianne has a big group of friends and is highly admired, whereas Connel struggles with fitting in at Trinity, especially because of his social status. Still, he and Marianne find their way back to each other and stay close over the next years, sometimes romantically involved with each other, sometimes as each other´s friends or confidantes.
“It´s not like this with other people.”
With them growing and growing up, the relationship is constantly shifting. I wouldn’t call this novel a love story. It is more that these two people have an understanding about how they are respectively, and who they are to each other. It is a story about life and about growth and things that happen to us and things we do to ourselves and to others. It is, needless to say, a wonderful story.
„He brought her goodness like a gift and now it belongs to her.”
Seven stars in the still water,
And seven in the sky;
Seven sins on the King's daughter,
Deep in her soul to lie.
(By Oscar Wilde)
Being a speaker of modern Irish who engages with earlier literature is just shouting 'leathan le leathan is caol le caol' at the dead and boy do they not hear
My poem "Mr Keats is ill" features in VOL. 1: END of Tower Magazine. Available for purchase and/or download now!
