Last night he spent an hour and a half lying on the floor of his room, because he was too tired to complete the journey from his en suite back to his bed. There was the en suite, behind him, and there was the bed, in front of him, both well within view, but somehow it was impossible to move either forward or backward, only downward, onto the floor, until his body was arranged motionless on the carpet. Well, here I am on the floor, he thought. Is life so much worse here than it would be on the bed, or even in a totally different location? No, life is exactly the same. Life is the thing you bring with you inside your own head.
~ Sally Rooney, Normal People (Hogarth, April 16, 2019).
DK Rating: Highly Recommended. Sally Rooney, 28 years old, and to write like this, Wow…
Notes:
- Here’s another passage: “Still, Connell went home that night and read over some notes he had been making for a new story, and he felt the old beat of pleasure inside his body, like watching a perfect goal, like the rustling movement of light through leaves, a phrase of music from the window of a passing car. Life offers up these moments of joy despite everything.”
- A book recommended by NY Times Book Review in their Editor’s Choice selections on April 18, 2019.
- N.Y. Times Book Review by Dwight Garner: Sally Rooney’s ‘Normal People’ Explores Intense Love Across Social Classes
- Portrait of Sally Rooney via Vanity Fair: Sally Rooney is Grappling with What it Means to be Sally Rooney
Live & Learn 
Heard a review of this book on NPR just the other day and was intrigued. Had added it to the queue. Looks like I need to bump it up the line a bit more…
https://www.npr.org/2019/04/09/711377704/personal-demons-and-class-differences-complicate-love-in-normal-people
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Thanks for sharing Lori.
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Yes there was no difference where he slept all in the mind
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Or where we walk or travel.
Your thought reminds me
“Always rather embarrassing to wonder what one gets out of travel to make up for its privations, except that it requires so much more imagination to stay at home. “
William Empson,
letter to John Hayward, 7 March 1933
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Beauty at its best in every word, David and that is what it is when we walk and travel.
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Yes…
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This could be you. No sleep. “DK, so tired, was found on the floor in the train during the morning commute..” It was three days before anyone noticed, mainly because they were too self-absorbed with their phones and their busy lives” ha 😛
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LAUGHING. SO GOOD. Was reading this while clutching my iPhone walking to train station. Getting smacked around first thing in morning by Bush Woman from down under. IT’S GOING TO BE A GREAT DAY.
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Ha! Laughing back! Be present and enjoy each moment 👏🌸
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I’m on it!
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it is always within, no matter where you find yourself at any given moment
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Yes. Yes it is.
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Reblogged this on It Is What It Is and commented:
NORMAL PEOPLE … ‘ Life is the thing you bring with you inside your own head.’ … Sally Rooney, Normal People (Hogarth, April 16, 2019). An more …
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Looks like I’ll have to add yet another book to my queue…
Have a great day, David.
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Book is a bit dark but wonderful character development. Thanks Dale. Have a good one.
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Ugh. I’m trying to get through a dark poetry… not a fan of too much
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Hmmmmm. You might sit this one out.
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Thanks for the heads up.
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Not one I’m in a hurry to read. Had to plough through your links first – but an amazing talent she is! The choice of words!
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Yes!
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I knew when I read the words ‘normal people” this wasn’t a post about my family but then again it could be
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Funny!
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Just started…
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Bit dark in tone…strap in.
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Okay, thanks for the head’s up
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