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