Reading Normal People in Dublin for the First Time (sixth reread)

If you've followed my blog at all, you know I love Normal People. Cliche as it is, the book is partially responsible for bringing me to Dublin. Both because Normal People was my gateway to so many Dublin-based books that made me realize I needed to visit the city and because Sally Rooney taught me, in many ways, how to grow as a writer. I also just deeply love the book. I didn't always. My original review of Normal People from when I was a teenager is still on the blog, and it's safe to say I didn't love it. The essay that I wrote for a class junior year of college that made me revisit the novel is also on the blog. I've read it, as of this week, six times now. In 2021, 2022, 2024 (twice), 2025, and 2026. And every single time, I've had a different reading experience. This is a book that's managed to grow up with me, and different parts stand out based on the experiences I've had or what I'm thinking about at the moment. 

This is the first time I've read Normal People since moving to Dublin. I've had the show in my head for the last three reads, so I had some sense of the visual space, and you obviously (by the book's international success) don't need to know Dublin to enjoy it. But there is something that's added by knowing the place. There always is. But I found certain moments hit harder with the understanding of Dublin's geography. When Connell gets mugged, I didn't realize the gravity of Connell calling from Dun Laoghaire at one in the morning. That is a trek from over by Trinity, where Connell and Marianne live, about 45 minutes on the DART once you've waited for a train to show (which wouldn't be running at that time of night) or an over three hour walk. He was really, really screwed. (Also, when I mentioned this to all my friends, we were like he got mugged in Dun Laoghaire of all places?) When Connell and Marianne first go to a college party together when they become friends again in Trinity it's out in Swords—which is quite far from Dublin City Centre, and it makes sense that so many people would sleep over after going to a party there. I have a friend who lives in Swords, so that stuck out in particular as I remembered the walk into the City Centre then over to the Swords Express then out through the tunnel to get there. No wonder Marianne wanted to use Connell's car. When Marianne thinks about grabbing her flask from the glove box and remembers a day trip with Connell, I understood where Howth was, even though I have yet to go. Every reference to buildings on Trinity's campus are also real and were grounded in my mind. I was at Hodges Figgis yesterday, so I could vividly see Connell and Helen running into Marianne coming out of there. I've run into classmates in that same spot many times. And even though the book is set from 2011-2015, almost everything feels like it could be happening today.

I think it also made me more attuned to the changes that the show makes that you wouldn't notice unless you know Dublin. Marianne lives off Merrion Square in the book, though her apartment in the show is in Ballsbridge, not by name but the physical place. Still a nice area, but definitely a different geographic situation in proximity to Trinity. Similarly, Connell is said to live on a road about 2 blocks from where I take classes, but that's not the case in the show. This was particularly jarring because I searched up the street given in the book and then thought no way he lives that close into the city in the show given the exterior, and after some googling, I found it was filmed in a suburb. These aren't huge changes, and they'd never registered before, but it was interesting. The book places them much more proximate to Trinity and to each other, which makes a lot of the plot gel more easily. 

I also realized how much does get changed from the book to the show when it comes to plot and characters. I'd rewatched parts of the show in the fall, and because it's easier to throw on a half-hour TV episode every now and again, that's usually where I go for my Normal People content. Mentally defaulting tot he show made me forget how much gets left on the cutting room floor. It's a very faithful adaptation, and nothing is fundamentally changed that alters the course of the show, but it was more noticeable than I'd previously realized. There's a conversation that takes place after schols that's transported to happen in Italy that originally was a flashback to Dublin contained within the Italy chapter of the novel (this makes practical sense but it does change the feeling of the conversation a bit). Marianne's birthday party from the last episode of the show doesn't happen in the novel. He instead gives her the Frank O'Hara poems in Italy. And, of course, the whole layout of that final episode is largely different. The ending in the book is much more condensed than what happens on screen. That entire ending is almost a permutation of the end of the book, harvesting the emotional beats but swapping out settings and particularities that suit the needs of the screen more. I'm mostly impressed with how different it truly is without me having noticed. It shows how good of a job they did translating the material to produce a similar feeling through different scenarios.

Also, I noticed, there were scenes, particularly flashbacks, that were removed from the episodes that added depth to Connell and Helen's relationship. She is somewhat one-dimensional in the show, and by being able to fully get inside Connell's head, their connection makes far more sense in the novel. There are so many episodes that pull directly word for word from the book that I just forget that the book operated with so many fewer limitations when it comes to time and using it elastically. I also didn't realize how much was built in around Connell's contemplation of his emails with Marianne when they were coming back together as friends in the novel. It has made me realize that when translating a book to the screen, even when it's phenomenal, there are certain pieces that get lost and much of the Italy chapter is, except for the exquisite rendering of that dinner party scene. 

It's funny that the Italy episode is one of my most rewatched and is maybe my favorite in the series, and this time, it was that chapter that hit me hardest—though none of the scenes I paid particular attention to were in the show. Instead, it's how the chapter has Connell examining his relationship with Marianne, his relationship with Helen, this weird in-between place he's in and how he's handling it. How he conceives of himself and of Marianne in this period. I highlighted passages that had never stood out to me before. I also never remembered their email correspondence being so integral to the story. I knew it was there, but I'd always glossed over it. I found there to be far more depth in the back half of the book than I'd found before, more resonance in the question of what we are to people who exist in our lives in some gray zone between platonic and romantic. 

And none of these changes in my noticing are about the book. It is the same text every time I pick it up, whether it's got the US or UK cover on it. But I'm different every time I read the novel. I've had new experiences, I've lived more life, my thinking has evolved, I understand more of the world. That does fundamentally change what it's like to read the novel each time around and I think is the joy of coming back to reread an old favorite.