Totally Normal People

7 Cents July 26 2024: Totally Normal People

1. Is Sally Rooney having me on? Maybe she's mad that I ditched her last novel halfway through, on page 225 out of 350. 

2. For Intermezzo (out in September '24), Rooney adopts and adapts James Joyce's fractured sentences when inside her protagonists' heads. 

3. To make a point. Yes. But also because it works, clever. And bring in that language philosopher: Ludwig Witts-his-name. But does it connect? Or not, like those neon circles not really. Brain makes the circle. 

4. I also noticed some Hamlet bits, because I just watched Julia Stiles and Kyle MacLachlan in the great and bonkers 2000 Hamlet. Ethan Hawke wonders whether to be or not while pacing through a Blockbuster. Also, Rooney meantioned it in her notes. 

5. Ulysses, on the other hand, I hadn't read since lockdown. As Rooney mentioned in her nice 2022 Paris Review piece, Ulysses is about a couple of guys.

6. And so is Intermezzo. There's a third protagonist, Margaret, whose interior we sometimes feel. But mostly, when it comes to internal focalization, free indirect discourse, feelings: It's about these two brothers. 

7. And it's great. But maybe that's exactly what Rooney wants me to say! I won't fall for it! Does she think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? I hate it when she does that.