Normal People: The Scripts

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Delve deeper into the Emmy- and Golden Globe–nominated Hulu series based on Sally Rooney's bestselling novel with this must-have collection of the Normal People scripts, featuring behind-the-scenes photos and an introduction by director Lenny Abrahamson. Normal People: The Scripts is a fantastic edition with beautiful endpapers to snapshots of the show throughout. We pay respect to the Elders past, present and emerging, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today. Please note that some countries may charge the recipient duties on the 'import' of parcels from time-to-time.

Normal People: The Scripts by Sally Rooney, Alice - Dymocks Normal People: The Scripts by Sally Rooney, Alice - Dymocks

Normal People, both as novel and TV show, lays bare not simply the thrill of first love, of finding someone who actually sees you, but, more interestingly, how the way in which others see you can affect the way you act. For, amid all the media kerfuffle that has surrounded Rooney, with the anointing of her as the voice of her generation, and the subsequent comparison of every book about twenty-something young women to her work, what gets forgotten is that the author herself has never made any grand claims for her writing. Two stars because I found the narrative/dialogue worthwhile but that is of course that is all from the novel. Thus when we first meet Marianne and Connell at school in Sligo (and that setting is important – Rooney has an eye for the small-town morality of rural Ireland, the way in which those who wish to leave can be seen as having ‘notions’), she is the awkward girl from the ‘big house’, spiky, ‘difficult’, disliked by her classmates as much for her refusal to play by their rules as for the intelligence she refuses to hide. From beginners to professionals, we come together to teach, learn, and share everything about Screenwriting.

These explorations turned into Normal People, which was published in 2018 and adapted into a television series by Hulu and the BBC in 2020. Yet – and this understanding that no one is entirely as they present on the surface is one of the smartest things about Rooney’s novel – he has hinterlands too. Normal People is a nuanced and flinty love story about two young people who ‘get’ each other, despite class differences and the interference of their own vigorous personal demons.

Normal People: The Scripts by Sally Rooney | Goodreads Normal People: The Scripts by Sally Rooney | Goodreads

Most of all, Abrahamson (unfortunately McDonald’s episodes were not made available to review) understands the honesty at the heart of Rooney’s work. The complete screenplays of the acclaimed Emmy-nominated drama based on Sally Rooney’s bestselling novel. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. Normal People has some similarities with Rooney’s first novel, Conversations with Friends, at least insofar as both books explore an on-off romantic relationship. The central question surrounding all literary adaptations, but particularly those where the source material has a fervent fan base, is how faithful should you be?

Intimately directed by Lenny Abrahamson, who sets the tone with the first six episodes before handing over to Hettie McDonald for the final six, this is an adaptation that manages to feel true to Rooney’s work – the script was written by the author herself, alongside Alice Birch, who wrote Lady Macbeth, and Irish playwright Mark O’Rowe. Adaptation is very interesting to me and this is a great example of when it is not done well - the adaptation of a work of art has no life or creative spirit of its own, it just takes the source material and converts it into another form, without any admirable intentions, with actually maybe the least admirable intention in mind - to take the source material and convert it into something more easily consumable.

BBC Three - Normal People BBC Three - Normal People

With an introduction by director Lenny Abrahamson and featuring iconic images from the show, Normal People: The Scripts contains the complete screenplays of the acclaimed Emmy-nominated television drama based on Sally Rooney's bestselling novel. Our mission is to foster a universal passion for reading by partnering with authors to help create stories and communicate ideas that inform, entertain, and inspire. Sally Rooney was born in 1991 in County Mayo, Ireland, where she grew up with her parents and two siblings. You are not allowed to share or distribute them, extract anything from them to develop or train artificial intelligence or to do computer analysis.If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter .