Recently, the BBC TV series "Normal People", which tells the story of youth growth, was a hit and received a high score of 8.9 Douban. The drama is adapted from the novel of the same name by "post-90s" female writer Sally Rooney, and the Chinese Simplified version of the novel (translated as "Normal People") will also be jointly published by Shanghai Translation Publishing House and Archipelago Books.
TV series "Normal People"
Novel cover
Sally Rooney is a high-profile rookie of Irish literature, whose novel was named to the Booker Prize at the age of 27, and whose debut novel, Chat Log, featured Frances, a 21-year-old Irish college student. She and her girlfriend Bobby meet the little-known writer Melissa and her actor husband, Nick. In bookstores, gardens, cafes, apartment buildings, Frances and her old and new friends talk about the world. Unconsciously, Frances and Nick began an extramarital affair that they knew would not bear fruit.
Chat History book cover
The manuscript was eventually published by Faber Press in 2017. Subsequently, "Chat History" was named the best novel of the year by the Paris Review. Sally Rooney also won the 2017 Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award for her book. European and American literary circles praised her as "Salinger in the age of social media" and the spokesperson for millennials.
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"Island Hopping" No. 7 (Demo Version)
On May 13, Zhong Na, the translator of "Chat History" and "Normal People", and zhu Yujie, the writer, came to the seventh issue of "Island Jumping fm". The duo traveled between the 19th and 21st centuries, from Chat History to the similarities and differences between Sally Rooney and Jane Austen.
Zhong Na said that after entering the post-capitalist era, exploitation dominates people's lives in an invisible way. "Money is a pretty abstract thing for those of Jane Austen, often in people's lives as wills, title deeds, and the annual income of bachelors. In our current lives, money has been specific to the house, the famous paintings in the house, and we now like to say 'cherry freedom' - money has been specific to the cherry. I think Rooney was one of those young people who suddenly realized the importance of money and class, and why she wrote something that felt like she was speaking out for a generation. ”
Sally Rooney
"Representing the Era" and "Crossing the Era"
For hashtags like "Salinger in the age of social media," Chung na thinks Sally Rooney herself is more cautious. "It's a compliment, but she has reservations. I feel that writers may be neutral in this kind of statement, or there is still some restraint. People may not feel like they can represent a generation. The phrase 'represent a generation' is itself a bit of a generalization, and it depreciates over time. Shortly after the publication of Sally Rooney's book, there was also a brilliant female writer named Jia tolentino, a columnist for The New Yorker, who produced a collection of essays called Trick Mirror, and she was also known as the voice of a generation. So who can represent the voice of a generation, I think everyone will have doubts. ”
In Chung Na's observation, from Sally Rooney's readership alone, although the vast majority are young and predominantly white, there are also many middle-aged and elderly people, as well as some younger people. "I think it's a limitation to say that she represents a generation, and maybe the writer herself still hopes that her things can span that era."
"Whether a generation is willing to be represented or not is also a question." In Zhu Yujie's view, the reason why "Chat History" is so popular is because few people can organize the current materials into very good novels, "Chat Records is very smooth and very substitutionary, and not everyone can handle these materials at the moment." lgbt, social media, the internet age... These topics are not new. How to use them is actually a very test of the writer's ability and unique perspective. ”
Chung agrees that Sally Rooney knows a lot about stylistic details, such as her mention of Nick writing emails without capital letters, which is a very subtle observation. "In life, when we see a person writing an email like this, it shows that the person is very confident in himself, otherwise it has a certain implicit meaning." She can accurately capture very small details, and then use such a detail to tell us what kind of person this is, while giving it the tension of the plot. ”
Zhong Na
The novel invites the reader into the world, and the details are a good invitation
Many critics have mentioned that Sally Rooney's book is actually a 19th-century novel dressed in modern clothes. In Chuna's view, Sally Rooney's treatment of money and class is "very 19th-century": "We can often see in the ChatBook, and she observes from time to time what kind of details class is embodied in people. In "Normal People", the hero's mother works part-time in the heroine's home, subtly showing the class differences between the male and female protagonists, and writing about how class affects the relationship between the two of them. ”
Zhu Yujie believes that Sally Rooney was clearly influenced by Jane Austen: "She and Austin are writing about this real life, and it is very detailed. Austin has always been called "literature in the teacup", that is, she describes the small details of life, and some people criticize her for being too feminine and too boudoir. Some people also say that Austen's writings are all national events and carry very important historical moments. I was very impressed with a plot where Austin wrote that everyone had to go to the store to buy ribbons before going to the prom. At that time, it was very expensive to make a dress, only the upper class could often make clothes, and many middle-class families could only buy ribbons to decorate themselves. Every time you go to the dance, the ribbon is to be changed, not repeated. Such a detail carries the economic situation and aesthetic trend of the British middle class at that time, and records it like a record. ”
"Then you'll find that Sally Rooney also wrote a lot of life details in the book. This is where two people are particularly similar. They have all seen the truth of life, but when describing it, they wrap up the truth in trivial language and let the reader peel back the cocoon, which is a trick they use. Zhu Yujie said.
"It reminds me of the chat history where people at parties wear long necklaces. I felt as if it were a 'modern version of the ribbon', recording a detail of the time. "Details are very important, because the most important thing in the novel is to create a sense of reality, it invites the reader to enter the world, believe in the world, and constantly want to return to the world to visit again." So first of all, there must be a sincere offer, and I think the details are a good offer. If a reader believes in details like ribbons and long necklaces, he will further believe in the dialogue between two characters, and further believe in the emotional vortex generated by the dialogue between them. ”
Good luck
Contemporary women seem to be freer, but the dilemma is more complicated
Although Sally Rooney and Jane Austen share similarities, the differences are also obvious.
"Jane Austen's novels have a very specific dilemma, because their lives are much simpler than they are now. The situation we face now is too complex to be changed by a marriage. But at that time, one of the biggest choices for women was marriage, as long as they grasped this opportunity, maybe life would be different. ”
But Sally Rooney doesn't have a very practical dilemma in ChatBooks, Zhu Yujie said, "I think it may be more like the weightlessness and dazedness of modern young people." We are not satisfied with reality, we have some of our own demands, but we can't say what it is. There is no specific enemy, but you feel that there are enemies everywhere. In the novel, Frances seems to be a very idealistic person, she first despised money, she did not care so much about money. This generation of young people does not have such strong material goals as the 'post-70s' and '80s', they live a little lazy and do not have such a strong desire. ”
"Is there one reason for the so-called desirelessness and non-desire that they are under greater pressure than their parents?" Zhong Na said that millennials in the United States, they find that they can't afford to buy a house, so they only have to rent a house; it is not easy to find a job, so they only have to do odd jobs. Their lives are precarious, many of them are on the move, but they are highly educated, much like the kind of civilians who have higher education, and then their adolescence will be longer.
Sally Rooney's women seem to be freer, as Yu Jie said, as if the enemy has disappeared, but the enemy is everywhere. Jane Austen tends to write about women stepping into the walls of marriage, and she doesn't write about the story after the marriage begins. The girls in Sally Rooney's novels don't pursue a stable marriage, especially in the end, the choices Frances makes clear that she didn't expect such a thing. So these women seem to be more free, and at the same time they have a rebellious spirit, they have to challenge the traditional view of marriage and love, but in fact, the problems they face will only become more complicated. ”
"A lot of what Rooney wrote about this group of young people resonates with us. But at the same time as the high resonance, we clearly felt that we were so different from that group of young people. What we pay attention to, what we are anxious about, what we usually talk about is so different. What Rooney did best was that we resonated strongly with this group of young people, and I think it's a very good way of communicating between young people. Zhong Na said.