Stripped of the author's crisp, forensic prose, her plots are pleasurable precisely because they deliver this specific brand of intellectual and romantic wish fulfilment, an additional sly undertone of commentary on class helping to shore up the impression of an Austen love affair playing out in a hip millennial milieu. I am talking, of course, about the new television series based on Sally Rooney's novel Conversations with Friends although if you are fan of literary adaptations (or, perhaps, simply a person with a fondness for abundant, well-choreographed sex scenes), it will probably not have escaped your notice that I am also describing the events of the 2020 adaptation of Rooney's Normal People. A shocking tale of US police corruption There is a delicious note of melodrama in their coupling, played in the pleasurably agonising key of a sad song. There are circumstances that prevent them from being an actual couple, and those circumstances make their assignations hotter they have frequent sex in secret, and the sex is immediately, transcendently brilliant, to the point that when they sleep with other people it feels as if the machinery of their bodies is malfunctioning. Happily, his perfect looks conceal not only a good brain, but a kind heart, so that even when he does things that are painful for the pretty, clever brunette, such as giving his affections to another woman, we still fundamentally believe he is an alright sort of guy. She meets, and falls messily and nonlinearly in love with, a man who is so traditionally good-looking that he's frequently mistaken for an idiot. She is shy and very smart and, crucially, extremely thin.
Stop me if you've seen this one before: an unconventionally beautiful young brunette – who is only unconventionally beautiful in the sense that she does not resemble, say, Jennifer Lawrence – is underappreciated by her peers.
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