Wow, this was just extraordinarily terrific, especially your linking Normal People with Portrait of a Lady. To me one of the most chilling lines in all of English literature is when Isabel says that Osmond and Madame Merle “made a convenience of me.” That is all evil is--using other people for our convenience.
The connection I make is with Succession, because both Succession and Normal People demonstrate with undeniable power that money and status are completely irrelevant when compared with whether one grows up in a happy and loving family, or whether one grows up being abused and made a convenience of. Connell, for all his class-based shame, has a loving mom, and he will be ok. No one would ever choose Marianne’s family, or the Roys, over Connell’s cleaning-lady single mom.
finally a critique of this book that makes sense to me!
Wow, this was just extraordinarily terrific, especially your linking Normal People with Portrait of a Lady. To me one of the most chilling lines in all of English literature is when Isabel says that Osmond and Madame Merle “made a convenience of me.” That is all evil is--using other people for our convenience.
The connection I make is with Succession, because both Succession and Normal People demonstrate with undeniable power that money and status are completely irrelevant when compared with whether one grows up in a happy and loving family, or whether one grows up being abused and made a convenience of. Connell, for all his class-based shame, has a loving mom, and he will be ok. No one would ever choose Marianne’s family, or the Roys, over Connell’s cleaning-lady single mom.