So Long, Jamie
Do we need to see ourselves in art? The question of relatability comes back in criticism again and again - repeats on me like tuna, to borrow from Celine. The tedious end-point of a culture where people need to relate personally to art, to glimpse a vestige of themselves in songs or films, is a kind of iTunesification of art where everything feeds into your own little personhood. This is my song for when I miss my mum; this is my comfort food movie. You tell your friends that such and such a show has you feeling seen. Criticism can then become commingled with standom, because the extent to which someone feels aligned with an artist or a work of art can blind them to their blemishes.
And yet it seems true, too, that art must find some way to sink a hook in you; that the best of creations can wallop you with a single moment of such awesome truthfulness that you feel singled out. In a beautifully contrived scene in The History Boys that centres on the Thomas Hardy poem 'Drummer Hodge', Hector - a lonely homosexual teacher - says to Posner - a melancholy homosexual boy - that "the best moments in reading [feel] as if a hand has come out and taken yours". It is a poignant moment because for queers there can be a sense of dislocation from society, and a sense that we are alone; but a loving touch from somebody who came before can offer the most incredible solace. How can art appeal to us if it makes no inroads into our being?
The film Moonlight, by Barry Jenkins, comes to mind here, because in mining so particular a set of circumstances - the film is very specifically about an intersection of blackness and queerness, and is deeply embedded in working class Miami - it still managed to turn itself inside out for so many. All of that detail, that rich specificity - the names! the food! the comb that Kevin unthinkingly drags through his hair as the pair drive off together in act 3! - on the contrary becomes so real, so fleshed out to you, that it positively vibrates in your very self. Have I known what it is to be Chiron? No, not even close. But I felt something roiling in me when I saw a teenager's hand stretching out into what I knew would be cold sand after sundown, or a lover making a sweetly clumsy bowl of soul food for a loved one.
All of this has been going through my mind after watching Normal People, the television adaptation of Sally Rooney's bestseller, which has recently captivated so many. As I struggled through the show, feeling increasingly detached or even alienated from its characters and goings-on, I began to ask myself if I really needed, so pathetically, to be reached out to. Couldn't I just let it do its thing, and admire it for everything it is that I am not? All of the show's vicissitudes, the will-they-won't-they peaks and troughs of two turbulent lovers, kept me at arm's length, and even irritated me. Something here feels confected. The obstacles to Marianne and Connell's coupledom can feel flimsy: they misunderstand each other; they fear what will be said (nothing is said); they misread one another again; they are now seeing somebody else who is clearly a poor fit. Perhaps I felt particularly aggravated by these artificial roadbumps; perhaps, I'm going to say it, looking at two beautiful and intelligent people who have no particular trouble lining up relationship after relationship from school through university, I felt a sort of queer annoyance at the trumped up ordeals on display here. Oh, you got dumped? Bad luck, person-who-got-to-have-sexual-intercourse-while-still-in-school! Am I... am I too gay for Normal People? (Now there's a sentence that changes in the saying-out-loud)
A further grievance comes from the fact that these contrived fuck-ups interrupt a relationship that is so wholly pre-ordained. Marianne and Connell are singled out from the get-go; are intended for each other, you might say, by their difference to the world around them. They are matched in sensitivity, beauty, wit, and their early decision to go to Trinity after school. This relationship comes to crush all others - how could 'Helen', or 'Jamie', two mere roadblocks to this amour fou, ever hope to compete? In a dismantling of Jonathan Franzen's Freedom in the LRB ten years ago, James Lever contended that the novel was poorer for the fact that Jenna and Lalitha were non-characters who merely served a narrative purpose. Joey, one of the main characters, leaves his childhood town and childhood sweetheart, Connie, behind - and falls in with a new set, which includes Jenna, whom he starts half-heartedly dating. Lever writes that
this is a continuously unsurprising novel. Does the beautiful daughter, Jenna, break with type and blossom into a serious rival to the winning Connie? No, she remains a two-dimensional materialistic airhead, whom Joey and the reader are able to walk out on without a second glance – thank goodness.
Ditto Jamie, who of course never stands a chance. Jamie serves a function: most importantly, he keeps Marianne away from the more worthy Connell, for a good two episodes; his nastiness of character and of fucking style (?) also demonstrate Marianne's sad predilection for self-debasement. Jamie isn't a real person, as you can see from his very thin acts of passive-aggression that spill over into active aggression during a lunch scene in an Italian arbour. This feels over-egged; we all know (and perhaps have on occasion been) someone who can maintain a veneer of politeness while behaving deplorably. Jamie is given no redeeming features whatsoever that might counterbalance this wickedness of character and make us imagine why Marianne might be with him; he is but a nuisance, a blip in the horoscope. This matters, because it means that you start to see the concrete in the edifice; and in a twelve episode series, it means that things drag a little, at each obstacle in the way of the pre-destined outcome. It also robs the main characters of their interest - Marianne and Connell don't need to fight for each other or for us by being engaging, because they are always forecast for one another. This means that their relationship takes up an inordinate amount of space: the secondary characters fall by the wayside, and all the dialogue comes back, again and again, to their feelings for one another. It chokes the life out of the programme. Couldn't they talk about something else for five minutes? Have they maybe seen some funny videos on YouTube that they could chat about? Maybe the one with the old guy playing a very big organ! That's a good one.
These weaknesses are a pity because they come in a show that can sometimes manage a few hurrahs. A scene where Marianne dares to mention the mediocrity of a school friend who committed suicide is scintillatingly devised: it reveals much about her character, shows the tightness of her bond with Connell, and is astutely observed, for these are the moments, at a time of grief, that tie us together. I was also pained by many of Marianne's moments of self-abnegation in front of Connell, which are well drawn: I have seen so many women, perplexingly, fawn over a man - even a mediocre one - and lavish him in compliments whose implication is that she, the giver of them, is unworthy of him, the recipient. Or at least, if she is not unworthy, that she is fortunate to have netted him, her golden boy. The men who receive these compliments invariably proffer none back and do not reject them, but awkwardly receive the grovel. These instances in the show felt suitably awkward to me, and gave me a glimpse of a better programme, one perhaps not so elongated and certainly not so predetermined, which would pierce through more ably to the knottiness of men and women's relationships. These are scenes whose truth rings out and shows up the more soapy ins and outs of Connell and Marianne's wild goose chase of a relationship, which at one point are tritely soundtracked by (are you serious?) a whispy cover of Love Will Tear Us Apart.
"I can't relate," as the youth say. My hand has remained untouched.
And yet it seems true, too, that art must find some way to sink a hook in you; that the best of creations can wallop you with a single moment of such awesome truthfulness that you feel singled out. In a beautifully contrived scene in The History Boys that centres on the Thomas Hardy poem 'Drummer Hodge', Hector - a lonely homosexual teacher - says to Posner - a melancholy homosexual boy - that "the best moments in reading [feel] as if a hand has come out and taken yours". It is a poignant moment because for queers there can be a sense of dislocation from society, and a sense that we are alone; but a loving touch from somebody who came before can offer the most incredible solace. How can art appeal to us if it makes no inroads into our being?
The film Moonlight, by Barry Jenkins, comes to mind here, because in mining so particular a set of circumstances - the film is very specifically about an intersection of blackness and queerness, and is deeply embedded in working class Miami - it still managed to turn itself inside out for so many. All of that detail, that rich specificity - the names! the food! the comb that Kevin unthinkingly drags through his hair as the pair drive off together in act 3! - on the contrary becomes so real, so fleshed out to you, that it positively vibrates in your very self. Have I known what it is to be Chiron? No, not even close. But I felt something roiling in me when I saw a teenager's hand stretching out into what I knew would be cold sand after sundown, or a lover making a sweetly clumsy bowl of soul food for a loved one.
All of this has been going through my mind after watching Normal People, the television adaptation of Sally Rooney's bestseller, which has recently captivated so many. As I struggled through the show, feeling increasingly detached or even alienated from its characters and goings-on, I began to ask myself if I really needed, so pathetically, to be reached out to. Couldn't I just let it do its thing, and admire it for everything it is that I am not? All of the show's vicissitudes, the will-they-won't-they peaks and troughs of two turbulent lovers, kept me at arm's length, and even irritated me. Something here feels confected. The obstacles to Marianne and Connell's coupledom can feel flimsy: they misunderstand each other; they fear what will be said (nothing is said); they misread one another again; they are now seeing somebody else who is clearly a poor fit. Perhaps I felt particularly aggravated by these artificial roadbumps; perhaps, I'm going to say it, looking at two beautiful and intelligent people who have no particular trouble lining up relationship after relationship from school through university, I felt a sort of queer annoyance at the trumped up ordeals on display here. Oh, you got dumped? Bad luck, person-who-got-to-have-sexual-intercourse-while-still-in-school! Am I... am I too gay for Normal People? (Now there's a sentence that changes in the saying-out-loud)
A further grievance comes from the fact that these contrived fuck-ups interrupt a relationship that is so wholly pre-ordained. Marianne and Connell are singled out from the get-go; are intended for each other, you might say, by their difference to the world around them. They are matched in sensitivity, beauty, wit, and their early decision to go to Trinity after school. This relationship comes to crush all others - how could 'Helen', or 'Jamie', two mere roadblocks to this amour fou, ever hope to compete? In a dismantling of Jonathan Franzen's Freedom in the LRB ten years ago, James Lever contended that the novel was poorer for the fact that Jenna and Lalitha were non-characters who merely served a narrative purpose. Joey, one of the main characters, leaves his childhood town and childhood sweetheart, Connie, behind - and falls in with a new set, which includes Jenna, whom he starts half-heartedly dating. Lever writes that
this is a continuously unsurprising novel. Does the beautiful daughter, Jenna, break with type and blossom into a serious rival to the winning Connie? No, she remains a two-dimensional materialistic airhead, whom Joey and the reader are able to walk out on without a second glance – thank goodness.
Ditto Jamie, who of course never stands a chance. Jamie serves a function: most importantly, he keeps Marianne away from the more worthy Connell, for a good two episodes; his nastiness of character and of fucking style (?) also demonstrate Marianne's sad predilection for self-debasement. Jamie isn't a real person, as you can see from his very thin acts of passive-aggression that spill over into active aggression during a lunch scene in an Italian arbour. This feels over-egged; we all know (and perhaps have on occasion been) someone who can maintain a veneer of politeness while behaving deplorably. Jamie is given no redeeming features whatsoever that might counterbalance this wickedness of character and make us imagine why Marianne might be with him; he is but a nuisance, a blip in the horoscope. This matters, because it means that you start to see the concrete in the edifice; and in a twelve episode series, it means that things drag a little, at each obstacle in the way of the pre-destined outcome. It also robs the main characters of their interest - Marianne and Connell don't need to fight for each other or for us by being engaging, because they are always forecast for one another. This means that their relationship takes up an inordinate amount of space: the secondary characters fall by the wayside, and all the dialogue comes back, again and again, to their feelings for one another. It chokes the life out of the programme. Couldn't they talk about something else for five minutes? Have they maybe seen some funny videos on YouTube that they could chat about? Maybe the one with the old guy playing a very big organ! That's a good one.
These weaknesses are a pity because they come in a show that can sometimes manage a few hurrahs. A scene where Marianne dares to mention the mediocrity of a school friend who committed suicide is scintillatingly devised: it reveals much about her character, shows the tightness of her bond with Connell, and is astutely observed, for these are the moments, at a time of grief, that tie us together. I was also pained by many of Marianne's moments of self-abnegation in front of Connell, which are well drawn: I have seen so many women, perplexingly, fawn over a man - even a mediocre one - and lavish him in compliments whose implication is that she, the giver of them, is unworthy of him, the recipient. Or at least, if she is not unworthy, that she is fortunate to have netted him, her golden boy. The men who receive these compliments invariably proffer none back and do not reject them, but awkwardly receive the grovel. These instances in the show felt suitably awkward to me, and gave me a glimpse of a better programme, one perhaps not so elongated and certainly not so predetermined, which would pierce through more ably to the knottiness of men and women's relationships. These are scenes whose truth rings out and shows up the more soapy ins and outs of Connell and Marianne's wild goose chase of a relationship, which at one point are tritely soundtracked by (are you serious?) a whispy cover of Love Will Tear Us Apart.
"I can't relate," as the youth say. My hand has remained untouched.
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