The Guardian view on the stunting effect: hard to blossom in the Covid-19 era

In Sally Rooney’s Normal People, the transition from school in provincial Sligo to student life in Dublin affects the two main characters very differently. Marianne, a distrusted loner back home, enjoys a fulfilling social life for the first time. Connell, the local Gaelic football star from a working-class background, fails to assimilate in the elite environs of Trinity College Dublin, but discovers his academic vocation. Ms Rooney’s novel,…