They talk about the novels he’s reading, the research she studies, the precise historical moment that they are currently living in, the difficulty of observing such a moment in process.

Would you rather live under a matriarchy? says Peggy. Difficult to know. I’d give it a go anyway, see what it was like. Peggy keeps laughing, as if Connell is being unbelievably witty. Don’t you enjoy your male privilege? she says. It’s like Marianne was saying, he replies. It’s not that enjoyable to have. I mean, it is what it is, I don’t get much

I mean, when you look at the lives men are really living, it’s sad, Marianne says. They control the whole social system and this is the best they can come up with for themselves? They’re not even having fun.

And in college she often feels there’s no limit to what her brain can do, it can synthesise everything she puts into it, it’s like having a powerful machine inside her head. Really she has everything going for her. She has no idea what she’s going to do with her life.

Now he has a sense of invisibility, nothingness, with no reputation to recommend him to anyone.

external to himself, managed by the opinions of others, rather than anything he individually did or produced.

If anything, his personality seemed like something

Back home, Connell’s shyness never seemed like much of an obstacle to his social life, because everyone knew who he was already, and there was never any need to introduce himself or create impressions about his personality.

It feels intellectually unserious to concern himself with fictional people marrying one another. But there it is: literature moves him. One of his professors calls it ‘the pleasure of being touched by great art’.