Once again, Sally Rooney does what she does best: writing about nothing, while also writing about everything. Intermezzo, her fourth and latest novel, follows her previous path of exploring the mundanity of our everyday relationships but furthers her way into the complexities of them.
After publishing three internationally acclaimed books, Rooney made her name as one of the most popular authors among a generation of “lost-in-their-20s-tote-bag-owners”. So, the expectations for the successor of Conversations with Friends (2017), Normal People (2018) – whose adaptation launched Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones into stardom – and Beautiful World, Where Are You (2021) were as high as possible.
Thankfully, here in Brazil, we managed to get a simultaneous release, and, by the end of September, I was already with my nose snuck in the book. After some time to finally digest it, I have thoughts to share about Intermezzo.
But first of all, what is the book about?
A Brief Synopsis
As usual, Sally Rooney makes her home country, Ireland, the background of the story. Only, this time, both of the main characters are males – but don’t worry, the female characters are also a vital part of Intermezzo. In interleaved chapters, we meet Peter and Ivan Koubek, brothers who couldn’t have more different lifestyles, but are bound by the same issue: the grief after their father’s death.
Peter is a 32-year-old lawyer who finds himself trapped in the middle of a love triangle. On the one hand, he can’t let go of his ex-girlfriend, Sylvia, with whom he had been since his early adulthood. However, after suffering an accident that left her with extreme pains that didn’t allow her to have sex, she decided to break up with him. On the other, there is Naomi, a young college student who relies on Peter’s money and on posting sexual content on the internet to survive.
Ivan, a recent graduate at 22 years old, is a chess player whose ability is diminishing after their father’s disease and passing. While attending a local competition in a small town, he meets Margaret, a 36-year-old woman in the process of getting a divorce. Besides her constant fear of society’s judgment of her affair with a man so young, the two can’t help getting involved.
What is Intermezzo really about?
Sally Rooney has the talent for covering deep topics in the middle of simple plots. Love triangles, age gap relationships, forbidden romance… We have all read these before. Peter, Ivan, Sylvia, Naomi and Margaret are all really common people, just trying to navigate the complications of their daily lives.
However, as we all, they have their own doubts about the contemporary world. They have their worries, flaws and indecisions. Sally Rooney, then, perfectly captures these dilemmas in the journey of characters building.Â
So, let’s see some of the main topics of Intermezzo.
Brotherhood
Even though romantic relationships play a big part in both men’s development, their connection as brothers also drives their decisions. Peter appears to be the perfect son – a responsible man who works with human rights and who was an inspiration for Ivan as he grew up. Yet, since the recent tragedy, he doesn’t seem to be able to get his life together.Â
Through the pages, we see his mind as a complicated stream of consciousness and follow his way down the rabbit hole of regret, confusion and sleeping pills. This is reflected in the narrative of his chapters: harder to read than Ivan’s, Peter’s sections are full of sentences that seem incomplete – and we have to try to get along with the short and messy phrases that pass along his head.
Like every recent graduate, Ivan finds himself deluded by the adult world. His true talent, chess, is not enough to make a living, so he tries to earn money by working with data analysis and food delivery. Also, his faith loss in Peter doesn’t make any of his life easier. Ivan was always looked down upon by him, who still sees his younger brother as a reclusive teenager stuck in misogynist online forums.
If Intermezzo makes something clear is that both of them are desperately want to be seen by the other. Peter, who was always the leader, needs guidance. At the same time, Ivan urges to be taken seriously – he wants his passions to be validated. However, their lack of proper communication about their feelings and goals – classic Sally Rooney -, instead of getting them together, only drifts them apart.
Love, sex and intimacy
One thing that Sally Rooney is definitely able to describe beautifully is how connections are important to our development as human beings. Love, in Intermezzo, is present in more than just the relationships between the couples. We see it between Peter and Ivan, who might hate each other for a while, but who still have the brother as a strong bond with the world – even when their family is drifting apart.
Yet, their relationships with physical attraction also show deep parts of their personalities. Ivan and Margaret’s first encounter was packed with insecurities: his young figure and braces, her traumatic previous experiences with her ex-husband. However, their casual fling turns into an inability to be apart, and the love they feel for each other, besides their better judgments, makes them see life as a more light and joyful experience.
“Margaret is reminded of the way she felt when she first met Ivan: as if life had slipped free of its netting. As if the netting itself had all along been an illusion, nothing real. An idea, which could not contain or describe the borderless all-enveloping reality of life.”
Peter’s situation with relationships takes a different turn, as he is faced with two opposite sides of attraction. He is convinced that Sylvia is the love of his life, but since she cannot be physically involved with him, she ends things up not to disappoint him. She feels like she is wasting his time. Can two people be together without physical intimacy? Well, that is one of Intermezzo’s biggest dilemmas. At the same time, Naomi represents the possibility of a reckless affair, something that can make him feel young and in control again. But she can also be the ruin of his reputation.
Grief
Each person experiences grief in a different way, and the same happens with the Koubek brothers.
Since their parents divorce, when Ivan was very young, he became really close with his father. Peter was almost leaving for college, and had a more grown-up vision of their mother moving on with another family. Consequently, he wasn’t always around to feel close to them, but this process gave him notions of duty and a precocious adulthood.
Therefore, Ivan’s grief is about missing that one person who was a base in his life. He would have said a lot about their relationship, but Peter decided that he, as the oldest, should do the speech at the funeral. His grief is carried by regret and the unsolved. It could be relieving, but it also means that he wasn’t able to make things right this time.
“Yes, because he thought of death as an event, something that would happen and then be over. And indeed, when it came to be over, there was relief, there was a certain freedom with that, to be free of the anxiety of waiting.”
God and our expectations in life
All of Sally Rooney’s novels carry that disturbing feeling of hopelessness towards life and our socioeconomic system. Nevertheless, that same hope is found in our human connections and in our own beliefs.
To her and her characters, God appears as a question. If He exists, His presence must be felt in our ability to find beauty and order in the honest bonds we create.Â
“The miracle of existing completely together in this way for even one moment on God’s earth, she thinks. If never again in her life another, only to be here now, with him.”
The interesting thing is that Rooney manages to talk about religion and politics not in a moralizing way. But in a poetically philosophical way, something that will make us question our own views of the life around us.
Life. I would say that word pretty much sums up what Intermezzo talks about. “Intermezzo”, that, by the way, means the break between two acts. After major events, we find ourselves disconnected from our previous conceptions of reality. We are forced to reinvent our capacity to move on. However, that period can also give us a new perception of what it means to be alive. And that might be just keep moving ahead and see where life will take us.
So, would I recommend “Intermezzo”?
I believe I made it clear that I think Sally Rooney is a genius. So, of course, I recommend Intermezzo to everyone.
However, be aware that the writing can be tricky for people who are not used to her style. In fact, this book shows that Sally Rooney is more than comfortable with the way she writes and who she is as a writer. Besides all the fame she’s got, as she told in an interview to The Guardian, she is just interested in showing how good she can be in what she does.
In her latest novel, Rooney digs her way into a heavy stream of consciousness. Peter’s first chapter can be very confusing, but I guarantee that, after a few pages, you will be completely absorbed by the Koubek brother’s story. If you can, check out one of her previous novels first. If you can’t, just let go of the fear and adventure yourself with Intermezzo’s life-changing experience.
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The article above was edited by Malu Panico.
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