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Intermezzo
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Fiction (2024), Nominee for Readers' Favorite Audiobook (2024)Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common.
Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.
Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.
For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair and possibility—a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.
Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.
Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.
For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair and possibility—a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.
442 pages, Hardcover
First published September 24, 2024
About the author
Sally Rooney
41 books58.4k followersSally Rooney was born in 1991 and lives in Dublin, where she graduated from Trinity College. Her work has appeared in Granta, The Dublin Review, The White Review, The Stinging Fly, and the Winter Pages anthology.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 18,362 reviews
September 26, 2024
"what if life is just a collection of essentially unrelated experiences? why does one thing have to follow meaningfully from another?"
rating: ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑
i am still processing this book after a month, so please bear with me. i will have a full review up on my substack (https://postcardsbyelle.substack.com/) in a week or so. i am so so grateful i had the privilege of reading this as an advanced copy…the dream of a lifetime.
sally rooney is my favorite author, and one of the reasons why i love her is that she is able to inspect any relationship—romantic or platonic—at a microscopic level. she takes mundane moments, day in and day out, and creates a bigger picture that is worthy of reading; when you are finished, it will imperceptibly but surely change the way you view the world.
intermezzo felt reminiscent of beautiful world where are you, with the way two characters' alternating perspectives diverged and mirrored the way they felt about life and each other.
the heart of intermezzo is about two brothers—peter and ivan. peter, the older brother, is a successful lawyer, and ivan, the younger brother, a competitive chess player. grief for their father pervades them, mourning him looms over them like a shadow, and thus causes them to question both how they have spent their lives and the future. they grieve alone, mostly, unable to be vulnerable to each other for a large portion of the book.
what happens when you finally look in the mirror after something life changing, and the reflection that you see is unrecognizable? how do you come back from that? how do you approach intimacy and vulnerability when those feelings are completely foreign to you? how do you reconcile with and concede to love and human connection?
while peter and ivan both have complicated relationships of their own, much of the book is bereft of the romantic aspect that is often present in her other books. instead, rooney takes the time and care to vigilantly flesh out the two brothers’ personalities, and by extension their strained relationship. both brothers have distinctly unlikeable traits of their own, but she never lets go of the authorial kindness and grace she offers to her characters.
in a book that is, at its core, about love and grief and regrets, i think that is the most wonderful thing she could have done.
thank you so much to fsg for the arc! you truly made my year
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mini review
i put off reading the last ten pages for as long as i could because i knew how absolutely empty i'd feel after i finished it. i took two months reading this—a chapter every few days with emma—and it was the best decision ever. it made me appreciate rooney's words so much more, and this book is one that should be read slowly and analytically.
i'll post another review soon, but all i have to say is: be excited!!!!! this lives up to every expectation ever.
i'm literally buddy reading a sally rooney ARC with my best girl emma??? this is what our dreams are made of
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brothers??? one is a loner??? one is in love with two women??? grief?? despair??
welcome back dostoyevsky
October 4, 2024
this book was the most exciting news of my year and i got engaged the week it was announced.
somehow, it still exceeded my life-altering, world-centering, unrealistic-to-the-point-of-being-annoying expectations.
with every book, sally rooney seems to challenge herself in a new way, showing that in the years since her last release while we've all been pining and watching paul mescal fan edits she's been ever (somehow! still!) building on her craft. in beautiful world, where are you, for example, she displayed a totally new and mesmerizing use of visual language and natural motif that i fell in love with.
here, her use of perspective is stunning. i'm a multi-pov hater, but this manages to feel like something entirely different even as it follows the interiority of three characters. it seamlessly transitions between the three while still being vividly distinct: peter's staccato trains of thought, margaret's quiet self-reflection, ivan's anxious rambling. i've never read anything like it.
decisions like the little we see from within the two female characters in peter's orbit, and are immersed in the world of ivan's, feels so true to their characters and to their stories — and such an interesting facet to the characteristic sociopolitical explorations that are the true gem of rooney's writing.
rooney also challenges herself to create characters who are simultaneously unlikable and real, making decisions that threaten to get you to put the book down and sigh while being mercilessly relatable and easy to understand.
that's what we're working with here. a novel in which every choice is so thoughtful that you can spend a minute reading a page, then pause for five minutes just to consider it. which is basically what i did (read: make myself spend a month reading this because i so dreaded not having any more of it to draw out).
peter and ivan each represent a shade of misogyny, of straight-white-man-ism in modern society, that doesn't forgive itself even while it refuses to let you ignore their own humanity and histories.
peter's perspective, made up of brief ulyssean phrases and stunning descriptions, varies as much from ivan's terminally introspective one as the two brothers do from each other.
rooney's past books have focused on waxing and waning romantic (and semi-romantic) relationships; beautiful world also features a platonic one at its core. this one takes as its subject siblings, at first nearly estranged, as they struggle toward each other.
anyway. i often hate multiple perspectives because it always feels there's one the author is more comfortable with, that the choice to distinguish the two is because they have to be different because they're different characters. rooney's decision is deliberate, each perspective difference thought out, and because of that both are wildly impressive.
i loved this book.
bottom line: all the it girls love intermezzo and all the it girls are right.
(thank you from the bottom of my heart to the publisher for the arc)
(buddy read of a lifetime with my favorite girl elle)
somehow, it still exceeded my life-altering, world-centering, unrealistic-to-the-point-of-being-annoying expectations.
with every book, sally rooney seems to challenge herself in a new way, showing that in the years since her last release while we've all been pining and watching paul mescal fan edits she's been ever (somehow! still!) building on her craft. in beautiful world, where are you, for example, she displayed a totally new and mesmerizing use of visual language and natural motif that i fell in love with.
here, her use of perspective is stunning. i'm a multi-pov hater, but this manages to feel like something entirely different even as it follows the interiority of three characters. it seamlessly transitions between the three while still being vividly distinct: peter's staccato trains of thought, margaret's quiet self-reflection, ivan's anxious rambling. i've never read anything like it.
decisions like the little we see from within the two female characters in peter's orbit, and are immersed in the world of ivan's, feels so true to their characters and to their stories — and such an interesting facet to the characteristic sociopolitical explorations that are the true gem of rooney's writing.
rooney also challenges herself to create characters who are simultaneously unlikable and real, making decisions that threaten to get you to put the book down and sigh while being mercilessly relatable and easy to understand.
that's what we're working with here. a novel in which every choice is so thoughtful that you can spend a minute reading a page, then pause for five minutes just to consider it. which is basically what i did (read: make myself spend a month reading this because i so dreaded not having any more of it to draw out).
peter and ivan each represent a shade of misogyny, of straight-white-man-ism in modern society, that doesn't forgive itself even while it refuses to let you ignore their own humanity and histories.
peter's perspective, made up of brief ulyssean phrases and stunning descriptions, varies as much from ivan's terminally introspective one as the two brothers do from each other.
rooney's past books have focused on waxing and waning romantic (and semi-romantic) relationships; beautiful world also features a platonic one at its core. this one takes as its subject siblings, at first nearly estranged, as they struggle toward each other.
anyway. i often hate multiple perspectives because it always feels there's one the author is more comfortable with, that the choice to distinguish the two is because they have to be different because they're different characters. rooney's decision is deliberate, each perspective difference thought out, and because of that both are wildly impressive.
i loved this book.
bottom line: all the it girls love intermezzo and all the it girls are right.
(thank you from the bottom of my heart to the publisher for the arc)
(buddy read of a lifetime with my favorite girl elle)
October 4, 2024
Despite Rooney’s books being largely about nothing, with the plot consisting of basically sad people being sad, I never before found them slow or boring. I found the characters and situations in Normal People and Beautiful World tragic enough to keep me glued to the pages. I can’t say I enjoyed them, but I was definitely engaged.
Intermezzo, unfortunately, dragged in parts. Rooney’s books are getting longer and longer and I think in this one (448 pages, compared to NP's 273 and BW's 337) I finally reached my limit for melancholy navel-gazing.
That's not to say I didn't get something out of it. I still really enjoyed the character portraits. Rooney is good at taking fucked up relationship dynamics and exploring them up, down and inside out. Here she looks not only at complex romantic entanglements, but also the relationship between two very different brothers who are struggling to connect with each other and manage their grief after their father's death.
I like that she dramatically changes writing style when she moves between Peter and Ivan’s perspectives, reflecting their personalities in Peter’s rapidfire, often meandering, thoughts and Ivan’s more precisely-articulated inner narrative.
However, I never fully enjoyed the inclusion of Margaret’s perspective in Ivan’s chapters and still can't really understand the decision behind it. All it did was give us less page time with Ivan, making Peter, ultimately, the more developed character and the more interesting POV to read.
I also felt like Peter's ending was too easily wrapped up. He's in a very complex situation and spends the whole book moping (some of it justified; some of it less so) but then solutions just seem to start falling into his lap without any growth on his part.
Not my favourite, but let's be honest: I'm going to read whatever she writes next.
Intermezzo, unfortunately, dragged in parts. Rooney’s books are getting longer and longer and I think in this one (448 pages, compared to NP's 273 and BW's 337) I finally reached my limit for melancholy navel-gazing.
That's not to say I didn't get something out of it. I still really enjoyed the character portraits. Rooney is good at taking fucked up relationship dynamics and exploring them up, down and inside out. Here she looks not only at complex romantic entanglements, but also the relationship between two very different brothers who are struggling to connect with each other and manage their grief after their father's death.
I like that she dramatically changes writing style when she moves between Peter and Ivan’s perspectives, reflecting their personalities in Peter’s rapidfire, often meandering, thoughts and Ivan’s more precisely-articulated inner narrative.
However, I never fully enjoyed the inclusion of Margaret’s perspective in Ivan’s chapters and still can't really understand the decision behind it. All it did was give us less page time with Ivan, making Peter, ultimately, the more developed character and the more interesting POV to read.
I also felt like Peter's ending was too easily wrapped up. He's in a very complex situation and spends the whole book moping (some of it justified; some of it less so) but then solutions just seem to start falling into his lap without any growth on his part.
Not my favourite, but let's be honest: I'm going to read whatever she writes next.
October 27, 2024
4.5. WOW. sally rooney has such a talent for writing about interpersonal relationships and human connection, and it’s something i’ll never tire of reading.
intermezzo is the story of two brothers: peter, a successful lawyer in his thirties who is juggling relationships with two different women, and his younger brother ivan, a competitive chess player in his early twenties who begins a relationship with an older woman he meets at one of his tournaments.
it’s hard to talk in depth about this book for fear of spoiling it, but it definitely feels like a step forwards for sally rooney as a literary fiction author. intermezzo contains a much deeper character study into its two protagonists, exploring their family dynamics and how they grapple with navigating their brotherhood in the shadow of their father’s recent death. the scope of the novel feels wider; you really feel like you know these characters and why they are the way they are, why they act the way they do.
intermezzo also has rooney’s trademark political zest: commentary on wage labour, the housing crisis in dublin, monetary power dynamics, religion, existentialism, and discussions of chronic pain (to name a few). another thing i’ve always liked about sally rooney’s novels is how she talks about the internet / social media. it’s present in her books, as it needs to be when writing about young characters navigating the contemporary world, but it’s never too much. her awareness of social media, coupled with her lack of (public) personal accounts, conjures the image of rooney lurking on the periphery of the internet somewhere. she is also a master of dialogue, perfectly weaving in all the intricacies and subtleties of human conversation.
all this to say, it’s another hit from sally rooney & further cements her as my favourite author! (but who’s surprised). thank you SO much @faberbooks for the advanced copy, i’m forever indebted. intermezzo is out on 24 sept 2024!
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update: i got the arc!!! i will be devouring it asap so stay tuned
sally rooney hive we are so back
intermezzo is the story of two brothers: peter, a successful lawyer in his thirties who is juggling relationships with two different women, and his younger brother ivan, a competitive chess player in his early twenties who begins a relationship with an older woman he meets at one of his tournaments.
it’s hard to talk in depth about this book for fear of spoiling it, but it definitely feels like a step forwards for sally rooney as a literary fiction author. intermezzo contains a much deeper character study into its two protagonists, exploring their family dynamics and how they grapple with navigating their brotherhood in the shadow of their father’s recent death. the scope of the novel feels wider; you really feel like you know these characters and why they are the way they are, why they act the way they do.
intermezzo also has rooney’s trademark political zest: commentary on wage labour, the housing crisis in dublin, monetary power dynamics, religion, existentialism, and discussions of chronic pain (to name a few). another thing i’ve always liked about sally rooney’s novels is how she talks about the internet / social media. it’s present in her books, as it needs to be when writing about young characters navigating the contemporary world, but it’s never too much. her awareness of social media, coupled with her lack of (public) personal accounts, conjures the image of rooney lurking on the periphery of the internet somewhere. she is also a master of dialogue, perfectly weaving in all the intricacies and subtleties of human conversation.
all this to say, it’s another hit from sally rooney & further cements her as my favourite author! (but who’s surprised). thank you SO much @faberbooks for the advanced copy, i’m forever indebted. intermezzo is out on 24 sept 2024!
—————————
update: i got the arc!!! i will be devouring it asap so stay tuned
sally rooney hive we are so back
October 1, 2024
In a deliberately quiet almost hissing voice Ivan says: I actually hate you. I’ve hated you my entire life.
Without stirring, without looking around to see whether the other diners or staff are watching them, Peter just answers: I know.
hate when i dislike a book and go to read negative reviews but none of them hate it for any reason that even remotely resembles my sentiments. “It’s just people talking for four hundred pages” the fuck do you want? explosions? go watch a marvel movie.
rooney stuns with a writing that has never been this distinctive in her works before. the change in writing style between pov chapters brilliant. peter’s short, rapid fired, sometimes incoherent thoughts the best part. (of course most will hate and criticise this stylistic choice cause in the booktok age of reading experimentation is a big no-no)
but quite frankly style is the only thing i liked with this one.
the ivan/margaret chapters (and why on earth were the ivan chapters mostly from margaret’s point of view anyway? i thought this was supposed to be about the brothers?) feel like reading about a twelve year old falling in love with an adult. ivan just does not read like a 22 year old at all. making this age gap relationship more cringe and at times simply unbearable than the actually very mundane thing that it is. i guess ivan is supposed to be on some kind of autistic spectrum but i find his portrayal highly questionable.
peter’s chapters while more emotionally complex simply don’t go anywhere. his inner turmoil doesn’t really reach its climax and instead he gets an out of nowhere saccharine ending where everything gets handed to him on a silver platter and we have to pretend that he’s conflicted about that for the last five pages like yeah, woe is him.
overall, this book might have profited from a harsher editing with the ivan chapters especially being way too long and dragging on unnecessarily. somewhere between 2 and 3 stars.
- - -
usually depressive episodes hit me by surprise but i'm glad to know that i can plan one for september
Without stirring, without looking around to see whether the other diners or staff are watching them, Peter just answers: I know.
hate when i dislike a book and go to read negative reviews but none of them hate it for any reason that even remotely resembles my sentiments. “It’s just people talking for four hundred pages” the fuck do you want? explosions? go watch a marvel movie.
rooney stuns with a writing that has never been this distinctive in her works before. the change in writing style between pov chapters brilliant. peter’s short, rapid fired, sometimes incoherent thoughts the best part. (of course most will hate and criticise this stylistic choice cause in the booktok age of reading experimentation is a big no-no)
but quite frankly style is the only thing i liked with this one.
the ivan/margaret chapters (and why on earth were the ivan chapters mostly from margaret’s point of view anyway? i thought this was supposed to be about the brothers?) feel like reading about a twelve year old falling in love with an adult. ivan just does not read like a 22 year old at all. making this age gap relationship more cringe and at times simply unbearable than the actually very mundane thing that it is. i guess ivan is supposed to be on some kind of autistic spectrum but i find his portrayal highly questionable.
peter’s chapters while more emotionally complex simply don’t go anywhere. his inner turmoil doesn’t really reach its climax and instead he gets an out of nowhere saccharine ending where everything gets handed to him on a silver platter and we have to pretend that he’s conflicted about that for the last five pages like yeah, woe is him.
overall, this book might have profited from a harsher editing with the ivan chapters especially being way too long and dragging on unnecessarily. somewhere between 2 and 3 stars.
- - -
usually depressive episodes hit me by surprise but i'm glad to know that i can plan one for september
October 26, 2024
Four hundred and forty-eight pages of men taking zero accountability for their actions and using women as their emotional crutches.
So I guess you could say it's realistic?
So I guess you could say it's realistic?
October 18, 2024
Did I love this? YES
But is it her best book?
...ALSO YES
Review to come
But is it her best book?
...ALSO YES
Review to come
October 24, 2024
i would literally die for ivan. review to come
it's gonna be a sad girl september. thanks sally babes
it's gonna be a sad girl september. thanks sally babes
September 25, 2024
Under the guise of ambitious prose that aims to contribute to the discussion on grief lies a book about two brothers complaining about life and banging inappropriate women.
While Ivan's (the younger brother's) storyline is somewhat readable, Peter's (the older brother's) arc is an utterly unbearable narrative mess that promotes toxic patterns. Both storylines feature criminally underdeveloped, two-dimensional female characters. In short, the entire book is over-intellectualized, offers no deeper reflections, and simultaneously provides a deceptively happy ending. The pacing is good, but that’s no advantage.
I’m sad to conclude that Sally Rooney’s novels are getting worse with each new release. One should truly draw the line and stop reading them.
While Ivan's (the younger brother's) storyline is somewhat readable, Peter's (the older brother's) arc is an utterly unbearable narrative mess that promotes toxic patterns. Both storylines feature criminally underdeveloped, two-dimensional female characters. In short, the entire book is over-intellectualized, offers no deeper reflections, and simultaneously provides a deceptively happy ending. The pacing is good, but that’s no advantage.
I’m sad to conclude that Sally Rooney’s novels are getting worse with each new release. One should truly draw the line and stop reading them.
September 5, 2024
TLDR: This is the first time I've given Sally Rooney 5 stars. I really think this is her best, most complex and compelling book to date. It's mature in themes and writing. She explores a new, more stream of consciousness style, while balancing that with her excellent dialogue (nobody writes dialogue like Sally!) and expertly crafted characters.
The story follows brothers, Peter and Ivan, who have just lost their father to a years-long battle with cancer. Their mother, who had been divorced from their father years prior to his passing, is around but not particularly involved in their lives as she lives with her new husband and stepchildren.
Peter, in his early 30s, is a lawyer with a cool demeanor and juggling two relationships—one with Sylvia, his first love with whom he's stayed close though not physically intimate after an accident years ago left her with chronic pain; and Naomi, a college student with a more carefree attitude who makes money on the side, when not relying on Peter, from her online following.
Ivan, on the other hand, is in his early 20s and a chess 'prodigy' who has plateaued after a few years of dealing with his father's illness and struggling to find success, both personally and professionally. He's socially awkward and seemingly a complete foil of his suave older brother. His unlikely romance with an older woman, Margaret, who is dealing with a divorce and unsure how to proceed with this less-than-conventional romantic fling she finds with Ivan after he competes in a chess exhibition at the events center she manages.
The crux of the story revolves around the two brothers and their respective inner lives, especially their inability to connect with each other after the loss of their father, and the compounding grief that causes. Peter, usually unassailable, overmedicates himself and plays games with the women in his life, while Ivan seeks solace in his old friend, chess, and his newfound love, something with which he's had little experience. Both in over their heads, they misfire and hurt themselves and each other as they attempt to avoid facing the painful space their father's absence leaves in their lives.
Rooney blew me away from the very start with how real these characters felt. Though you don't necessarily get handed their entire backstories, you can feel the full scope of their lives behind them as the story unfolds in front of you. And Rooney masterfully doles out information, as well as shows you *who* these people are, through the conversations and conflicts they face on the page.
Peter's chapters are written in a much more fragmented and stream of consciousness style than I've ever seen Rooney attempt before. At first it was a bit jarring and took a second to get used to; especially when paired with her signature lack of quotation marks which is even more noticeable in his chapters that include large blocks of text weaving together inner monologue and actual character dialogue. But, it's masterfully done. Some of the best I've read in recent years and extremely effective at putting you in his headspace.
In contrast, Ivan's chapters reflect a more structured, methodical mindset. He's not just a chess player, but younger and more concerned with logic and reason, using proofs and points to cover up the insurmountable emotion he's feeling after his dad's death. As the story goes on we get to see how he grows as not just a character but a human being learning to embrace the grey areas in life, and the writing perfectly reflects that.
I loved this book, simply put. It was heart-wrenching, complicated, realistic, and beautiful. I love stories about brothers and was so impressed with Rooney's take on the subject matter, as well as weaving in themes of mortality, belief, conditioning, performance, wants/desires, and more. Absolutely her best book, in my opinion, and one I can see myself revisiting in the future. I can't wait for everyone to read this when it comes out in a few weeks!
The story follows brothers, Peter and Ivan, who have just lost their father to a years-long battle with cancer. Their mother, who had been divorced from their father years prior to his passing, is around but not particularly involved in their lives as she lives with her new husband and stepchildren.
Peter, in his early 30s, is a lawyer with a cool demeanor and juggling two relationships—one with Sylvia, his first love with whom he's stayed close though not physically intimate after an accident years ago left her with chronic pain; and Naomi, a college student with a more carefree attitude who makes money on the side, when not relying on Peter, from her online following.
Ivan, on the other hand, is in his early 20s and a chess 'prodigy' who has plateaued after a few years of dealing with his father's illness and struggling to find success, both personally and professionally. He's socially awkward and seemingly a complete foil of his suave older brother. His unlikely romance with an older woman, Margaret, who is dealing with a divorce and unsure how to proceed with this less-than-conventional romantic fling she finds with Ivan after he competes in a chess exhibition at the events center she manages.
The crux of the story revolves around the two brothers and their respective inner lives, especially their inability to connect with each other after the loss of their father, and the compounding grief that causes. Peter, usually unassailable, overmedicates himself and plays games with the women in his life, while Ivan seeks solace in his old friend, chess, and his newfound love, something with which he's had little experience. Both in over their heads, they misfire and hurt themselves and each other as they attempt to avoid facing the painful space their father's absence leaves in their lives.
Rooney blew me away from the very start with how real these characters felt. Though you don't necessarily get handed their entire backstories, you can feel the full scope of their lives behind them as the story unfolds in front of you. And Rooney masterfully doles out information, as well as shows you *who* these people are, through the conversations and conflicts they face on the page.
Peter's chapters are written in a much more fragmented and stream of consciousness style than I've ever seen Rooney attempt before. At first it was a bit jarring and took a second to get used to; especially when paired with her signature lack of quotation marks which is even more noticeable in his chapters that include large blocks of text weaving together inner monologue and actual character dialogue. But, it's masterfully done. Some of the best I've read in recent years and extremely effective at putting you in his headspace.
In contrast, Ivan's chapters reflect a more structured, methodical mindset. He's not just a chess player, but younger and more concerned with logic and reason, using proofs and points to cover up the insurmountable emotion he's feeling after his dad's death. As the story goes on we get to see how he grows as not just a character but a human being learning to embrace the grey areas in life, and the writing perfectly reflects that.
I loved this book, simply put. It was heart-wrenching, complicated, realistic, and beautiful. I love stories about brothers and was so impressed with Rooney's take on the subject matter, as well as weaving in themes of mortality, belief, conditioning, performance, wants/desires, and more. Absolutely her best book, in my opinion, and one I can see myself revisiting in the future. I can't wait for everyone to read this when it comes out in a few weeks!
October 11, 2024
*wipes away happy and sad tears*
This story will stay in my heart and mind forever. Thank you, Sally. You understand the complexity of people so well; your characters don’t feel fictional at all. I’m sad to leave them, but happy to know I can always find them in these brilliant and beautiful pages.
This story will stay in my heart and mind forever. Thank you, Sally. You understand the complexity of people so well; your characters don’t feel fictional at all. I’m sad to leave them, but happy to know I can always find them in these brilliant and beautiful pages.
December 20, 2024
I still very much enjoyed this on the reread (shocker!). I listened to the audiobook this time around and Éanna Hardwicke has one of the most soothing voices I’ve ever heard; I hope to see him do more audiobooks. Part 3 has been solidified as one of my favorite parts of a book and I can confidently say this is my favorite book released this year.
link to my Intermezzo Spotify playlist!
The past few weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about love in all of its many facets and what we, as humans, owe each other. While this is about two not-so-close brothers navigating the shared grief from their father dying, it is, as all of her books really are, about the importance of human connection and choosing empathy over being right. Life, especially in this day and age, can feel especially isolating, but we tend to work better as a community, filling in the gaps and supporting each other. Intermezzo illustrates how important those connections and reaching out is and how simply viewing people through a lens of empathy instead of judgment can enhance everyone’s lives. In a world so heavily focused on individualism, leaning on each other is one of the most powerful and important things you can choose to do. Rooney’s points really resonated with me in this one, leaving a huge emotional impact. There were so many passages that made me put down the book and just think (or sometimes, just cry) about life and what it means to be alive. While there is a deep, underlying sadness to this one, there is so much beauty and hope in it too. Life isn’t a competition, it’s a collaboration.
“Life itself, he thinks, every moment of life, is as precious and beautiful as any game of chess ever played, if only you know how to live.”
There are three different points of view in this book and all of them foil each other. Peter, the 32 year old eldest brother, a successful lawyer with control issues who is torn between his ex-girlfriend and a college student in her early 20’s, whose grief has caused him to be dissociated from the world, living life in a fragmented state. Ivan, the 22 year old youngest brother, a washed up chess prodigy who begins to pursue a 36 year old woman, and whose grief has caused him to spiral inwardly because of the questions he is fixated on. And Margaret, the 36 year old going through a messy divorce and wondering if what she had was all life had to offer, her situations cause her to fixate on external pressures from societal judgment. These points of view work together to show hypocrisies and biases, internally and societally, (i.e. Peter feels no fear introducing his 23 year old girlfriend to his friends because they will congratulate him, while Margaret can’t tell the people closest to her about Ivan because of how severely they will judge her.) while continuing this central theme of chronic loneliness and the power of being there for each other. Everyone in this story—Peter, Ivan, Margaret, Naomi, Sylvia, the mother, the father—circles each other, and, even though Peter and Ivan’s fraught relationship is at the eye of the storm, it’s Naomi and Sylvia always being kind to Ivan, it’s Peter’s first meeting with Margaret, it’s the mother, who has hurt both of her sons in irreversible ways, continually reaching out and acting as a kind of bridge. There is so much love in this story, and it arrives in so many different ways, not just through unconventional romance, but through these small and kind interactions, lifting each other up along the way.
I really love the writing in this one and found that, while I’ve always loved Rooney’s writing style, it really does enhance the rawness of the story here, especially in Peter’s chapters, which are fragmented, representing just how dissociated he currently is from real life, with the trademark lack of quotation marks keeps the reader in this fragmented mind, living a passive life. While I did love reading all three points of view, Peter was the star of the show for me. On meeting him, my biases were put to the test as I immediately decided that I hated him and then as soon as I was deeper in his brain I understood immediately and also kind of realized he was a little too much like me and a little too relatable and I cannot express how much I absolutely adored his chapters and found something that wasn’t quite comfort, but more like a deep understanding of my soul and humanity in general while reading his point of view. I am a pretty easy crier when it comes to literature, but I don’t think that takes away from the fact that, after the first chapter, I had to put the book down either because I was crying so much or because of how many strong emotions I was feeling multiple times during each of Peter’s chapters. This book is already such a personal and raw look at humanity and what we owe each other that having a character that was internally so painfully relatable enhanced this book so much that I’m not sure I will ever stop thinking about it. I don’t want to get any dynamics, but I will say that, as the older, control-freak, know-it-all sibling, I found Ivan and Peter’s relationship to be extremely relatable. The nature of it brought me back to my Nana telling me that her and her late sister were never close until both of her parents died. When there was no one left from that house except them, they were compelled to come together because there was so much that they had lived through together and the grief forced them to put aside their differences. Until her death, my great-aunt, who lived alone her whole life, came from West Virginia to Georgia to celebrate every holiday with us. All because her and her sister put their differences aside and welcomed each other with open arms.
“And when he looked at her, she seemed to feel herself understood completely, as if everything that had ever happened to her, everything that she had ever done, was accepted quietly into his understanding.”
It’s odd, because I feel as though I should bring up the unconventionality of the relationships, but they just felt so natural in the book that I didn’t really think about the unconventionality of them, which I think is the point. As said in the book, “Well, I think you’re comparing a scenario you made up in your head with a situation that has real people in it.” There is no blueprint for life, and every situation is different. The assumptions we make because of age gap (or other unconventional relationships) are usually made without grace or understanding of the couple itself. I always (usually when criticizing a romance book to my friends) say that to be loved is to be known and each romantic relationship in Intermezzo emulates this. Peter and Sylvia were the pinnacle of this for me, but the companionship and understanding between Peter and Naomi and Ivan and Margaret was also incredibly comforting, highlighting that, even if things don’t work out in the long run, it is enough to, just for a moment, be understood and loved by another, and why do we deny ourselves of that?
Rooney’s beliefs are still strongly intermixed into the story. In Beautiful World, Where Are You, my main complaint was that the emails (which I loved in theory) felt too much like long narrative breaks that were used for Rooney to state her beliefs. This book forgoes emails, more smoothly integrating the political and social points that Rooney is passionate about, creating a smoother flow, which I appreciated. This mixed well with the focus on how we live in a world that tries to fit people in a one-size-fits-all kind of life when one of the most beautiful things about us is how different we all are.
This is easily my favorite book of the year, and it could honestly be my favorite book of all time. Days after finishing it I still will start randomly crying about it. I have no desire to pick up another fiction book right now because I do not have it in me to think about any other story besides this one. I am at the point where I think the only option is to immediately reread it. It is driving me insane. It has altered my brain chemistry. This is a book about grief, but most importantly it is a book about what we owe each other, as well as ourselves.
“Yes, the world makes room for goodness and decency, he thinks: and the task of life is to show goodness to others, not to complain about their failings.”
My full playlist is linked above, but here are some songs I associate everyone with:
Margaret is The Last Man on Earth by Wolf Alice & ICU by Phoebe Bridgers
Ivan is Love is a Laserquest by Arctic Monkeys & Where Do I Go by Lizzy McAlpine
Ivan and Margaret are Just Like Heaven by The Cure & Space Song by Beach House & Yellow by Coldplay
Peter is Please, Please, Please , Let Me Get What I Want by The Smiths & Don't Let Go by The Ghost Club & False Confidence by Noah Kahan & circle the drain by Soccer Mommy & Broken Brain by The Frights & Am I Alive by From Indian Lakes & Solitary Confinement by Everybody’s Worried About Owen
Peter and Sylvia are Strawberry Wine by Noah Kahan & j’s lullaby(darlin’ I’d wait for you) by Delaney Bailey & Frances by ROLE MODEL
Peter and Naomi are hello! by ROLE MODEL & Pressure by the 1975 & Jupiter by Flower Face
Peter and Ivan are I Love You I’m Sorry by Gracie Abrams
Intermezzo is Doll House by Del Water Gap & Death With Dignity by Sufjan Stevens
link to my Intermezzo Spotify playlist!
The past few weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about love in all of its many facets and what we, as humans, owe each other. While this is about two not-so-close brothers navigating the shared grief from their father dying, it is, as all of her books really are, about the importance of human connection and choosing empathy over being right. Life, especially in this day and age, can feel especially isolating, but we tend to work better as a community, filling in the gaps and supporting each other. Intermezzo illustrates how important those connections and reaching out is and how simply viewing people through a lens of empathy instead of judgment can enhance everyone’s lives. In a world so heavily focused on individualism, leaning on each other is one of the most powerful and important things you can choose to do. Rooney’s points really resonated with me in this one, leaving a huge emotional impact. There were so many passages that made me put down the book and just think (or sometimes, just cry) about life and what it means to be alive. While there is a deep, underlying sadness to this one, there is so much beauty and hope in it too. Life isn’t a competition, it’s a collaboration.
“Life itself, he thinks, every moment of life, is as precious and beautiful as any game of chess ever played, if only you know how to live.”
There are three different points of view in this book and all of them foil each other. Peter, the 32 year old eldest brother, a successful lawyer with control issues who is torn between his ex-girlfriend and a college student in her early 20’s, whose grief has caused him to be dissociated from the world, living life in a fragmented state. Ivan, the 22 year old youngest brother, a washed up chess prodigy who begins to pursue a 36 year old woman, and whose grief has caused him to spiral inwardly because of the questions he is fixated on. And Margaret, the 36 year old going through a messy divorce and wondering if what she had was all life had to offer, her situations cause her to fixate on external pressures from societal judgment. These points of view work together to show hypocrisies and biases, internally and societally, (i.e. Peter feels no fear introducing his 23 year old girlfriend to his friends because they will congratulate him, while Margaret can’t tell the people closest to her about Ivan because of how severely they will judge her.) while continuing this central theme of chronic loneliness and the power of being there for each other. Everyone in this story—Peter, Ivan, Margaret, Naomi, Sylvia, the mother, the father—circles each other, and, even though Peter and Ivan’s fraught relationship is at the eye of the storm, it’s Naomi and Sylvia always being kind to Ivan, it’s Peter’s first meeting with Margaret, it’s the mother, who has hurt both of her sons in irreversible ways, continually reaching out and acting as a kind of bridge. There is so much love in this story, and it arrives in so many different ways, not just through unconventional romance, but through these small and kind interactions, lifting each other up along the way.
I really love the writing in this one and found that, while I’ve always loved Rooney’s writing style, it really does enhance the rawness of the story here, especially in Peter’s chapters, which are fragmented, representing just how dissociated he currently is from real life, with the trademark lack of quotation marks keeps the reader in this fragmented mind, living a passive life. While I did love reading all three points of view, Peter was the star of the show for me. On meeting him, my biases were put to the test as I immediately decided that I hated him and then as soon as I was deeper in his brain I understood immediately and also kind of realized he was a little too much like me and a little too relatable and I cannot express how much I absolutely adored his chapters and found something that wasn’t quite comfort, but more like a deep understanding of my soul and humanity in general while reading his point of view. I am a pretty easy crier when it comes to literature, but I don’t think that takes away from the fact that, after the first chapter, I had to put the book down either because I was crying so much or because of how many strong emotions I was feeling multiple times during each of Peter’s chapters. This book is already such a personal and raw look at humanity and what we owe each other that having a character that was internally so painfully relatable enhanced this book so much that I’m not sure I will ever stop thinking about it. I don’t want to get any dynamics, but I will say that, as the older, control-freak, know-it-all sibling, I found Ivan and Peter’s relationship to be extremely relatable. The nature of it brought me back to my Nana telling me that her and her late sister were never close until both of her parents died. When there was no one left from that house except them, they were compelled to come together because there was so much that they had lived through together and the grief forced them to put aside their differences. Until her death, my great-aunt, who lived alone her whole life, came from West Virginia to Georgia to celebrate every holiday with us. All because her and her sister put their differences aside and welcomed each other with open arms.
“And when he looked at her, she seemed to feel herself understood completely, as if everything that had ever happened to her, everything that she had ever done, was accepted quietly into his understanding.”
It’s odd, because I feel as though I should bring up the unconventionality of the relationships, but they just felt so natural in the book that I didn’t really think about the unconventionality of them, which I think is the point. As said in the book, “Well, I think you’re comparing a scenario you made up in your head with a situation that has real people in it.” There is no blueprint for life, and every situation is different. The assumptions we make because of age gap (or other unconventional relationships) are usually made without grace or understanding of the couple itself. I always (usually when criticizing a romance book to my friends) say that to be loved is to be known and each romantic relationship in Intermezzo emulates this. Peter and Sylvia were the pinnacle of this for me, but the companionship and understanding between Peter and Naomi and Ivan and Margaret was also incredibly comforting, highlighting that, even if things don’t work out in the long run, it is enough to, just for a moment, be understood and loved by another, and why do we deny ourselves of that?
Rooney’s beliefs are still strongly intermixed into the story. In Beautiful World, Where Are You, my main complaint was that the emails (which I loved in theory) felt too much like long narrative breaks that were used for Rooney to state her beliefs. This book forgoes emails, more smoothly integrating the political and social points that Rooney is passionate about, creating a smoother flow, which I appreciated. This mixed well with the focus on how we live in a world that tries to fit people in a one-size-fits-all kind of life when one of the most beautiful things about us is how different we all are.
This is easily my favorite book of the year, and it could honestly be my favorite book of all time. Days after finishing it I still will start randomly crying about it. I have no desire to pick up another fiction book right now because I do not have it in me to think about any other story besides this one. I am at the point where I think the only option is to immediately reread it. It is driving me insane. It has altered my brain chemistry. This is a book about grief, but most importantly it is a book about what we owe each other, as well as ourselves.
“Yes, the world makes room for goodness and decency, he thinks: and the task of life is to show goodness to others, not to complain about their failings.”
My full playlist is linked above, but here are some songs I associate everyone with:
Margaret is The Last Man on Earth by Wolf Alice & ICU by Phoebe Bridgers
Ivan is Love is a Laserquest by Arctic Monkeys & Where Do I Go by Lizzy McAlpine
Ivan and Margaret are Just Like Heaven by The Cure & Space Song by Beach House & Yellow by Coldplay
Peter is Please, Please, Please , Let Me Get What I Want by The Smiths & Don't Let Go by The Ghost Club & False Confidence by Noah Kahan & circle the drain by Soccer Mommy & Broken Brain by The Frights & Am I Alive by From Indian Lakes & Solitary Confinement by Everybody’s Worried About Owen
Peter and Sylvia are Strawberry Wine by Noah Kahan & j’s lullaby(darlin’ I’d wait for you) by Delaney Bailey & Frances by ROLE MODEL
Peter and Naomi are hello! by ROLE MODEL & Pressure by the 1975 & Jupiter by Flower Face
Peter and Ivan are I Love You I’m Sorry by Gracie Abrams
Intermezzo is Doll House by Del Water Gap & Death With Dignity by Sufjan Stevens
October 9, 2024
Chapter 1 – What's this awkward stream of consciousness trying to imitate Joyce, just because we're in Dublin? Peter is such a caricature at this point in literature. Also this: “A purring mechanical tone tells him the call is ringing while he sits on the sofa unlacing his shoes.”
Chapter 2 – We meet Ivan and Margaret, and I’m ready to fall in love with this book—their sweet awkwardness touches me.
Chapters 3 through 17 – Repetitive droning, over-rationalizing everything that initially felt magical, with banal musings about grief and relationships. Now, I’m disliking (if not hating) every character the more I get to know them. Ivan slowly loses all the good will he earned in Chapter 2, and Peter never escapes being a walking cliché with poorly executed existential angst.
The End. Finally. Verdict: A tedious, self-indulgent, inept novel about relationships between five very poorly written characters, with one good chapter (Chapter 2).
Chapter 2 – We meet Ivan and Margaret, and I’m ready to fall in love with this book—their sweet awkwardness touches me.
Chapters 3 through 17 – Repetitive droning, over-rationalizing everything that initially felt magical, with banal musings about grief and relationships. Now, I’m disliking (if not hating) every character the more I get to know them. Ivan slowly loses all the good will he earned in Chapter 2, and Peter never escapes being a walking cliché with poorly executed existential angst.
The End. Finally. Verdict: A tedious, self-indulgent, inept novel about relationships between five very poorly written characters, with one good chapter (Chapter 2).
November 21, 2024
I’m sorry but I had to drop this, I got 100 pages in and couldn’t bear it any longer. It’s just so god-damn overwritten. Every page feels like smashing your head into a brick wall of pointless metaphors and introspections. I don’t know when Sally Rooney forgot about ‘show don’t tell’, but Jesus Christ has she.
November 22, 2024
4.75 stars
Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo is an intimate exploration of grief, love, and family. It centres on two brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek, who couldn’t be more different, yet share the same burden of loss. Peter, a successful lawyer in his thirties, is struggling with his grief after their father’s death. He tries to numb the pain with pills, caught between his feelings for two women—his long-time love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a carefree college student. Ivan, on the other hand, is a 22-year-old chess prodigy, often awkward and introspective, wrestling with his own grief. When he meets Margaret, an older woman going through a difficult divorce, they form an unexpected and intense connection. Through their journeys, both brothers confront the complexities of how grief and love shape the course of their lives.
➸ This is the fourth book I've read by Sally Rooney, and once again, she left me completely captivated—her writing never fails to move me. What struck me most about Intermezzo is how she captures human connection in all its messiness and depth. Her writing makes you feel like you’re living inside the characters’ minds, experiencing their pain, joy, and confusion firsthand. She doesn’t give you the full backstory of her characters—she lets their pasts unfold naturally through their words, actions, and the way they interact with others. It's this slow revelation that kept me hooked. I loved how their histories felt present in every conversation, even when they weren’t explicitly stated. As I read, I found myself underlining so many quotes that by the end, my pages were filled with so many markings. This is the kind of book that stays with you long after you finish it, quietly shaping your thoughts and feelings. It's a book that becomes a part of you in a way that’s hard to describe.
One of the most powerful elements of this book is how Sally Rooney uses chess as a metaphor for the characters’ internal struggles. The game mirrors their emotional battles, with each move reflecting their desire to "win," even when the goal remains elusive. This uncertainty felt deeply resonant, portraying the essence of human yearning—striving for connection, meaning, or validation, always just out of reach yet impossible to abandon.
At first, Peter’s pov was a bit of a struggle for me. His fragmented narrative felt distant, like I was missing something important. But as I kept reading, I slowly began to understand him more deeply. His voice, filled with short, cryptic phrases and vivid, surreal descriptions, perfectly captures the inner turmoil he’s carrying. Peter, for me, is the most complex character in the book—burdened by addiction, past traumas, and an overwhelming inability to truly connect with others. He’s the brother who feels most at odds with the world, his internal struggle making him raw, vulnerable, and painfully real. He’s the misunderstood one, the one who never had the chance—or the desire—to explain himself, and in that, he became so human to me.
Peter’s relationships with Sylvia and Naomi are heartbreaking in their messy, complicated beauty. He’s still so deeply in love with Sylvia, but tragedy has left their connection frozen in time, suspended in a painful standstill. Sylvia, still reeling from a life-changing accident, can’t fully meet him where he needs her, and Peter’s love for her turns into a kind of hopeless attachment, something that holds him captive. At the same time, he finds himself with Naomi, a much younger woman who offers him a kind of freedom and ease that Sylvia cannot. Yet, his heart is still tangled in the past, caught between two worlds and unsure of where he truly belongs. This emotional complexity tore at me, and I couldn’t help but feel for Peter as he struggled to make sense of it all, navigating a storm of feelings that left him as lost as he was in love.
Ivan, the quieter of the two brothers, resonated with me in ways that felt deeply personal. His constant introspection, the weight of his thoughts, and the quiet melancholy he carries made him feel so real. Unlike Peter, who moves through life with a certain ease and confidence, Ivan is more uncertain, always lost in his own reflections, questioning where he truly belongs. After the death of their father, and with a mother who seems distant and remarried, Ivan is left to grapple with his grief alone, trying to make sense of a world that feels too big and too cold. But then he meets Margaret, an older woman caught in the midst of her own divorce. Their connection, though unexpected, grows quickly and profoundly, bringing out a tenderness in Ivan that I wasn’t prepared for but cherished. Through Margaret, Ivan finds a softness he hadn’t known he needed, and their relationship becomes a refuge for him. In her presence, he begins to rediscover vulnerability, and by the end, it’s clear that their bond has not only healed parts of him but also helped bridge the gap between him and his brother. The chemistry between Ivan and Margaret is so transparent, so gently woven into each quiet exchange, and these moments are some of the most moving and heartfelt in the entire book.
The relationship between Peter and Ivan is messy and complicated. Both brothers are caught in a cycle of self-doubt, questioning whether they’re good people and grappling with the past they can’t undo. Regret hangs heavily between them—over their lost youth, their strained relationship with their father, and the growing emotional distance that has come to define their bond. They both look to each other as the source of their pain, but in doing so, they only widen the divide between them. The tension that simmers between them is raw and vivid, and Sally Rooney captures it with such heartbreaking accuracy. The way grief and unresolved trauma slowly tear apart their relationship feels so painfully real—something that resonates with anyone who has ever struggled with family, loss, and the weight of unspoken things.
What stood out to me in this story was how every character seems to orbit around each other, their lives intersecting in quiet, unspoken ways. Their relationships are marked by tension, longing, and unexpected tenderness, reflecting the complexity of their emotions. While the main focus is Peter and Ivan's strained bond, I was also moved by the subtle kindness that surfaces in their interactions. This is a story about love in all its forms—not just the complicated romances, but in small acts of care. These moments remind us that love isn’t always grand or dramatic, it's often found in the quiet ways we show up for one another.
My only critique is that, at times, the book felt slow, especially in the first section, which was a bit challenging to get through. I found myself struggling to keep my focus. But once I reached part two, everything changed, and I couldn’t put it down. By the end, I didn’t want it to end. I had become so attached to the characters and their stories that I wanted more time with them. It’s the kind of book that lingers, staying with you because of how deeply you connect with the people in it.
This book had me in tears—both happy and sad—often at the most unexpected moments. It wasn’t just the sadness of their stories that brought on the tears, but the deep connection I felt with the characters. Their emotions, their struggles, their quiet moments of triumph—all of it resonated with me so strongly that I couldn’t help but be moved.
I would highly recommend this book, but you have to approach it with the right mindset. It’s not the kind of story you can dive into expecting a fast-moving plot or dramatic twists. Instead, it’s a slow burn, a reflective journey that requires patience and an openness to let the characters’ lives unfold gradually. Once you give yourself that space to connect, you’ll find it impossible not to feel deeply for them and to be drawn into their world.
At its core, the book is a meditation on grief, love, and the messiness of human connection. It shows how we’re all bound together by invisible threads—whether through family, shared pain, or fleeting moments of understanding—and how even our deepest struggles can lead us to a place of growth and healing. Ultimately, it’s a reminder that while life isn’t perfect, the connections we make along the way are what give it meaning.
────⟡⋆˙✩ ⋆˙⟡────
I've been avoiding this book since I got it because I know Sally Rooney's writing will emotionally wreck me... but I guess it’s time to face it 😔
"No one is perfect. Sometimes you need people to be perfect and they can’t be and you hate them forever for not being even though it isn’t their fault and it’s not yours either. You just needed something they didn’t have in them to give you."
Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo is an intimate exploration of grief, love, and family. It centres on two brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek, who couldn’t be more different, yet share the same burden of loss. Peter, a successful lawyer in his thirties, is struggling with his grief after their father’s death. He tries to numb the pain with pills, caught between his feelings for two women—his long-time love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a carefree college student. Ivan, on the other hand, is a 22-year-old chess prodigy, often awkward and introspective, wrestling with his own grief. When he meets Margaret, an older woman going through a difficult divorce, they form an unexpected and intense connection. Through their journeys, both brothers confront the complexities of how grief and love shape the course of their lives.
➸ This is the fourth book I've read by Sally Rooney, and once again, she left me completely captivated—her writing never fails to move me. What struck me most about Intermezzo is how she captures human connection in all its messiness and depth. Her writing makes you feel like you’re living inside the characters’ minds, experiencing their pain, joy, and confusion firsthand. She doesn’t give you the full backstory of her characters—she lets their pasts unfold naturally through their words, actions, and the way they interact with others. It's this slow revelation that kept me hooked. I loved how their histories felt present in every conversation, even when they weren’t explicitly stated. As I read, I found myself underlining so many quotes that by the end, my pages were filled with so many markings. This is the kind of book that stays with you long after you finish it, quietly shaping your thoughts and feelings. It's a book that becomes a part of you in a way that’s hard to describe.
One of the most powerful elements of this book is how Sally Rooney uses chess as a metaphor for the characters’ internal struggles. The game mirrors their emotional battles, with each move reflecting their desire to "win," even when the goal remains elusive. This uncertainty felt deeply resonant, portraying the essence of human yearning—striving for connection, meaning, or validation, always just out of reach yet impossible to abandon.
“Life, after all, has not slipped free of its netting. There is no such life, slipping free: life itself is the netting, holding people in place, making sense of things. It is not possible to tear away the constraints and simply carry on a senseless existence. People, other people, make it impossible. But without other people, there would be no life at all.”
At first, Peter’s pov was a bit of a struggle for me. His fragmented narrative felt distant, like I was missing something important. But as I kept reading, I slowly began to understand him more deeply. His voice, filled with short, cryptic phrases and vivid, surreal descriptions, perfectly captures the inner turmoil he’s carrying. Peter, for me, is the most complex character in the book—burdened by addiction, past traumas, and an overwhelming inability to truly connect with others. He’s the brother who feels most at odds with the world, his internal struggle making him raw, vulnerable, and painfully real. He’s the misunderstood one, the one who never had the chance—or the desire—to explain himself, and in that, he became so human to me.
Peter’s relationships with Sylvia and Naomi are heartbreaking in their messy, complicated beauty. He’s still so deeply in love with Sylvia, but tragedy has left their connection frozen in time, suspended in a painful standstill. Sylvia, still reeling from a life-changing accident, can’t fully meet him where he needs her, and Peter’s love for her turns into a kind of hopeless attachment, something that holds him captive. At the same time, he finds himself with Naomi, a much younger woman who offers him a kind of freedom and ease that Sylvia cannot. Yet, his heart is still tangled in the past, caught between two worlds and unsure of where he truly belongs. This emotional complexity tore at me, and I couldn’t help but feel for Peter as he struggled to make sense of it all, navigating a storm of feelings that left him as lost as he was in love.
“Well, if that's suffering, he thinks, let me suffer. Yes. To love whoever I have left. And if ever I lose someone, let me descend into a futile and prolonged rage, yes, despair, wanting to break things, furniture, appliances, wanting to get into fights, to scream, to walk in front of a bus, yes. Let me suffer, please. To love just these few people, to know myself capable of that, I would suffer every day of my life.”
Ivan, the quieter of the two brothers, resonated with me in ways that felt deeply personal. His constant introspection, the weight of his thoughts, and the quiet melancholy he carries made him feel so real. Unlike Peter, who moves through life with a certain ease and confidence, Ivan is more uncertain, always lost in his own reflections, questioning where he truly belongs. After the death of their father, and with a mother who seems distant and remarried, Ivan is left to grapple with his grief alone, trying to make sense of a world that feels too big and too cold. But then he meets Margaret, an older woman caught in the midst of her own divorce. Their connection, though unexpected, grows quickly and profoundly, bringing out a tenderness in Ivan that I wasn’t prepared for but cherished. Through Margaret, Ivan finds a softness he hadn’t known he needed, and their relationship becomes a refuge for him. In her presence, he begins to rediscover vulnerability, and by the end, it’s clear that their bond has not only healed parts of him but also helped bridge the gap between him and his brother. The chemistry between Ivan and Margaret is so transparent, so gently woven into each quiet exchange, and these moments are some of the most moving and heartfelt in the entire book.
“I think, as sad as it is to say, I think people aren’t always very nice to the people they love.”
The relationship between Peter and Ivan is messy and complicated. Both brothers are caught in a cycle of self-doubt, questioning whether they’re good people and grappling with the past they can’t undo. Regret hangs heavily between them—over their lost youth, their strained relationship with their father, and the growing emotional distance that has come to define their bond. They both look to each other as the source of their pain, but in doing so, they only widen the divide between them. The tension that simmers between them is raw and vivid, and Sally Rooney captures it with such heartbreaking accuracy. The way grief and unresolved trauma slowly tear apart their relationship feels so painfully real—something that resonates with anyone who has ever struggled with family, loss, and the weight of unspoken things.
"Yes, the world makes room for goodness and decency, he thinks: and the task of life is to show goodness to others, not to complain about their failings. It doesn't always work, but I do my best."
What stood out to me in this story was how every character seems to orbit around each other, their lives intersecting in quiet, unspoken ways. Their relationships are marked by tension, longing, and unexpected tenderness, reflecting the complexity of their emotions. While the main focus is Peter and Ivan's strained bond, I was also moved by the subtle kindness that surfaces in their interactions. This is a story about love in all its forms—not just the complicated romances, but in small acts of care. These moments remind us that love isn’t always grand or dramatic, it's often found in the quiet ways we show up for one another.
My only critique is that, at times, the book felt slow, especially in the first section, which was a bit challenging to get through. I found myself struggling to keep my focus. But once I reached part two, everything changed, and I couldn’t put it down. By the end, I didn’t want it to end. I had become so attached to the characters and their stories that I wanted more time with them. It’s the kind of book that lingers, staying with you because of how deeply you connect with the people in it.
This book had me in tears—both happy and sad—often at the most unexpected moments. It wasn’t just the sadness of their stories that brought on the tears, but the deep connection I felt with the characters. Their emotions, their struggles, their quiet moments of triumph—all of it resonated with me so strongly that I couldn’t help but be moved.
I would highly recommend this book, but you have to approach it with the right mindset. It’s not the kind of story you can dive into expecting a fast-moving plot or dramatic twists. Instead, it’s a slow burn, a reflective journey that requires patience and an openness to let the characters’ lives unfold gradually. Once you give yourself that space to connect, you’ll find it impossible not to feel deeply for them and to be drawn into their world.
At its core, the book is a meditation on grief, love, and the messiness of human connection. It shows how we’re all bound together by invisible threads—whether through family, shared pain, or fleeting moments of understanding—and how even our deepest struggles can lead us to a place of growth and healing. Ultimately, it’s a reminder that while life isn’t perfect, the connections we make along the way are what give it meaning.
────⟡⋆˙✩ ⋆˙⟡────
I've been avoiding this book since I got it because I know Sally Rooney's writing will emotionally wreck me... but I guess it’s time to face it 😔
October 1, 2024
Surprisingly crap.
Even though I'm one of those embarrassing people who found reading Normal People to be an actually life-changing experience, this was dreadful. The brothers were basically uninteresting (Peter's suicidal thoughts over his "do I choose the submissive bimbo or the dark academia asexual" dilemma had me wishing he'd just get on with it), and the various love interests were paper thin and functionally symbolic. Which is a shame, since I think Rooney is more than capable of writing nuanced and memorable characters, and has done so in the past.
Style-wise, I've never minded the customary lack of speech marks, but the excessive use of jumbled syntax in Intermezzo is pretty tortuous. Otherwise good sentences come out garbled, while nonsense like "Sore his eyes and hot he felt" gives the whole book a sort of as-told-by-Yoda vibe. Not great.
And yeah, I get that the brotherly love ending is sort of heartwarming (although for a book allegedly about their relationship, they spend most of it deciding who to shag in mostly unrelated plot lines). But it feels cynical to me, I don't know (as Sally might write: "Calculated, this heartstring pulling felt, and cold"). Plus, it turns out you can have your cake and eat it RE: being unable to decide between the submissive bimbo and the dark academia asexual. Just date both of them, I guess! Who cares if it all goes wrong in the future, because you're living life now, or something.
Diminishing returns from a normally talented author.
Even though I'm one of those embarrassing people who found reading Normal People to be an actually life-changing experience, this was dreadful. The brothers were basically uninteresting (Peter's suicidal thoughts over his "do I choose the submissive bimbo or the dark academia asexual" dilemma had me wishing he'd just get on with it), and the various love interests were paper thin and functionally symbolic. Which is a shame, since I think Rooney is more than capable of writing nuanced and memorable characters, and has done so in the past.
Style-wise, I've never minded the customary lack of speech marks, but the excessive use of jumbled syntax in Intermezzo is pretty tortuous. Otherwise good sentences come out garbled, while nonsense like "Sore his eyes and hot he felt" gives the whole book a sort of as-told-by-Yoda vibe. Not great.
And yeah, I get that the brotherly love ending is sort of heartwarming (although for a book allegedly about their relationship, they spend most of it deciding who to shag in mostly unrelated plot lines). But it feels cynical to me, I don't know (as Sally might write: "Calculated, this heartstring pulling felt, and cold"). Plus, it turns out you can have your cake and eat it RE: being unable to decide between the submissive bimbo and the dark academia asexual. Just date both of them, I guess! Who cares if it all goes wrong in the future, because you're living life now, or something.
Diminishing returns from a normally talented author.
October 13, 2024
4.5 stars
perhaps it was bold of me to initiate my exploration of Rooney’s works with her latest release. however, my immersion into her penmanship was as spontaneous as I wanted it to be. I did not build any preconceptions about the book before devouring it, which resulted in a poignant surprise
to phrase it simply, the novel is character-driven, with the pièce de résistance cemented on the relationship between the Koubek brothers—or rather, the lack of relationship—succeeding to their father’s death. the narrative ventures into the unorthodox and complex aspects of the brothers’ love lives. the younger, chess-prodigy brother, Ivan, finds himself in a relationship with an older woman, Margaret. meanwhile, the older brother, Peter, juggles with the lingering feelings for his first love, Sylvia, while navigating his current relationship with Noami.
the tone is established in the early chapters, where Peter is caricatured as the malevolent figure of the story, while Ivan is depicted as the misunderstood protagonist. however, as I delved deeper into the book, I found that the storyline layers Peter’s character with far more nuance and substance than merely portraying him as a 'privileged, successful white man who manipulates women’s emotions.' Initially, I found his chapters disconcerting; the prose seems deliberately crafted, I assume, reflecting his struggles with borderline alcoholism. Ivan’s character’s development arc has some comforting constancy, he isn’t showcased under a new light but he certainly matured under the influence of Margaret.
i found that Rooney handled the family drama subgenere with dexterity. she distilled with a brilliant approche how a sibling relationship might be tarnished by an inability to recognize one another’s feelings, life experiences, and societal roles. it illustrates how unexpressed or suppressed emotions can undermine a bond, while confrontation emerges as a crucial remedy. this is a raw tale about grief, love, hatred, & pardon—ultimately, being human.
—————
here we gooo..
“I think, as sad as it is to say, I think people aren’t always very nice to the people they love.”
perhaps it was bold of me to initiate my exploration of Rooney’s works with her latest release. however, my immersion into her penmanship was as spontaneous as I wanted it to be. I did not build any preconceptions about the book before devouring it, which resulted in a poignant surprise
to phrase it simply, the novel is character-driven, with the pièce de résistance cemented on the relationship between the Koubek brothers—or rather, the lack of relationship—succeeding to their father’s death. the narrative ventures into the unorthodox and complex aspects of the brothers’ love lives. the younger, chess-prodigy brother, Ivan, finds himself in a relationship with an older woman, Margaret. meanwhile, the older brother, Peter, juggles with the lingering feelings for his first love, Sylvia, while navigating his current relationship with Noami.
the tone is established in the early chapters, where Peter is caricatured as the malevolent figure of the story, while Ivan is depicted as the misunderstood protagonist. however, as I delved deeper into the book, I found that the storyline layers Peter’s character with far more nuance and substance than merely portraying him as a 'privileged, successful white man who manipulates women’s emotions.' Initially, I found his chapters disconcerting; the prose seems deliberately crafted, I assume, reflecting his struggles with borderline alcoholism. Ivan’s character’s development arc has some comforting constancy, he isn’t showcased under a new light but he certainly matured under the influence of Margaret.
i found that Rooney handled the family drama subgenere with dexterity. she distilled with a brilliant approche how a sibling relationship might be tarnished by an inability to recognize one another’s feelings, life experiences, and societal roles. it illustrates how unexpressed or suppressed emotions can undermine a bond, while confrontation emerges as a crucial remedy. this is a raw tale about grief, love, hatred, & pardon—ultimately, being human.
—————
here we gooo..
December 9, 2024
An exquisite, fierce, deeply moving story. The last few pages, read with teary eyes, a perfect ending. I think Sally Rooney's books are best appreciated by those who love dialogue—not just any dialogue, but in-depth conversations uncovering the inner thoughts of her characters.
This is the story of two brothers navigating a world without their father, tumbling through grief, searching for meaning and understanding. At its core, a tender story of male vulnerability, philosophical, tragic, and endearing. Sally Rooney has, once again, captured the essence of tender dialogue and intimacy that makes the reader feel like a spectator.
Peter, the elder brother, a lawyer, is struggling with the death of his father. A relationship, flawed, yet loving--he's medicating himself to get through the days ahead. He was in a loving relationship with Sylvia, yet tragedy has put their love in a waiting game, a purgatory. Sylvia, reeling from a tragic accident, is unable to be fully present in the relationship, yet Peter is still fondly and hopelessly in love with her. On the side, Peter is entwined with a much younger college girl, Naomi. Trapped between two people, he struggles to find a place of solitude.
Ivan, the younger brother, a chess prodigy, is awkward, the antithesis of Peter's natural social graces. He struggles with the heavy weight of his father's death and a fraught relationship with his brother. Ivan isn't sure what family is left. His mother, remarried and distant, doesn’t have much connection with the boys .
At one of his chess competitions, Ivan meets a much older woman, Margaret, in the middle of a divorce. They share a cosmic connection, but it is not meant for the world--Ivan doesn't care, he tries to make sense of it, regardless of any consequence.
Margaret worries what her mother, soon-to-be ex-husband, and colleagues will think, yet, she feels the unexplainable pull of this young man. A passion she has never felt.
This quote actually took my breath away, reminding me how much I love Sally Rooney:
A contextual theme in Intermezzo--the idea of two brothers wanting success and happiness and what it would take for them to get it, and have it. They both grappled with the route to happiness, whether financially, romantically, or essentially finding happiness in life after loss. Were they superior in their wanting, or did they suffer in their desires?
Peter and Ivan navigate their separate lives, work, and relationships, and the unexplained rift between them grows. Ivan finds Peter arrogant and selfish, a wanna-be success story. Peter sees Ivan as a child, meek, immature, and boring, but Ivan thrives with Margret. He is the best version of himself.
It was hard to say goodbye to these characters, like so many of Rooney's books, you feel at home, wanting to be a part of their lives, wanting to reach out and hug them in their broken moments. Ivan was adorable, endearing, and kind at a young age. I loved his sense of self—his desire to do better. Peter, confused and struggling, broke me—but also gave me hope—he was surrounded by people that love him, he genuinely needed to know it.
This is Rooney's most complex story to date. While the story vacillates between the two brothers, Peters's words read like a stream of consciousness, sometimes you aren't sure which woman he's speaking to, while Ivan's thoughts are more secure and simpler to follow. This was clever and done well.
The writing is beautifully jagged and poetic. Rooney understands the human condition deeply--it makes me think of my relationship with siblings, what I wished for, accepted, and disdained. I have seen complicated relationships between brothers, the ability to be vulnerable and break egos at the center of a conflict is beyond difficult, but doable.
Passionate about unconventional relationships, Rooney explores themes of cohesiveness in a conventional world. Systems can be flawed, imperfect, and lines blurred, depending on circumstances—it’s all okay.
I have loved Sally Rooney since Conversation with Friends, and this was another gorgeous read.
5/5 ✨ stars ✨
⭐️ I finished the audiobook and loved it. It is read by Éanna Hardwicke who plays Rob in ‘Normal People’. His Irish accent brings the brothers to life in a poetic, realistic way. Beautiful.
Check out my other reviews of books by Sally Rooney:
Normal People
Conversations with Friends
Beautiful World, Where Are You
This is the story of two brothers navigating a world without their father, tumbling through grief, searching for meaning and understanding. At its core, a tender story of male vulnerability, philosophical, tragic, and endearing. Sally Rooney has, once again, captured the essence of tender dialogue and intimacy that makes the reader feel like a spectator.
What if life is just a collection of essentially unrelated experiences? Why does one thing have to follow meaningfully from another
Peter, the elder brother, a lawyer, is struggling with the death of his father. A relationship, flawed, yet loving--he's medicating himself to get through the days ahead. He was in a loving relationship with Sylvia, yet tragedy has put their love in a waiting game, a purgatory. Sylvia, reeling from a tragic accident, is unable to be fully present in the relationship, yet Peter is still fondly and hopelessly in love with her. On the side, Peter is entwined with a much younger college girl, Naomi. Trapped between two people, he struggles to find a place of solitude.
She has hated him all along for leaving her, he knows that, and he has hated her for telling him to go
Ivan, the younger brother, a chess prodigy, is awkward, the antithesis of Peter's natural social graces. He struggles with the heavy weight of his father's death and a fraught relationship with his brother. Ivan isn't sure what family is left. His mother, remarried and distant, doesn’t have much connection with the boys .
The human mind, for all the credit he was just giving it a minute ago, is often repetitive, often trapped in a familiar cycle of unproductive thoughts, which in Ivan’s case are usually regretful in nature
At one of his chess competitions, Ivan meets a much older woman, Margaret, in the middle of a divorce. They share a cosmic connection, but it is not meant for the world--Ivan doesn't care, he tries to make sense of it, regardless of any consequence.
Is it different, to want something, and to think the wanted thing is a good idea? Yes, it could be different, he thinks, if the long-term consequences of the event were foreseeably worse than the short-term gratification involved
Margaret worries what her mother, soon-to-be ex-husband, and colleagues will think, yet, she feels the unexplainable pull of this young man. A passion she has never felt.
This quote actually took my breath away, reminding me how much I love Sally Rooney:
Margaret feels that she can perceive the miraculous beauty of life itself, lived only once and then gone forever, the bloom of a perfect impermanent flower, never to be retrieved. This is life, the experience, this is all there has ever been. To force this moment into contact with her ordinary existence only seems to reveal how constricting, how misshapen her ideas of life have been
A contextual theme in Intermezzo--the idea of two brothers wanting success and happiness and what it would take for them to get it, and have it. They both grappled with the route to happiness, whether financially, romantically, or essentially finding happiness in life after loss. Were they superior in their wanting, or did they suffer in their desires?
He believed once that life must lead to something, all the unresolved conflicts and questions leading on toward some great culmination...Irrational attachment to meaning
How often in life he has found himself a frustrated observer of apparently impenetrable systems, watching other people participate effortlessly in structures he can find no way to enter or even understand. So often that it’s practically baseline, just normal existence for him. And this is not only due to the irrational nature of other people, and the consequent irrationality of the rules and processes they devise; it’s due to Ivan himself, his fundamental unsuitedness to life. He knows this. He feels himself to have been formed, somehow, with something other than life in mind
Peter and Ivan navigate their separate lives, work, and relationships, and the unexplained rift between them grows. Ivan finds Peter arrogant and selfish, a wanna-be success story. Peter sees Ivan as a child, meek, immature, and boring, but Ivan thrives with Margret. He is the best version of himself.
Sometimes you need people to be perfect and they can't be and you hate them forever for not being even though it isn't their fault and it's not yours either. You just needed something they didn't have in them to give you
It was hard to say goodbye to these characters, like so many of Rooney's books, you feel at home, wanting to be a part of their lives, wanting to reach out and hug them in their broken moments. Ivan was adorable, endearing, and kind at a young age. I loved his sense of self—his desire to do better. Peter, confused and struggling, broke me—but also gave me hope—he was surrounded by people that love him, he genuinely needed to know it.
This is Rooney's most complex story to date. While the story vacillates between the two brothers, Peters's words read like a stream of consciousness, sometimes you aren't sure which woman he's speaking to, while Ivan's thoughts are more secure and simpler to follow. This was clever and done well.
The writing is beautifully jagged and poetic. Rooney understands the human condition deeply--it makes me think of my relationship with siblings, what I wished for, accepted, and disdained. I have seen complicated relationships between brothers, the ability to be vulnerable and break egos at the center of a conflict is beyond difficult, but doable.
Passionate about unconventional relationships, Rooney explores themes of cohesiveness in a conventional world. Systems can be flawed, imperfect, and lines blurred, depending on circumstances—it’s all okay.
I have loved Sally Rooney since Conversation with Friends, and this was another gorgeous read.
5/5 ✨ stars ✨
⭐️ I finished the audiobook and loved it. It is read by Éanna Hardwicke who plays Rob in ‘Normal People’. His Irish accent brings the brothers to life in a poetic, realistic way. Beautiful.
Check out my other reviews of books by Sally Rooney:
Normal People
Conversations with Friends
Beautiful World, Where Are You
December 23, 2024
4,25 stars
'i think people aren't always nice to the people they love'
to me this quote sums up the entire book
I've been waiting for this release for months and it didn't disappointed me. Sally always finds a way to make the ordinary feel profound
The relationship of the two brothers with each other and with their loved ones wore me out poetically and emotionally. After all the ups and downs the journey was ultimately rewarding. And I was very satisfied about the ending. It was not rushed and well written.
I found myself relating all of the characters at different times
'sometimes you need people to be perfect and they can't be and you hate them forever for not being even though it isn't their fault and it is not yours either.You just needed something they didn't have them to give you'the quote that made me cry 2 times
Overall,I think the book did a great job capturing the fleeting moments of life, love, and introspection.And I will be thinking about it for the next 2 weeks
my playlist : https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2sF...
https://www.instagram.com/p/DAaKylqIm...
'i think people aren't always nice to the people they love'
to me this quote sums up the entire book
I've been waiting for this release for months and it didn't disappointed me. Sally always finds a way to make the ordinary feel profound
The relationship of the two brothers with each other and with their loved ones wore me out poetically and emotionally. After all the ups and downs the journey was ultimately rewarding. And I was very satisfied about the ending. It was not rushed and well written.
I found myself relating all of the characters at different times
'sometimes you need people to be perfect and they can't be and you hate them forever for not being even though it isn't their fault and it is not yours either.You just needed something they didn't have them to give you'
Overall,I think the book did a great job capturing the fleeting moments of life, love, and introspection.And I will be thinking about it for the next 2 weeks
my playlist : https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2sF...
https://www.instagram.com/p/DAaKylqIm...
October 16, 2024
Okay, wow. This book, though imperfect, blew me away. By far my favorite Sally Rooney novel, and I’m so happy I can finally give one of her books more than three stars!
Rooney’s writing is just superb. Her dialogue and the way she so fully embodies her characters’ voices – so impressive. The way she can write about an interaction between two people and capture all the subtle nuances and tiny yet significant emotional grooves of human interaction. Her ability to write scenes like these made me feel like I was right there in the novel with the characters, or right in their heads as they introspected. There were a handful of passages where I literally gasped from how beautiful her writing was (e.g., Ivan reflecting on his late father and feeling grief, Peter missing Ivan and wanting him to know he’s been on his side even though he hasn’t shown it, Margaret contemplating her life taking a different route than she expected). There’s so much brilliance in these pages about grief, the painful ways we hurt those we care about, and illness and trauma.
I think these deeper themes help explain why I liked this book so much more than her other novels. I’ve always found her writing extremely engaging, which is why I didn’t hesitate to pick up Intermezzo from my local library. But, with her past novels, I felt annoyed because the characters were messy and uncommunicative in a repetitive way that was frustrating because the miscommunications carried the whole plot. But in this book, even though the characters were still messy and still miscommunicated, I felt a maturity in Rooney’s characterization that wasn’t there before. Even though none of the characters were perfect, they were doing their best, and the plot didn’t only rely on them miscommunicating with one another. Also, a lot of the characters grew by the end of the book, thank goodness.
Also, I *loved* Sylvia and Ivan. To be honest I still think Sylvia is way better than anything Peter deserves, but whatever she’s amazing and selfishly she reminds me of myself, two college professors doing our thing and being better than any mediocre man around us (lol). I also was so engaged with Ivan’s perspective. He was such a sympathetically earnest character, and while Rooney captured all of her characters’ voices well, I was particularly endeared by his.
The one thing I felt most annoyed by about this book was how men (specifically Peter) used women as a way to heal from their mental health issues?? Let me say, I totally get that we can ask our friends, romantic partners, family, etc. to support us when we have mental health issues, like I’m not saying we should never rely on other people. But I feel like Rooney has this odd trope in her novels where men are extremely emotionally stunted and the way they get over it is by having the extremely emotionally intelligent women in their lives teach them how to be better communicators and to actually understand themselves more – which is literally what happened in this book with Peter. None of the female characters in this book were perfect, thankfully, and Peter himself did grow and even though he got on my nerves the most I did empathize with him, but still, the idea of women being men’s therapists (and in an unreciprocated way) bugs me. Like I think about Post-Traumatic by Chantal Johnson, Sea Change by Gina Chung, and Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi, all some of my favorite realistic fiction novels of the past few years, and while the main characters did have female friends in their lives who helped them, they also had to seek help in other ways, either through therapy or other means. Meanwhile Peter was just educated by Sylvia and Naomi.
Anyway, I still really enjoyed this novel and was definitely riveted by it. The Peter and Ivan conflict was masterfully done in my opinion, and her writing evoked feelings from within me related to grief, family, and even friendship. I also appreciate that Rooney doesn’t try to shoehorn characters of color into her cast – like, people of color don’t need to be thrust into books with white people, we have our own stories and we can just read those. It’s nice to read a book and not have to worry if the author is going to horribly portray people of color. As you can discern this book brought up a lot for me based on the length of this review. If the synopsis interests you, I’d recommend you read it!
Rooney’s writing is just superb. Her dialogue and the way she so fully embodies her characters’ voices – so impressive. The way she can write about an interaction between two people and capture all the subtle nuances and tiny yet significant emotional grooves of human interaction. Her ability to write scenes like these made me feel like I was right there in the novel with the characters, or right in their heads as they introspected. There were a handful of passages where I literally gasped from how beautiful her writing was (e.g., Ivan reflecting on his late father and feeling grief, Peter missing Ivan and wanting him to know he’s been on his side even though he hasn’t shown it, Margaret contemplating her life taking a different route than she expected). There’s so much brilliance in these pages about grief, the painful ways we hurt those we care about, and illness and trauma.
I think these deeper themes help explain why I liked this book so much more than her other novels. I’ve always found her writing extremely engaging, which is why I didn’t hesitate to pick up Intermezzo from my local library. But, with her past novels, I felt annoyed because the characters were messy and uncommunicative in a repetitive way that was frustrating because the miscommunications carried the whole plot. But in this book, even though the characters were still messy and still miscommunicated, I felt a maturity in Rooney’s characterization that wasn’t there before. Even though none of the characters were perfect, they were doing their best, and the plot didn’t only rely on them miscommunicating with one another. Also, a lot of the characters grew by the end of the book, thank goodness.
Also, I *loved* Sylvia and Ivan. To be honest I still think Sylvia is way better than anything Peter deserves, but whatever she’s amazing and selfishly she reminds me of myself, two college professors doing our thing and being better than any mediocre man around us (lol). I also was so engaged with Ivan’s perspective. He was such a sympathetically earnest character, and while Rooney captured all of her characters’ voices well, I was particularly endeared by his.
The one thing I felt most annoyed by about this book was how men (specifically Peter) used women as a way to heal from their mental health issues?? Let me say, I totally get that we can ask our friends, romantic partners, family, etc. to support us when we have mental health issues, like I’m not saying we should never rely on other people. But I feel like Rooney has this odd trope in her novels where men are extremely emotionally stunted and the way they get over it is by having the extremely emotionally intelligent women in their lives teach them how to be better communicators and to actually understand themselves more – which is literally what happened in this book with Peter. None of the female characters in this book were perfect, thankfully, and Peter himself did grow and even though he got on my nerves the most I did empathize with him, but still, the idea of women being men’s therapists (and in an unreciprocated way) bugs me. Like I think about Post-Traumatic by Chantal Johnson, Sea Change by Gina Chung, and Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi, all some of my favorite realistic fiction novels of the past few years, and while the main characters did have female friends in their lives who helped them, they also had to seek help in other ways, either through therapy or other means. Meanwhile Peter was just educated by Sylvia and Naomi.
Anyway, I still really enjoyed this novel and was definitely riveted by it. The Peter and Ivan conflict was masterfully done in my opinion, and her writing evoked feelings from within me related to grief, family, and even friendship. I also appreciate that Rooney doesn’t try to shoehorn characters of color into her cast – like, people of color don’t need to be thrust into books with white people, we have our own stories and we can just read those. It’s nice to read a book and not have to worry if the author is going to horribly portray people of color. As you can discern this book brought up a lot for me based on the length of this review. If the synopsis interests you, I’d recommend you read it!
September 24, 2024
I felt too many things - and I loved them all. And it was raining all day. Went for a walk to decompress, and then poured over the final 200 pages right before bed because I couldn’t let it sit for another night. It was raining all day and I’m emotional and I’m happy. 5/5
July 31, 2024
interested in 450+ pages of men complaining about their lives and being complete assholes and the women being so poorly written and one dimensional? then i've got the book for you!
do not read if you hate men or listening to what men have to say! this is an entire book of just that!
biggest let down of a highly-anticipated release in a loooong time. a pathetic excuse of a book.
do not read if you hate men or listening to what men have to say! this is an entire book of just that!
biggest let down of a highly-anticipated release in a loooong time. a pathetic excuse of a book.
August 12, 2024
I've been wondering for quite some time why we aren't seeing more fiction from men questioning and interrogating what masculinity is and what it should be. So much fiction has been grappling with questions of identity, it's strange that male authors--especially the straight white cis ones--have not been doing the same. But if they're not ready to do it, Sally Rooney is.
The men in question are Ivan and Peter, two brothers separated in age by ten years. Ivan is 22, a washed up chess prodigy, socially awkward, a former incel. Peter has a job as a civil rights lawyer and outwardly presents himself as smart, successful, and great with women, and absolutely must be right about everything. Neither of these men is very well acquainted with their own feelings. Not feeling them or expressing them or communicating about them. Certainly not going to therapy for them or making sure their feelings are not everyone else's problem. They are both their own particular shade of asshole, and they have never gotten along.
We find them both in flux. Their father has just died after a long illness. Ivan falls in love with Margaret, an older, not-yet-divorced woman. Peter can't seem to tear himself away from his new, much younger girlfriend Naomi who he insists is not in any way suitable for him. Peter also can't seem to tear himself away from his ex Sylvia, who might as well be Naomi's opposite. These relationships aren't the ones they're supposed to have and neither of them really understands why. Ivan gently opens himself up to the world, finding a sense of direction and a deeper investment in others. Peter shuts down more and more, going confidently one way and then setting it aside completely to confidently do the opposite, unable to define what he wants.
This book feels both very much the same and very different from her other work. She is still grappling with romantic love, how it intertwines with sexual desire and platonic affection. She is deeply interested in the ways people act the way they are supposed to act and what makes them willing to break from expectation and explore the nontraditional. She narrates in a close third person similar to Normal People. There is an optimism and a sweetness that you find in her work and her characters that comes right up to cloying but never quite goes there because she's so willing to dive deep into her characters' flaws.
What's different? Well, to start, this book is about 80% or so focused on Ivan and Peter, it's much more male than her previous work and the relationship between the two men is not the focus but it is the narrative thread that pulls it all together. She certainly seems to be trying new things with prose again, Peter's sections have a choppy narration: short, very clipped sentences, almost the opposite of a Joycean flowing stream of consciousness and yet strangely similar. You always know when you're reading about Peter vs Ivan. It took me a while to get the hang of Peter sections, they don't have that readable quality she often has. And all through the book there can be long paragraphs that go on and on, sentence after sentence. I did not find the prose friendly, exactly, but it is clearly purposeful.
Ultimately I liked it a lot even if it took me a while to get my bearings. I loved Ivan and Margaret's sections, the emotional intimacy she can bring to falling in love, plus a few beautiful sex scenes. Love just happens, and we can see why the two of them make no sense but also why they do. And it's a book about self-awareness, gaining understanding and emotional intelligence. Both of them at some point have to acknowledge, "Oh yes, that is grief that made me like this. Even though I kept saying it wasn't." And sure, Ivan and Peter are not as emotionally intelligent as the women around them, but we do see them make strides. And the longer we go the more we understand why they have such a strong dislike of each other and how the same difficult childhood led to such very different people.
I can't tell if Rooney is correcting a bit from Beautiful World (the things I didn't love there are nowhere to be found here) or if she's just continuing to try things, mixing old and new. Either way, there's a lot of what I like best about her work here. Yes she often returns to similar themes, but they're themes I enjoy. And her observation of her characters remains so precise. She is a pleasure to read.
The men in question are Ivan and Peter, two brothers separated in age by ten years. Ivan is 22, a washed up chess prodigy, socially awkward, a former incel. Peter has a job as a civil rights lawyer and outwardly presents himself as smart, successful, and great with women, and absolutely must be right about everything. Neither of these men is very well acquainted with their own feelings. Not feeling them or expressing them or communicating about them. Certainly not going to therapy for them or making sure their feelings are not everyone else's problem. They are both their own particular shade of asshole, and they have never gotten along.
We find them both in flux. Their father has just died after a long illness. Ivan falls in love with Margaret, an older, not-yet-divorced woman. Peter can't seem to tear himself away from his new, much younger girlfriend Naomi who he insists is not in any way suitable for him. Peter also can't seem to tear himself away from his ex Sylvia, who might as well be Naomi's opposite. These relationships aren't the ones they're supposed to have and neither of them really understands why. Ivan gently opens himself up to the world, finding a sense of direction and a deeper investment in others. Peter shuts down more and more, going confidently one way and then setting it aside completely to confidently do the opposite, unable to define what he wants.
This book feels both very much the same and very different from her other work. She is still grappling with romantic love, how it intertwines with sexual desire and platonic affection. She is deeply interested in the ways people act the way they are supposed to act and what makes them willing to break from expectation and explore the nontraditional. She narrates in a close third person similar to Normal People. There is an optimism and a sweetness that you find in her work and her characters that comes right up to cloying but never quite goes there because she's so willing to dive deep into her characters' flaws.
What's different? Well, to start, this book is about 80% or so focused on Ivan and Peter, it's much more male than her previous work and the relationship between the two men is not the focus but it is the narrative thread that pulls it all together. She certainly seems to be trying new things with prose again, Peter's sections have a choppy narration: short, very clipped sentences, almost the opposite of a Joycean flowing stream of consciousness and yet strangely similar. You always know when you're reading about Peter vs Ivan. It took me a while to get the hang of Peter sections, they don't have that readable quality she often has. And all through the book there can be long paragraphs that go on and on, sentence after sentence. I did not find the prose friendly, exactly, but it is clearly purposeful.
Ultimately I liked it a lot even if it took me a while to get my bearings. I loved Ivan and Margaret's sections, the emotional intimacy she can bring to falling in love, plus a few beautiful sex scenes. Love just happens, and we can see why the two of them make no sense but also why they do. And it's a book about self-awareness, gaining understanding and emotional intelligence. Both of them at some point have to acknowledge, "Oh yes, that is grief that made me like this. Even though I kept saying it wasn't." And sure, Ivan and Peter are not as emotionally intelligent as the women around them, but we do see them make strides. And the longer we go the more we understand why they have such a strong dislike of each other and how the same difficult childhood led to such very different people.
I can't tell if Rooney is correcting a bit from Beautiful World (the things I didn't love there are nowhere to be found here) or if she's just continuing to try things, mixing old and new. Either way, there's a lot of what I like best about her work here. Yes she often returns to similar themes, but they're themes I enjoy. And her observation of her characters remains so precise. She is a pleasure to read.
October 8, 2024
girl i fell asleep reading this
December 15, 2024
sally rooney—they can NEVER make me hate you.
October 10, 2024
88th book of 2024.
I read an interview with Rooney the other day in the Bookseller (?) where she said that this book is a kind of homage to Joyce as she was reading Ulysses when she first started it so the beats of the sentences, the stream-of-consciousness, it all sort of melted into her own work. Sadly, Rooney isn't Joyce (who is?) so I found the faux-Joyce prose off-putting, sometimes bad. Her sentences lacked rhythm. The thing about Joyce is he is so pleasing to read. The sentences run over each other. There's a whole music. In Finnegans Wake, sure, but even in Ulysses. There's a deep understanding of cadence you get from Joyce.
And considering this is her longest yet, the plot was extremely drawn out for the inevitable ending it has. At times it felt like Notting Hill or some other Hugh Grant film. Little coincidences, break-ups and make-ups. I'd actually say this felt like her most immature book yet, though so many reviews are saying the polar opposite, and that this book is Rooney's creative powers coming to a head. I disagree fairly strongly. I saw one headline that claimed this book proves she is the greatest living novelist, and that, I say, is absolute rubbish. (For the record, I was very moved by Beautiful World Where Are You, though I read it at a tricky time in life and it felt like the salve I needed; I am afraid (especially now!) to read it again - and probably won't.)
The characters are unlikeable, and fairly unoriginal. The autistic incel chess player and the rich narcissistic lawyer. Come on. Most of the book felt repetitive: the chapter structures seemed to be: couple talk about their age difference and how it won't work followed by a long drawn out sex scene. The following chapter concerns a different relationship with a large age gap. They then discuss how it won't work, but then have sex. Rinse and repeat.
Disappointing in style and substance. Lots of platitudes. Too many pages.
I read an interview with Rooney the other day in the Bookseller (?) where she said that this book is a kind of homage to Joyce as she was reading Ulysses when she first started it so the beats of the sentences, the stream-of-consciousness, it all sort of melted into her own work. Sadly, Rooney isn't Joyce (who is?) so I found the faux-Joyce prose off-putting, sometimes bad. Her sentences lacked rhythm. The thing about Joyce is he is so pleasing to read. The sentences run over each other. There's a whole music. In Finnegans Wake, sure, but even in Ulysses. There's a deep understanding of cadence you get from Joyce.
And considering this is her longest yet, the plot was extremely drawn out for the inevitable ending it has. At times it felt like Notting Hill or some other Hugh Grant film. Little coincidences, break-ups and make-ups. I'd actually say this felt like her most immature book yet, though so many reviews are saying the polar opposite, and that this book is Rooney's creative powers coming to a head. I disagree fairly strongly. I saw one headline that claimed this book proves she is the greatest living novelist, and that, I say, is absolute rubbish. (For the record, I was very moved by Beautiful World Where Are You, though I read it at a tricky time in life and it felt like the salve I needed; I am afraid (especially now!) to read it again - and probably won't.)
The characters are unlikeable, and fairly unoriginal. The autistic incel chess player and the rich narcissistic lawyer. Come on. Most of the book felt repetitive: the chapter structures seemed to be: couple talk about their age difference and how it won't work followed by a long drawn out sex scene. The following chapter concerns a different relationship with a large age gap. They then discuss how it won't work, but then have sex. Rinse and repeat.
Disappointing in style and substance. Lots of platitudes. Too many pages.
November 27, 2024
Mining topics as grief, self-doubt, unknowability of others (including family), societal pressure and existential loneliness, Rooney offers us an intelligent novel which didn't really touch me as I had hoped on an emotional level
Difficult feelings, everyone was doing their best. He was a good person, he tried. No one is perfect. Sometimes you need people to be perfect and they can’t be and you hate them forever for not being even though it isn’t their fault and it’s not yours either. You just needed something they didn’t have in them to give you. And then in other people’s lives you do the same thing, you’re the person who lets everyone down, who fails to make anything better, and you hate yourself so much you wish you were dead.
General
In three parts Sally Rooney lets us experience the world of Peter, Ivan, Margaret, Sylvie and Naomi. Starting off with a quote from Ludwig Wittgenstein, the meaning of language (and the myriad ways it can be misinterpreted) is definitely an important theme in Intermezzo.
The title of the novel is drawn from chess, wherein Ivan excels, and relates to an unexpected move that poses a severe threat and forces an immediate response.
In the case of the novel the dying of the father of Peter (elder brother, barrister, 32) and Ivan (10 years younger, semi-professional chess player and freelance data analyst) is the catalyst, leading the characters to question their live till now and their relationships. The level of contempt Peter expresses for Ivan in the first two pages of the novel sets the tone for the tumultuous interpersonal relationships between the characters.
The characters, as always with Rooney, are very lifelike, and at various times I was annoyed with almost of them, in how messy, inconsiderate, hypocritical and real they were portrayed.
Below my thoughts are included per section of the book, but I strongly had the feeling that, despite the modernist overtures (with James Joyce being quoted as inspiration in the credits at the end of the book) Intermezzo in a sense is like a 19th century novel, a la Jane Austen. Everyone is afraid what the outside world, their friends, people from work will think about their amorous relationship, and everyone (with the exception perhaps of Margaret, who then again is very therapeutic in her manner of speaking) has trouble expressing themselves and is afraid that everyone hates them.
I’m good is being used as a kevlar vest, preventing any intimacy or real human contact. Someone even thinks he'll be the talk of whole Dublin and that he'll experience social death, which had me laughing out loud in terms of self absorption and level of delusion on how important and interesting one is to others.
Maybe, with especially Peter being around my age, I expected to connect more with this book, but due to the above I remained distanced, and felt the narrative was maybe a tad more constructed than in the other books of Rooney.
Part 1
He is alone, she says.
Aren’t we all?
We meet the two brothers. Ivan seems very sincere and innocent, even though he is a good kisser apparently. His social awkwardness doesn’t seem overly excessive, initially I found (and feared) his tone almost like an adult version of Oscar from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, but soon we see him in more adult interactions as he meets Margaret, a woman in her thirties who is divorced. Peter meanwhile is a human rights lawyer. It is so interesting to me how Rooney always depicts white collar workers being incredibly rich and well off, while I dare to wager that no-one in his thirties on one income in the centre of Dublin would be overly comfortable without family money. With a youth sweetheart in Sylvie, who had some kind of accidents that makes penetrative sex no longer an option. He is also seeing a younger woman, Naomi, nearly the age of Ivan who has an OnlyFans but seemingly no money?
Here there are interesting dynamics in terms of who exploits who.
Ivan hating Peter for his smoothness (while thinking about himself He has his good qualities, kind of, but none of them have to do with living in the world he lives in, the only world that can be said in a fairly real way to exist), while Peter himself is medicating and has thoughts of wanting to die.
The book moves between the world of the two brothers, and is not innovative in terms of time jumps or structure. The themes Rooney takes on are however more complex and layered than in her other books. Both brothers are used to contexts where they can clearly win, either chess or court cases, while life doesn't offer such an easy script.
Ivan being unmoored not just from his father who died of cancer, but also falling from chess as a professional pursuit, and a recalibration of his own talent in this field.
Peter being unmoored as well, not just in how he lost on the opportunity for a live with Sylvie in his 20s, but also on the intrinsically positive impact of his work, while still enjoying winning court cases.
In this section we have almost transcendence like (but also very sensual) sex scenes, where the interpersonal relations between characters sometimes shift significantly. For instance Naomi, maybe manipulative, moved me with her vulnerability.
Rooney in general does sensual scenes in my opinion very well and effectively.
I miss some kind of background on the brothers relationship growing up in this part of the book, which is almost 200 pages, to have more texture their interactions. On the other hand this makes the response of Ivan during a diner with Peter interesting, indicating significant history between them.
I enjoy Ivan, who moves in my perception from precious, touching, to overly sincere, preachy (with Rooney’s typical commentary on capitalism) and back again. An example of how Ivan thinks about himself is included below:
How often in life he has found himself a frustrated observer of apparently impenetrable systems, watching other people participate effortlessly in structures he can find no way to enter or even understand. So often that it’s practically baseline, just normal existence for him. And this is not only due to the irrational nature of other people, and the consequent irrationality of the rules and processes they devise; it’s due to Ivan himself, his fundamental unsuitedness to life. He knows this. He feels himself to have been formed, somehow, with something other than life in mind
Peter in that sense gave me less of a feeling of interiority and complexity, even though he makes overtures to connect with his brother, despite him saying this is all rather Propriety rather than affection.
Very immersive and reads so smooth, while not much fundamentally happens one could argue.
Part 2
Judgement, disapproval , disappointment, conflict; these are the means with which people remain connected with each other.
After completing this section I was wondering what part 2 adds to the dynamics already set up in part 1. I mean in, part 3 everything and everyone comes together, but this section suffers a bit from a middle book curse in a sense.
We get to see Ivan being all self righteous but visiting his dog for the first time in months, and meet his mother and stepbrother. Ivan is quite judgemental, calling a working from home corporate lawyer not contributing anything to society, funny verdict from the perspective of a basically jobless person, or someone in the words of Margaret A boy with braces on his teeth, mumbling in her ear Oh fuck.
Small town life is rather hard with everyone knowing everyone and being under surveillance for Margaret. She is being all therapeutic in her responses, I would get freaked out if my partner would say such things to me to be fair.
Meanwhile we have Naomi and Peter hurting each other by their feigned indifference for each other, while Peter is in a sense unravelling as he notes himself even: Whole thing getting out of hand. His life, widening black emptiness from which he could only avert his eyes.
This heteronormative fear of polyamory is interesting, in a sense according to Rooney we are not further societal than 19th century novels, with fear for scandal and judgement about age difference:
Discretion, he thinks, can render almost any eccentricity acceptable, at least for a limited time
He has no true friends to really speak and share true feelings with, very existential loneliness even though Peter has enough people to hang out with at Temple Bar.
His imagined reactions on his relationship(s) are (unintentionally) hilarious.
We also have the flap text from the back of the book coming back here:
The demands of other people do not dissolve: they only multiply. More and more complex, more difficult. Which is another way, she thinks, of saying: more life and more life.
I like Naomi, she is quite cool even though we don't get to know more about her, with her making a casserole dish for your rich lawyer boyfriend, very trad wife.
Meanwhile he is drinking and having imaginary conversations in his mind: She’s great, says Gary.
Wordlessly Peter contemplates the remark. Great, yes. Also very expensive and probably insane.
Ivan has an epiphany that kind of sums up the whole relationship between the two brothers:
He hates me because he thinks I am an arrogant prick. And I look down on him because I think he is a fucking loser.
And we end with the realisation that drunken decisions are never a good plan.
Part 3
Things annoy him easily. Like, if they’re out of place.
Naomi makes a face then which is like a private smile to herself. So true, she says. People included.
I could tell you stories - Well Naomi, please do so! But no, the focus is very, almost Cain and Abel like on the brothers. Male masculinity preventing them both to go to therapy.
We have a whole “My life is ruined, I don’t want your life to be ruined vibe”, so 19th century like, how does she think for him? And very ableist as well in a sense.
Epic takedowns: And you’re looking back on how things were when you and I were together, how easy everything was, and everyone was jealous of us, and you just want that back again. For life to be easy.
And even:
You can’t use me like that. I am a human being
Peter his coping strategies, I can’t imagine how he survives in corporate life when he responds to mental stress in this manner: Sick with guilt thinking: then don’t think.
The hardness of having real conversations between people who know each other, with the texture in the past relationship between the brothers offering some very painful, 3 AM fridge scenes.
These arguments in chapter 15 would have me running away 5 times already before there is even a climax, definitely more than 10 years ago since I’ve had such extreme confrontations.
Family feuds and resentments are finally coming out.
It is definitely impressive how Sally Rooney sketches perspectives here, you can understand both brothers here, including even reflective observations like: I see myself very effected by his actions but not the other way around.
We even get to know the parents a bit more: A mother is not an endless thing and Conduct is more important than beliefs.
Why think about the cruelty of time? is mentioned somewhere near the end of the book, which in a sense is a very genuine question with the characters at most being in their mid 30s.
In general they all the time think that everyone hates them and that they are in the centre of attention for other people, including the whole of Dublin.
The conclusion is a bit too hopeful in my view and not as ambiguous as I would have liked maybe, but still the level of interiority and existential angst, that in a sense is very relatable, is impressive!
Difficult feelings, everyone was doing their best. He was a good person, he tried. No one is perfect. Sometimes you need people to be perfect and they can’t be and you hate them forever for not being even though it isn’t their fault and it’s not yours either. You just needed something they didn’t have in them to give you. And then in other people’s lives you do the same thing, you’re the person who lets everyone down, who fails to make anything better, and you hate yourself so much you wish you were dead.
General
In three parts Sally Rooney lets us experience the world of Peter, Ivan, Margaret, Sylvie and Naomi. Starting off with a quote from Ludwig Wittgenstein, the meaning of language (and the myriad ways it can be misinterpreted) is definitely an important theme in Intermezzo.
The title of the novel is drawn from chess, wherein Ivan excels, and relates to an unexpected move that poses a severe threat and forces an immediate response.
In the case of the novel the dying of the father of Peter (elder brother, barrister, 32) and Ivan (10 years younger, semi-professional chess player and freelance data analyst) is the catalyst, leading the characters to question their live till now and their relationships. The level of contempt Peter expresses for Ivan in the first two pages of the novel sets the tone for the tumultuous interpersonal relationships between the characters.
The characters, as always with Rooney, are very lifelike, and at various times I was annoyed with almost of them, in how messy, inconsiderate, hypocritical and real they were portrayed.
Below my thoughts are included per section of the book, but I strongly had the feeling that, despite the modernist overtures (with James Joyce being quoted as inspiration in the credits at the end of the book) Intermezzo in a sense is like a 19th century novel, a la Jane Austen. Everyone is afraid what the outside world, their friends, people from work will think about their amorous relationship, and everyone (with the exception perhaps of Margaret, who then again is very therapeutic in her manner of speaking) has trouble expressing themselves and is afraid that everyone hates them.
I’m good is being used as a kevlar vest, preventing any intimacy or real human contact. Someone even thinks he'll be the talk of whole Dublin and that he'll experience social death, which had me laughing out loud in terms of self absorption and level of delusion on how important and interesting one is to others.
Maybe, with especially Peter being around my age, I expected to connect more with this book, but due to the above I remained distanced, and felt the narrative was maybe a tad more constructed than in the other books of Rooney.
Part 1
He is alone, she says.
Aren’t we all?
We meet the two brothers. Ivan seems very sincere and innocent, even though he is a good kisser apparently. His social awkwardness doesn’t seem overly excessive, initially I found (and feared) his tone almost like an adult version of Oscar from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, but soon we see him in more adult interactions as he meets Margaret, a woman in her thirties who is divorced. Peter meanwhile is a human rights lawyer. It is so interesting to me how Rooney always depicts white collar workers being incredibly rich and well off, while I dare to wager that no-one in his thirties on one income in the centre of Dublin would be overly comfortable without family money. With a youth sweetheart in Sylvie, who had some kind of accidents that makes penetrative sex no longer an option. He is also seeing a younger woman, Naomi, nearly the age of Ivan who has an OnlyFans but seemingly no money?
Here there are interesting dynamics in terms of who exploits who.
Ivan hating Peter for his smoothness (while thinking about himself He has his good qualities, kind of, but none of them have to do with living in the world he lives in, the only world that can be said in a fairly real way to exist), while Peter himself is medicating and has thoughts of wanting to die.
The book moves between the world of the two brothers, and is not innovative in terms of time jumps or structure. The themes Rooney takes on are however more complex and layered than in her other books. Both brothers are used to contexts where they can clearly win, either chess or court cases, while life doesn't offer such an easy script.
Ivan being unmoored not just from his father who died of cancer, but also falling from chess as a professional pursuit, and a recalibration of his own talent in this field.
Peter being unmoored as well, not just in how he lost on the opportunity for a live with Sylvie in his 20s, but also on the intrinsically positive impact of his work, while still enjoying winning court cases.
In this section we have almost transcendence like (but also very sensual) sex scenes, where the interpersonal relations between characters sometimes shift significantly. For instance Naomi, maybe manipulative, moved me with her vulnerability.
Rooney in general does sensual scenes in my opinion very well and effectively.
I miss some kind of background on the brothers relationship growing up in this part of the book, which is almost 200 pages, to have more texture their interactions. On the other hand this makes the response of Ivan during a diner with Peter interesting, indicating significant history between them.
I enjoy Ivan, who moves in my perception from precious, touching, to overly sincere, preachy (with Rooney’s typical commentary on capitalism) and back again. An example of how Ivan thinks about himself is included below:
How often in life he has found himself a frustrated observer of apparently impenetrable systems, watching other people participate effortlessly in structures he can find no way to enter or even understand. So often that it’s practically baseline, just normal existence for him. And this is not only due to the irrational nature of other people, and the consequent irrationality of the rules and processes they devise; it’s due to Ivan himself, his fundamental unsuitedness to life. He knows this. He feels himself to have been formed, somehow, with something other than life in mind
Peter in that sense gave me less of a feeling of interiority and complexity, even though he makes overtures to connect with his brother, despite him saying this is all rather Propriety rather than affection.
Very immersive and reads so smooth, while not much fundamentally happens one could argue.
Part 2
Judgement, disapproval , disappointment, conflict; these are the means with which people remain connected with each other.
After completing this section I was wondering what part 2 adds to the dynamics already set up in part 1. I mean in, part 3 everything and everyone comes together, but this section suffers a bit from a middle book curse in a sense.
We get to see Ivan being all self righteous but visiting his dog for the first time in months, and meet his mother and stepbrother. Ivan is quite judgemental, calling a working from home corporate lawyer not contributing anything to society, funny verdict from the perspective of a basically jobless person, or someone in the words of Margaret A boy with braces on his teeth, mumbling in her ear Oh fuck.
Small town life is rather hard with everyone knowing everyone and being under surveillance for Margaret. She is being all therapeutic in her responses, I would get freaked out if my partner would say such things to me to be fair.
Meanwhile we have Naomi and Peter hurting each other by their feigned indifference for each other, while Peter is in a sense unravelling as he notes himself even: Whole thing getting out of hand. His life, widening black emptiness from which he could only avert his eyes.
This heteronormative fear of polyamory is interesting, in a sense according to Rooney we are not further societal than 19th century novels, with fear for scandal and judgement about age difference:
Discretion, he thinks, can render almost any eccentricity acceptable, at least for a limited time
He has no true friends to really speak and share true feelings with, very existential loneliness even though Peter has enough people to hang out with at Temple Bar.
His imagined reactions on his relationship(s) are (unintentionally) hilarious.
We also have the flap text from the back of the book coming back here:
The demands of other people do not dissolve: they only multiply. More and more complex, more difficult. Which is another way, she thinks, of saying: more life and more life.
I like Naomi, she is quite cool even though we don't get to know more about her, with her making a casserole dish for your rich lawyer boyfriend, very trad wife.
Meanwhile he is drinking and having imaginary conversations in his mind: She’s great, says Gary.
Wordlessly Peter contemplates the remark. Great, yes. Also very expensive and probably insane.
Ivan has an epiphany that kind of sums up the whole relationship between the two brothers:
He hates me because he thinks I am an arrogant prick. And I look down on him because I think he is a fucking loser.
And we end with the realisation that drunken decisions are never a good plan.
Part 3
Things annoy him easily. Like, if they’re out of place.
Naomi makes a face then which is like a private smile to herself. So true, she says. People included.
I could tell you stories - Well Naomi, please do so! But no, the focus is very, almost Cain and Abel like on the brothers. Male masculinity preventing them both to go to therapy.
We have a whole “My life is ruined, I don’t want your life to be ruined vibe”, so 19th century like, how does she think for him? And very ableist as well in a sense.
Epic takedowns: And you’re looking back on how things were when you and I were together, how easy everything was, and everyone was jealous of us, and you just want that back again. For life to be easy.
And even:
You can’t use me like that. I am a human being
Peter his coping strategies, I can’t imagine how he survives in corporate life when he responds to mental stress in this manner: Sick with guilt thinking: then don’t think.
The hardness of having real conversations between people who know each other, with the texture in the past relationship between the brothers offering some very painful, 3 AM fridge scenes.
These arguments in chapter 15 would have me running away 5 times already before there is even a climax, definitely more than 10 years ago since I’ve had such extreme confrontations.
Family feuds and resentments are finally coming out.
It is definitely impressive how Sally Rooney sketches perspectives here, you can understand both brothers here, including even reflective observations like: I see myself very effected by his actions but not the other way around.
We even get to know the parents a bit more: A mother is not an endless thing and Conduct is more important than beliefs.
Why think about the cruelty of time? is mentioned somewhere near the end of the book, which in a sense is a very genuine question with the characters at most being in their mid 30s.
In general they all the time think that everyone hates them and that they are in the centre of attention for other people, including the whole of Dublin.
The conclusion is a bit too hopeful in my view and not as ambiguous as I would have liked maybe, but still the level of interiority and existential angst, that in a sense is very relatable, is impressive!
August 7, 2024
men are insufferable
November 10, 2024
oh the Fleabag fans are gonna LOVE this one
The game of chess is one of rote learning: openings, closings, moves mapped out and rearranged. But the intuitive aspect, the mental fortitude, is not to be dismissed.
The Koubek brothers have lost their father and are flailing in grief, unable to connect. After turning the final page it is easy to see the novel mapped out on a checkerboard. Choices to protect, missteps with disastrous consequences, paths believed to be inevitable suddenly shifting. Intuition failing and logic proving farcical.
The title Intermezzo is a chess term that refers to a completely unexpected move that may interrupt a combination and require an immediate response. It also refers to a piece of music in an opera or play that connects two acts, an interlude.
The brothers' relationship crackles on the page, as each isolated decision is understood to have a linking effect.
Peter flies through life with confidence and charisma, saying the right thing to elicit the desired reaction. Ivan has a mapped-out future suddenly interrupted by, well, life. Scenes with both brothers are few and far between, but each character's presence is felt on every page in that inescapable family way.
I know nothing about brotherly relationships. I know nothing about losing an immediate family member. I know nothing about juggling multiple romances and a career. None of that matters because Sally Rooney has delved into her most intricate, most heart-pounding study of characters yet.
That being said I did not rate this 5 stars. The tackling of topics I cannot relate to is a part of it although her writing more than makes up for this. More so I found it too long; some scenes did not need to play out fully on the page and my attention wavered. So internal is her writing that reading scenes play out in full, well I’m not so sure she has the poetic skill to sustain such huge chunks of description. I truly started to speed-read the beach part.
That point in Fleabag where she says to Boo, that she has so much love that now has nowhere else to go—UGH. Hurt, misdirection and misunderstanding. Rooney has applied her classic, and frankly iconic use of miscommunication to a sibling relationship and the results are harrowing and beautiful.
The game of chess is one of rote learning: openings, closings, moves mapped out and rearranged. But the intuitive aspect, the mental fortitude, is not to be dismissed.
The Koubek brothers have lost their father and are flailing in grief, unable to connect. After turning the final page it is easy to see the novel mapped out on a checkerboard. Choices to protect, missteps with disastrous consequences, paths believed to be inevitable suddenly shifting. Intuition failing and logic proving farcical.
The title Intermezzo is a chess term that refers to a completely unexpected move that may interrupt a combination and require an immediate response. It also refers to a piece of music in an opera or play that connects two acts, an interlude.
The brothers' relationship crackles on the page, as each isolated decision is understood to have a linking effect.
Peter flies through life with confidence and charisma, saying the right thing to elicit the desired reaction. Ivan has a mapped-out future suddenly interrupted by, well, life. Scenes with both brothers are few and far between, but each character's presence is felt on every page in that inescapable family way.
I know nothing about brotherly relationships. I know nothing about losing an immediate family member. I know nothing about juggling multiple romances and a career. None of that matters because Sally Rooney has delved into her most intricate, most heart-pounding study of characters yet.
That being said I did not rate this 5 stars. The tackling of topics I cannot relate to is a part of it although her writing more than makes up for this. More so I found it too long; some scenes did not need to play out fully on the page and my attention wavered. So internal is her writing that reading scenes play out in full, well I’m not so sure she has the poetic skill to sustain such huge chunks of description. I truly started to speed-read the beach part.
That point in Fleabag where she says to Boo, that she has so much love that now has nowhere else to go—UGH. Hurt, misdirection and misunderstanding. Rooney has applied her classic, and frankly iconic use of miscommunication to a sibling relationship and the results are harrowing and beautiful.
Want to read
February 29, 2024huuuuuge day for annoying people
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