Review: “Intermezzo” by Sally Rooney
Sally Rooney’s “Intermezzo” is her Most Uncomfortable and Honest Book Yet
*contains mild spoilers*
In chess, the zwischenzug is an unforeseen move that creates a threat and often requires an immediate response from the opponent. This move is known as an “in-between move” in English, or, in Italian, as an “intermezzo.” It often happens in the middle of exchanges. This tension of unforeseen moves and immediate responses is the backdrop that Sally Rooney paints for her new novel, “Intermezzo.”
The book follows two brothers: Ivan, twenty-two, and Peter, thirty-three, as they deal with the grief of losing their father and find themselves tangled in complicated romantic relationships. Ivan falls for thirty-six year old Margaret, and Peter has never quite gotten over his ex-girlfriend, Sylvia, even though he is dating Naomi, a young college student. As in her previous works, Rooney sets out to explore a number of existential questions in “Intermezzo”: How much care is your family required to give you? How much care are you required to give them in return? Can you come face to face with all of the times you wounded the people you love?
By her fourth novel, Rooney has established herself as one of today’s greats: a novelist interested in the insecurities and uncertainties of modern relationships. She is one of the select few authors whose new releases warrant midnight release parties, merch drops, lines outside of bookstores, themed events, and front page profiles. “Intermezzo”’s release has effectively deepened the devotion of her readers and the attention of her critics.
The conversation surrounding “Intermezzo," though largely positive, has been split. Some say that her formula is familiar, but it works. Others say that because it’s familiar, it’s not as effective. Some say that this book is totally new and something she’s never done before. The London Review of Books took issue with her tendency to write unrealistic endings. The New Yorker praised Rooney as a “psychological portraitist.”
Rooney is minutely intentional in her writing—if she chooses to repeat several times the same description of a sheer blouse, there is a reason. It will reveal something about the character who is wearing it, or the character who is staring at it. This meticulous control is how she manages to save her books from clichés. With an exacting tone and punchy sentences, even the most melodramatic of thoughts reads as brutally, uncomfortably honest, almost an invasion of privacy. Even if it was once a cliché, it becomes a truth that you can’t possibly be bothered by because you yourself have thought it before too.
With two protagonists in “Intermezzo," Rooney can slow down the action and build up the tension twice as much without having to really work for it. Each chapter flips back and forth. You sit for a while waiting for tensions to resolve in Peter’s life while you watch tensions spring up in Ivan’s.
Peter’s story is told from a much closer interiority than Ivan’s. This means that we’re in his head for a lot of it, watching his thoughts unfold with only the barrier of the third person narrator to reiterate his intrusive thoughts and flighty actions to us.
“Shuts his eyes briefly. Opens them again and taps his trackpad to keep the laptop screen lighted. Am I insane how to tell. Online free insanity test multiple choice. Does she mean it, he wonders. Only in it for the money after all,” (Rooney 225).
Alexandra Harris in her review for The Guardian compared Peter’s voice to Joyce’s Leopold Bloom in Ulysses. Rooney even quotes Joyce in Peter’s internal monologue (“Not one single serious line in it,” (Rooney 430)). She uses Peter’s fractured voice to push a constant uncertainty on the reader.
Rooney’s depiction of sexual relationships and desire in Peter’s life can feel disturbing. Peter uses Naomi. He thinks more than once about the fact that all he wanted from her was to essentially ruin her (“I just get off on messing with her head,” (Rooney 319)). His ex-girlfriend Sylvia deals with chronic pain after a life threatening accident, and she is no longer sexually active as a result. This is a major reason why she hasn’t gotten back together with Peter. He is still in love with her, still attracted to her, but the lack of sex is equated with a kind of death. It makes the entire relationship completely irreparable, with Sylvia reduced to someone who simply can’t provide enough for Peter. Even though he pushes back against this, he acknowledges the truth of it quietly and continues on anyway, courting two women in eternal confusion.
Ivan’s story is a more traditional third person perspective. We hear just as much of his thoughts, but they aren’t conveyed in the same sporadic way that Peter’s are. Though this choice in narration might make it seem like Peter is the one that we get the most access to, the opposite is true. Peter’s thoughts, while often directly told to us, are not explained. Ivan teases out his thoughts, interrogating himself in an earnest way that Peter shies away from. When Peter attempts this kind of self reflection, it is quickly shut down by insecurity and fear. So, even though it feels like we are let into Peter’s mind more directly, it is Ivan that is the easier brother to connect to.
“Intermezzo” is a novel centered on grief, and Rooney examines it carefully, taking pains to not write a novel about familial death that nobody wants to read. For the first half of the book, grief shows up in offhand remarks. A lot is lingering under the surface, as it usually is in a Rooney book. Her writing on grief is effective because she acknowledges the awkwardness of it: the uncomfortable silence that fills the room when your friend or coworker asks you how you’re really doing. The very first pang of guilt and then terror upon realizing that time is passing and you are forgetting. You didn’t think about the person who died for a whole hour, or a whole day.
Ivan and Peter hurt each other deeply in their grief. They hurl insults at each other at the dinner table, they block each others’ numbers, they ruminate on past arguments privately. They try to apologize and then double down on the insults again. The cycle repeats itself until finally, they are both standing in the kitchen of their father’s empty house, where they grew up together, unable to walk away from each other or avoid confrontation again. Cold and a bit unkempt after his death, their late father’s house offers the climactic space for pain to burst out from below the surface.
The most poignant moment in the entire novel comes from a flashback to Ivan’s past, again set at the kitchen table of their father’s house:
“Ivan woke up thirsty and went downstairs to get himself a glass of water, yes, fine. And in the kitchen he found Peter sitting alone at the table. It was late, maybe three o’clock in the morning, and he tried to creep back out, but Peter had already seen him. You don’t have to run away from me, he said. I’m not a monster. Ivan stood frozen in the doorway, saying nothing…Peter was crying then, openly, with tears running down his face. I’m just really scared, Ivan, he said. I don’t know what to do. I don’t have anyone to talk to. That’s what he said, I’m scared, I don’t have anyone to talk to, that’s how Ivan remembers it. And instead of acknowledging that he had heard these words spoken, Ivan just turned around silently and went back up to bed. It was a conversation he didn’t want to have,” (Rooney 354).
The turning away is the unforgettable image. Ivan was young, about sixteen years old in his memory. He didn’t know how to talk to twenty-six year old Peter about his depression, and he didn’t want to. It’s the kind of split second choice, the exact kind of intermezzo, that will color your impression of a person forever, regardless of their intentions, and regardless of whether or not you want it to.
As the novel ends, it is striking how quickly things seem fine again for everyone, but especially for Ivan and Peter. How, with a simple, confused and somewhat empty, appeal to God and a sincere desire for forgiveness, the choking guilt is lifted. Perhaps this is realistic in its own way, though. Familial relationships fluctuate. You hurt each other deeply and you go on a few days later pretending you didn’t, or you acknowledge that you did and move on with little elaboration. There is often a sense of owing inherent forgiveness to one’s family members. That kind of love can be a lot more complicated and confusing than even the most tumultuous of romances.
“Intermezzo” is new territory for Rooney, but it still feels familiar. Her style is as strong as ever, but the subtleties of her earlier writing have been worn down in this book; it is more melodramatic, more earnest, more blunt. It is her most uncomfortable read. Maybe it did feel like the most unbelievable Sally Rooney book at times, the ending still just a little close to being too good to be true, but Rooney caught herself again before the fall. Because it isn’t a happy ending, it’s just the best case scenario for decent, troubled people who are trying to do the right thing.
“It doesn’t always work, but I do my best. See what happens. Go on in any case living,” (Rooney 448).