Intermezzo
Beloved literary fiction author Sally Rooney has recently published her fourth full-length novel that had the world of book lovers quivering in anticipation. Cryptically titled Intermezzo, the new novel brought Rooney’s masterfully unique writing to a whole new level and explored the depth and complexity of familial and romantic relationships in equal measure. When the entire world is telling us we’re wrong, can we truly find happiness by listening to our own instincts and desires?
Sally Rooney for The Guardian. Photography: Linda Brownlee.
Sally Rooney has been known for exploring relationship complexity and creating relatable but often unlikeable main characters. In her previous novels Conversations with Friends, Normal People, and Beautiful World, Where Are You, she showcased a multitude of unique and experimental, mostly very stream-of-consciousness writing styles, such as not using any punctuation throughout the entirety of Normal People. This might not be for everyone, but a majority of her readers fell absolutely in love with it on the first try and have worshipped her books ever since. Although, this is definitely mostly due to the topics she explores. Popularly referred to as the ‘sad girl’ book genre, the specific type of literary fiction that Rooney perfectly embodies deals with deeply flawed or morally grey characters that are meant to make us relate to them in spite of sometimes judging them. It also always discusses the themes of complicated relationships, be they romantic, platonic, or familial, and the otherwise insufferable adult or young adult existence. Intermezzo was no exception, but in this book, Rooney decided to touch on a topic she previously hadn’t delved into—a relationship between two brothers.
Intermezzo is, at its core, a story about two brothers a decade apart in age whose lives start intertwining again after their father’s death. Peter is a successful lawyer in his thirties who is profoundly depressed and torn between two relationships—one with his first love Sylvia who’s still in his life, and one with a younger feisty girl named Naomi who challenges and excites him. His brother Ivan is a chess player in his early twenties who is questioning his life choices and, at the same time, experiencing requited attraction for the first time in his life with an older woman named Margaret. The book delves deeply into their individual journeys, but their complicated brotherly relationship weaves its way through the entirety of the story.
The very title of the book already begs a lot of questions but is ultimately left up to subjective interpretation. Intermezzo is a musical term that stands for a light dramatic, musical, or other performance inserted between the acts of a play. Is the intermezzo the period of Peter and Ivan’s lives where they lived mostly without contact with each other, and the ‘piece’ resumes once they reconnect? Does the term refer to parts of their separate lives, for Peter the time when he and Sylvia were not together anymore and before they romantically reconnected, and for Ivan the period of his life before he met Margaret and began his first romantic relationship? Could it be both? It’s up to you to decide, but, in a way, the entire story is made up of different intermezzos.
“Yes, because his life is starting again, the long terrible intermission at an end, the smoke is clearing, he is finally resuming his place.”
Intermezzo, p. 351
The next part of the article includes some spoilers for the book.
No matter how different their realities are, Ivan and Peter deal with a lot of the same overarching issues. The main one is mourning the death of their father whom they both loved a lot, and their different ways of dealing with that grief. Their relationship with each other is also very complicated since they seem to deeply misunderstand and dislike each other’s personalities and ways of living. However, the death of their father forces them to reconsider this relationship and try to be in each other’s lives again, which creates a lot of conflict at first. Having already had a rocky relationship growing up, both brothers find it hard to empathize with the other and understand their point of view. For Peter, Ivan is still an awkward child with incorrect opinions on social issues, and for Ivan, Peter is still an arrogant college student relentlessly chasing career success. Not even their other parental relationship is easy since their mother left when they were young and remarried a man who didn’t make them feel welcome. A lot of their individual struggles tie back to their family relationships and the lack thereof, even though neither of them realizes how much this influences them. Another overarching theme and an important takeaway message from their story is social acceptance and approval. Or, in other words, the conflict between doing what your heart and instincts tell you to do, versus desperately trying to fit into societal norms.
The older brother Peter handles his father’s death badly, and he starts slipping into addiction to cope with his worsened depression. However, spending time with two important women in his life still keeps him above water and makes life more-or-less worth living for him. He is still attached to Sylvia, his first love and the person he never really stopped being in love with, but who broke up with him years ago after being in an accident. The accident left Sylvia living with chronic pain and sexual dysfunction, and she has always felt like she should not put the burden of that life on anyone, leaving Peter because of it. In her mind, she left him to set him free. However, this was not something that Peter ever wanted, and he had been dealing with that heartbreak for years despite still having a friendship with Sylvia. The older he grows, the more he realizes that no relationship he might ever have will compare to the lifelong devotion he has to Sylvia. Sylvia holds tight to her traumas though, so their relationship constantly toes the line between platonic and romantic. Peter is also dating Naomi, an ex online sex worker who is vibrant, rebellious, and a decade younger than him. Their relationship is challenging and has a bit of love-hate dynamic sometimes, which keeps him entertained. Despite not really thinking much of it, Peter with time does develop deep feelings for Naomi, which further complicates his decisions. And in the middle of everything, he constantly worries about social image despite not even being sure he wants to be alive in the first place. Will people judge him for dating a younger woman and a sex worker? Will they pity him for his father’s death and his love for Sylvia? It’s so deeply ingrained in him that every decision he makes is informed by predisposed beliefs of what one’s life is supposed to look like to be deemed acceptable. But ultimately, he does start trying his hardest to listen to what he actually wants, and realizes that maybe when we stop worrying so much about others’ judgment is when we can actually carve out a path that suits us and that we can be at peace with.
“Yes I would like he thinks to live in such a way that I could vanish into thin air at any time without affecting anyone and in fact I feel that for me this would constitute the perfect and perhaps the only acceptable life. At the same time I want desperately to be loved.”
Intermezzo, pp. 406-407
On the other hand, younger brother Ivan takes his father’s death horribly because of their deeply close bond, but his day-to-day life and habits don’t seem to change that much. Ivan is a chess player who has recently been dropping in rankings and reexamining the decision to devote his whole life to one sport. He has a lot of neurodivergent characteristics in the way he thinks about himself, his actions, and life in general, that will deeply resonate with neurodivergent people. One idea he brings up is that he’s deeply aware how badly he fits in the world, but he knows he can’t do much about it.
“He feels himself to have been formed, somehow, with something other than life in mind. He has his good qualities, but none of them have much to do with living in the world he actually lives in, the only world that can be said in a fairly real way to exist.”
Intermezzo, p. 87
His neurodivergence largely contributes to people misunderstanding him and his personality, most of all his brother Peter, who thinks of him as weird and socially awkward. His misunderstanding of some social interactions has also led him to never have romantic relationships, despite wanting to. However, that changes when he meets a woman in her thirties named Margaret at a chess tournament. Margaret has a stable job she likes, but she feels like she has failed in her personal life since she separated with her alcoholic ex-husband. She harbors a lot of guilt around leaving him because of his addiction, and she is definitely not looking for anything romantic. But her chance meeting with Ivan makes her question everything she thought she knew, as they develop deep feelings for each other despite their age gap and different locations. For Ivan, this relationship is like an unraveling, since he’s experiencing what mutual desire feels like for the first time in his life. Despite questioning all of his other life choices, both social and professional, one thing he never questions is his love and devotion to Margaret. Between balancing his new relationship, questioning his career, and his rocky relationship with his brother, Ivan must learn how to come back into himself and devote himself to the life he wants.
Intermezzo is a deeply emotional story about love, loss, and detangling years of family trauma and misunderstandings. Ultimately, it’s about finding a way to reconcile your choices and your desires, and learning how to live with yourself in the midst of it all. The characters are raw, real, and sometimes very annoying, which just contributes to their relatability and believability. If you’re a fan of books that make you reconsider everything you thought you knew about human relationships, you will definitely not want to miss out on Intermezzo.
