Book Review: Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

An intermezzo, in music, is a short instrumental movement between larger acts. In chess, it refers to an unexpected move that forces an immediate response. Reading these definitions after I finished Sally Rooney’s most recent novel, it struck me immediately what a fitting title the book has.

Peter and Ivan Koubek are brothers with ten years between them. Peter, the eldest, is a lawyer – outwardly successful, debonair and handsome, but struggling in his personal life. Ivan, the younger brother, was a chess genius as a teenager but hasn’t advanced in years. Socially awkward, he’s just coming in to his own adulthood and figuring out who he is and what he believes in. The brothers have been recently struck a blow by the death of their father. While Peter and Ivan haven’t been close for years, their father’s death draws to light the tensions that have built up between them.

In this aftermath of their loss, Peter’s relationships with two very different women come to a head as he struggles to understand what he wants in his life. Meanwhile, Ivan unexpectedly meets and becomes involved with an older woman. For both brothers, these relationships bring joy and beauty to their lives but also great complications.

Looking at the story overall as an intermezzo in the lives of these two men, I see how deftly Rooney tells their stories and draws out these delicate relationships. This is now the third book I’ve read by Rooney (see my reviews for Normal People and Beautiful World, Where Are You?) and I was yet again impressed by her skill in creating real life characters with real life problems. I think what I like most about Rooney’s work is that these problems feel real. They’re not forced or artificial. The elements that fracture a brotherly or romantic relationship aren’t simplified misunderstandings that could have been solved by a phone call. Ivan and Peter bring with them twenty-two years of sibling relationship and complications and that can’t be easily solved in 300 pages. Peter’s long-time love Sylvia has real physical challenges and pain that can’t simply be cured or ignored.

It’s tricky to talk about the plot in Intermezzo because that’s not really what the book is about and I think it’s a story that the reader benefits from approaching with little foreknowledge. It’s a character-driven novel, yes, but more than that it’s a relationship-driven novel and it’s a treat to learn those relationships from the inside. I particularly loved watching Ivan and Margaret’s relationship grow, something that felt so real and lovely to witness. The story moves between third-person character perspectives, mostly Ivan’s and Peter’s but some from Margaret as well. Their perspectives are all quite distinct and give a good sense of who they are almost immediately. I struggled a bit with Peter’s perspective which is quite choppy but it ended up being balanced enough with the other’s that I could deal with it and, by the end, I was again impressed with the choices Rooney made to show who her characters are.

There’s also a dog named Alexei and once his name dropped on the page, I couldn’t help but start finding parallels to Dostoevsky’s The Brother’s Karamazov. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Rooney is attempting a retelling of the Russian classic but I think it’s obvious we’re meant to find the comparisons. Not just in the character’s names but in their conversations and the book’s explorations of faith, morality, and beauty. Sally Rooney is one of those authors that I’m glad I get to be alive at the same time that she’s writing books.