Intermezzo: Sally Rooney

Intermezzo is the first Sally Rooney novel I’ve read. Given the criticisms Rooney receives (amongst the accolades), I was relieved to find it easy to read and surprised to find it unputdownable. It wasn’t perfect of course, as to be expected of a young writer’s fourth novel. I’ll start with my criticisms, before coming to, for me, the most compelling character in the book: Peter. * Intermezzo is written from the alternating and intermingling points of view of three characters: Peter, Ivan, and Margaret, and includes long sections of stream of consciousness. This is an established literary style, but is difficult to pull off technically, because clearly nobody thinks in sustained verbal soliloquies in real life. The writer has to invent a language in which to verbalise consciousness. In this book, for example, Peter often thinks in jumbled phrases and truncated sentences, conveying how confused and stressed he is. Ivan, who may be coded as autistic, thinks in clearer, detached, analytical language, which makes his thought process easier to read. Rooney handles all this very well, on the whole. But it seemed to me that as the novel went on, Ivan became less and less “autistic”, and that separate streams of consciousness became less distinct from each other, as if all three viewpoint characters had developed a similar thinking style–that style being Rooney’s default style, maybe. This made Ivan an unconvincing character for me, because I don’t buy that such a mentally rigid individual could blossom so rapidly into a sensitive, thoughtful lover. Because Intermezzo depends so much on point-of-view, I felt that Rooney left herself with no way of describing the external world objectively. It felt to me that as soon as she attempted to do so, the writing dropped off a cliff. For example, when Ivan and Margaret went for a walk along a lane, Rooney ended the section with this: “Ivan says nothing, just goes on walking beside her in the cold, bright air. From the field beside the laneway, a small sturdy sheep watches them passing, its dirty fleece silvered with rainfall, its face velvet black. Golden-green fields stretching out into the faint blue distance. Limitless clear air and light everywhere around them, filled with the sweet liquid singing of birds.” When Rooney tries this sort of stuff, she could, in my opinion, be any two-bit author. For me, it works neither as pathetic fallacy nor as an evocation of the Irish countryside. * OK, let me come to what blew my mind about this book: the character of Peter Koubek. I have to give Rooney credit for attempting to write that unsympathetic, socially irrelevant but concerning character, the struggling male. I identified so intensely with this poor man. He’s trapped in a situation, mainly of his own making, where he is the high-earning male, the leader, the purse-stringer, the buck–stops-here fixer and problem solver. And no-one realises, at least not till it’s almost too late (“Am I having a breakdown?”) that he’s falling apart inside. I’m not going to do the gammon moan that straight, “normal” white men are now the social victims. Because overall, men still earn more money, rise higher in most jobs, have more freedom, act more aggressively, more sexually irresponsibly, etc., etc. But Rooney, I think, is addressing the phenomenon of the secretly depressed male who, out of the blue, ends it all, without admitting his struggle, without anyone noticing his plight. Peter just can’t do anything right: he upsets, sometimes quite suddenly and dramatically, the people in his relationship circle. The thing is, he doesn’t mean to–he’s trying to do the right thing, but it always backfires. So he starts to despise himself; and it seems there's no way out. Yet Rooney’s portrait of him is balanced. She shows him again and again to be well-meaning and generous, for which no one gives him credit (nor does he expect any). They just see it as self-serving, manipulative; “waving your dick around”, as Naomi calls it after he comes to get her out of police custody. I wanted to write about Peter here, because as I read through the reviews for Intermezzo, I noticed that little account is taken of Peter. So he is being overlooked as a character just as he was by other people in the book, and for similar reasons. Several reviewers say they actively disliked him. Such is the fate of this kind of male, I guess. These days, particularly in literary circles and on social media, priority is given to women and minorities, such as LGBT, BAME, and to people with neurodivergence. Which is as it should be, of course, to help rebalance against the social advantages held by neurotypical, cis males. But I’m glad Rooney took the character of Peter on, and in such a nuanced way. I felt seen. These days, women are writing (and reading) more literary novels than men, who are increasingly sticking to genre, where men can still be heroes. So there’s a recent dearth of realistic books written from a male point of view. It could be said that, as a woman, Rooney can’t get every detail of male POV right. Sure. But if men aren’t going to do it in serious fiction, it’s wonderful that some female authors will. (Recently, Dolly Alderton, as well, wrote about a break-up from a male POV.) Thoughtful women know how important men are still, because they live with them, love them, make love with them; and they have sons, brothers, and fathers. The character of Peter moved me. I felt so anxious for him. Thank you, Sally Rooney.

I saw a lot of people tweeting about this book on Twitter so had to buy myself a copy as I had somehow missed the ability to pre-review it prior to publication I’m found it hard to settle into reading this book initially yhe author has a very distinctive writing style with incomplete sentences and lots of very short sentences mimicking thought processes this quite unusual.and took some getting used to .after a few hours reading it started to feel more natural and I settled into the book The story brings out a lot of the thoughts that we repress and I found myself empathising mainly with the socially awkward, probably autistic chess master Ivan the most. The Autistic character seems very real and authentic. I have a number of autistic friends and I can see elements of all of us in him. I liked the idea that there was someone for everyone in the awkward main character? Ultimately finds his love match not necessarily where he was expecting it ? The novel has some of the best most authentic sex scenes I’ve read messy bits and all This author is well known after Normal People her previous novel and I’m sure this book will be loved by her loyal leadership. I liked but didn’t love it. This review would appear on Goodreads and my book blog bionic Sarah S books on Wordpress I will also publish it on Amazon UK.

Caution - plot spoiler. A competent enough novel but I don't understand the excessive praise it's received and it's rather spoiled by the schmaltzy ending, which undermines the realistic nature of what has gone before - characters with flaws and awkward relationships suddenly finding a pat solution they can all live with, and that solution not being very different from how they started the book. T'aint gonna happen in real life is it, bro? Also, the lack of speech marks make many passages virtually unintelligible.

I love love loved both ‘Normal People‘ and ‘Conversations with Friends‘ but didn’t get on all that well with ‘Beautiful World, Where Are You‘ so was a little apprehensive going into Sally Rooney’s latest novel, ‘Intermezzo’. I needn’t have worried, because oh my goodness, I loved it! I read this book a few months ago and am only just getting round to reviewing, but it’s stuck with me so well since then, which is always a sign of a good read! The book focusses on two men, brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek. Peter is 30 something, successfully and competently working in Dublin as a lawyer. Ivan is 22, socially awkward, a reserved chess prodigy. Following their father’s death, the brothers take different paths in their grief, navigating a world without the man who raised them. With a large 10 year gap between the two, this is the story of them trying to understand one another, perhaps for the first time in their lives. The novel that plays out is, in my opinion, the most complex of plots in a Rooney book so far. “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.” Switching between points of view throughout, I found it really interesting how Rooney chose different writing styles for each character, reflecting their personalities. Ivan’s world is chess and Rooney cleverly uses the game as a metaphor for the internal struggles that her characters face, mirroring their emotional battles and a desire to win. His chapters are more clipped, more fragmented than his brother’s, whose chapters seemed a little more familiar to Rooney’s usual style. A more mature read than her other work, both men’s lives and personalities are explored deeply and the depiction of sibling love and rivalry was written so accurately that you could believe these were real people. Both brothers are seeking success and happiness, and their deep, long, internal monologues really made me, as the reader, appreciate Rooney’s talent in confronting feelings of grief and despair without making this a sad and dreary read. It’s so interesting to consider grief beyond death… grief for things that didn’t happen, couldn’t happen, the life we wanted and the life we got. Overall rating: With themes of brotherhood, grief, despair and loneliness, Sally Rooney’s latest novel, ‘Intermezzo’ is a sensational read – 5 stars!

A Best seller but one my wife could put down and choose not to pick up again. It may be pretty well written but the themes and plot are rather deep and stark so make sure it is what you want before purchase! The story is told pretty strongly. Decent quality book though, I am happy with the service.

First off, I'll quickly get the negatives out the way. There were only a few small moments in the book where I got a bit bored. I also noticed that Sally Rooney's writing style was somewhat different. Which leads to the other thing, how some of the phrases and sentences were written. It was a bit difficult trying to read the book at times. And that's it. I would agree with those saying this is Sally Rooney's best novel since Normal People. Within the first 2-3 chapters of this book, I was immediately absorbed into the story. The two main characters, Peter and Ivan Koubek, were both very interesting and complex, in their own individual ways. The problems and challenges they both dealt with in their professional and personal lives, both on their own and with each other. The way they dealt with grief over the loss of their father. Peter had a lot of intriguing qualities to him. The way his demeanour is, his job position, his relationships with Naomi and Sylvia, and how that progresses and changes as time goes on. Both of them are different enough for Peter to be drawn to them, and as the story goes on, he has to decide which one of them he truly wants to be with. He may come off as cold and rude, but he's not all that. As the story progresses, he really does develop as a person, and by the end of the book, you do end up caring about him (if not already). That being said, I think Ivan is a more relatable person because of his qualities. His introversion, his slight aloofness, as well as his awkwardness and lack of social interactions. How he finds more comfort in chess than in other people. The growing relationship he had with Margaret felt real. The various different moments they had together were quite heartfelt. How the two brothers dealt with grief was intriguing because of how they both handled it in their own ways. How both of them couldn't really communicate with each other properly about what they were going through. The years of trauma they both had bottled up inside. In the end, despite a few things here and there, I undeniably enjoyed reading this book and thought the ending was both bittersweet and satisfactory. My appreciation for Sally Rooney continues to grow, and I very much look forward to her next novel. Whenever that may be.

I am a an admirer of Sally Rooney and her work. Normal People was my introduction and was superb. I found Intermezzo a little satisfying as a read - the writing style was very different and whilst this demonstrates her flexibility as a writer I found it a little strange as a reading experience I don't think Rooney could write a bad book though and Intermezzo is well worth a read

This novel has elicited polarising reactions, and I can see why. Rooney, who has garnered accolades for documenting the messiness of modern relationships on four well-received novels so far, is more than a competent writer. But her characters are so flawed it is difficult to develop empathy for them and yet they are so realistic you marvel at her ability to bring them to life that you can’t help but react to them, like it or not. This latest offering is about two brothers who are coping with the aftermath of their father’s death, which brings their already fractious relationship with each other to a head. Their ten-year age gap and polar memories of their father with whom they each had very different experiences growing up only makes them more distant from each other. But this is not so much the story, but, to me, a crutch which the brothers use to explain away their bad behaviour. Much of the time, other characters around them, i.e. their mother and their love interests that each of them disapprove of, find themselves having to apologise for their grief, which became a little annoying after a while. That said, Rooney is a firmly humanistic writer, in that she is wholly immersed in her characters’ struggles with faith and their own failings. They often pray while claiming to have trouble believing there is a God, or at least one that listens and at times, (self-servingly enough) bends to their will. She doesn’t judge any of their preconceptions, which makes what she conveys through her characters rather interesting. There are many scenes of confrontations between the characters and philosophical musings, making this quite an introspective novel. As such, I felt it went on for a tad too long (450+ pages on Kindle) and became overindulgent. Rooney seems keen to show there are no neat endings in life but in doing so, she somehow managed to provide a rather idealistic one where everyone comes to terms just a little too easily with the middle ground.

Book came in creased and with folds on the corners and stains

Entendo porque dizem que é o melhor livro da Sally Rooney! Realmente é uma história que não dá pra parar de ler.

Love the way is written, the stream of conscious, the description and dialogue, all intertwined. And the grief. The acceptance. The love.

Un grand livre qui est magnifique avec un courant de conscience, très précis et touchant. Belle histoire entre deux frères.

Kargo hızlı ve sağlam geldi. Kitap orijinal, buruşukluk vs yok