For the Grieving Sentimentalist: Sally Rooney’s “Intermezzo”
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024)
Reviewed by Brody Eldridge
Sally Rooney's Intermezzo opens with an epigraph from Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations: “But don’t you feel grief now? / (‘But aren’t you now playing chess?’)” (5). The two (grief and chess) are entwined in Rooney's latest, which is named after the chess move "zwischenzug," or "intermezzo." A zwischenzug is "an unexpected move that poses a severe threat and forces an immediate response," according to Chess.com. The novel's two main characters, brothers Peter (aged 32) and Ivan (aged 22) Koubek, are encountering an intermezzo: their sick father has passed away after a lengthy struggle in the hospital, and, as a result, Peter and Ivan's already strained relationship is heading for a breaking point. What does not productively add to this strained dynamic is that Peter channels a savior and superiority complex when dealing with his younger brother. Their Irish mother separated from their Slovak father when Ivan was a young teenager; she remarried with stepsiblings for Ivan and Peter, but Ivan keeps loyal to his father, feeling unwelcome in his mother's new family. Peter naturally sticks up for Ivan, yet it is not always out of altruistic motivations. Mired in a complex familial dynamic, the two must respond to this death and handle the grief it lays on them; they are forced to reconcile with the reality of their situations and even each other.
This is the fourth novel by Rooney, a wunderkind of sorts. Most known for her sophomore novel, Normal People (2018), which was developed into a hit BBC mini-series in 2020, she was also the number one debater at the 2013 European Universities Debating Championships. Perhaps knowing these details benefits a reader of Intermezzo, a novel populated by successful people suffering. And over the course of the novel, the two brothers suffer by their grief, despite their success (whether that be of the social or career kind).
Peter, a successful lawyer in Dublin, is dealing not just with the death of his father, but the death of his romantic relationship with Sylvia, all while irregularly seeing 22-year-old Naomi. Utilizing a modernist "stream-of-consciousness" style, Rooney writes Peter's inner dialogue, detailing his processing: "Suffering, yes. Tormented often, regretting everything, sick at heart. Endurable however. Can be borne, has to be. Call it what it is. You’re grieving" (122). Peter spends the novel regretting much, and his inability to overcome his guilt only causes his relationships to suffer all the more. As the older brother, Peter considers himself Ivan’s protector, engendering a feeling of superiority over his socially awkward, outsider little brother. This causes him to (hypocritically) antagonize Ivan when Ivan opens up about his own romantic relationship with 36-year-old Margaret. Peter and Ivan spend most of the novel estranged, and both of Peter's romantic relationships spiral, too. He pines after an emotionally unavailable Sylvia while pushing away Naomi, estranging himself from everyone.
Ivan, a chess prodigy, spends most of the novel sneaking off to be with Margaret, who lives in a small town and is separated from her alcoholic husband. Believing the age gap is scandalous, the two keep mum, but Ivan and Margaret are quite happy together. Though he has always been an outsider, Ivan finds a deep connection with Margaret who understands and sympathizes with "his fundamental unsuitedness to life" (86). As Ivan describes it, "How often in his 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" (86). As much as Ivan understands the systems of chess, he does not understand the systems of life; people are not pieces which effortlessly move with strategic and rational considerations.
Both Ivan and Margaret benefit from their romantic relationship, and Ivan reconnects to his reality. This change is most evident in how his initial antisocial behavior towards his flat mates and friends becomes quite social. Margaret’s relationship with Ivan has reinvigorated her, suggesting that life is the experience she makes it. It can be beautiful. While at dinner with Ivan, Margaret muses in third person: "Margaret feels that she can perceive the miraculous beauty of life itself, lived only once and then gone forever, the bloom of a perfect and impermanent flower, never to be retrieved. This is life, the experience, this is all there has ever been" (174). Her time with Ivan suggests that "life has slipped free of its netting;" she is no longer constrained by an ordinary life (57). In a moment of fear, she doubles back on this idea that life is free of its netting, reconsidering the idea's truth. She feels "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, more and more of life" (292). Despite life’s threatening complexity, her relationship with Ivan persists.
Ivan is finding the "miraculous beauty of life" despite his grief. On whether there is a God or not, Ivan shares that he sort of believes in: "Some kind of order in the universe, at least. I do feel that sometimes. Listening to certain music, or looking at art. Even playing chess, although that might sound weird. It’s like the order is so deep, and it’s so beautiful, I feel there must be something underneath it all. . . when I experience that sense of beauty, it does make me believe in God. Like there’s a meaning behind everything" (179). Ivan concedes that sometimes it feels as if there is no order, just chaos, and both order and chaos can be present. But when the order is present, the beauty born out of it is divine. In spite of the loss of his father, Ivan finds this beauty in his chess, his relationship with Margaret, and his music, like Bach (a favorite of his).
Intermezzo takes after the classical. References to figures like Bach and Toussaint Louverture are not uncommon. Shades of Shakespeare's Hamlet are present (which Rooney read in the middle of her writing process). The skeleton structure of both stories is similar: Peter and Ivan struggle to know what to do in the wake of their father's death. Their mother Christine seems a bit of a Gertrude, married to someone other than the boys’ father. A reference indicates that a younger, pre-college Ivan¾still living with his parents¾split his time between his father and his mother's new stepfamily, who expect him to be other than he truly is. Ivan's sense of loyalty to his father causes him stress with his mother's second family. Meanwhile, Peter shares Hamlet's suicidal ideation, and a key motto in his inner monologue recreates Hamlet's "To Be" with "to think, not to think."
If the story seems simple, it is not. The novel examines a lot of topics and ideas in its 464-page run: love, grief, beauty, religion, disabilities, climate change, and, of course, modern love (à la Bloc Party). Reactions to Intermezzo are not simple, either. Dwight Garner, in his review for The New York Times, writes that he has heard the novel called "overlong and undercooked," and suggests that "this book is going to divide people." Some have called Rooney the first great millennial writer. Others think she is more "booktok" drivel, or "sad girl lit." As I understand it, most naysayers consider Rooney's books to be about privileged characters and for privileged readers, which, coupled with her success and "generational figure head" title, makes her an easy punching bag for criticism. Despite this target on her back, Rooney said in a 2024 interview with The Guardian, "I didn’t actually want to be 'the young novelist'; I just wanted to be good." While Intermezzo's ending has a certain rush to it (and is wrapped up with a nice bow on top), causing it to feel somewhat "undercooked," overall, the novel's narrative arc is generally satisfying and naturally fluid. Rooney will continue to defy labels: her craft as a good writer stands on its own.
Rooney realistically examines what it looks like to lose someone and to grieve in the 21st century. For Peter, that means masking his suicidal tendencies behind a successful career and self-medicating with drugs and alcohol. Ivan tries to find fulfillment and peace in chess and his relationships. A Health Foundation-funded study found that between 2021-2022, one-in-three young people (34 per cent) aged 18-24 reported some sort of mental health condition. Rooney aptly hits the nail on the head when it comes to writing about mental health issues in the modern day and the novel's approach will surely resonate with her audience. It is a good example of why Rooney has significant appeal on social media and with a younger audience (composed largely of women).
Regardless of reception, this novel is for the grieving sentimentalist, for those who want to find beauty in the pain. After reconciling with Ivan in a touching moment towards the end of the book, Peter, half-smiling and half-crying, sincerely muses "To care so much. Grief does that" (417). The grief of Peter and Ivan is palpable, but through the grief they find life and struggle to make sense of it.
Brody Eldridge graduated from Palm Beach Atlantic University with a BA in English. He is a 2024-2025 Fulbright English Teaching Assistant award winner for the country of Georgia.
