Sally Rooney, Intermezzo

 

- An Intermezzo is an interlude: a short period when a situation or activity is different from normal. So it's a very apt description of the story Sally Rooney brings to life in her new and hugely enjoyable novel. 

- It's about two brothers and their love lives. And the interlude is the period after their father's death, during which their never really close relationship descends into anger, resentment and deeper separation.

- Peter is older than Ivan by ten years. In alternate chapters Rooney tells their stories. Peter's in short, sharp, sentences, mostly without verbs. He's nearly thirty-three years old and is a successful barrister. His love life is complicated. His ex, Sylvia, is a literature professor of the same age, and their relationship was upended by an accident she had that destroyed her ability to have sex. They are still very much in love though. Peter frequently walks the streets of Dublin as in Joyce's Ulysses.

- The younger brother Ivan's chapters are in standard sentences. He's a twenty-two year old chess champion, who meets a divorcee, Margaret, the program director of an arts venue. They become attached despite her being fourteen years older than him. When Peter finds out about this relationship he condemns Ivan for his immaturity, and they argue aggressively. 

- However Peter has also met another woman, the young and beautiful Naomi, who, ironically, is ten years younger than him and a former sex worker.  

- Rooney’s focus on likeable young people and their love lives in microscopic detail is her familiar terrain. In Intermezzo however she digs a lot deeper and brings sex to the forefront. What part does it  play in deep loving relationships? There are many detailed descriptions of the sexual acts, and she explores the conflicting human emotions involved in all their complexity. Few novelists do that with Rooney’s level of intensity. This is by far the most erotic of her novels. 

- But interspersed throughout are rich conversations about art, culture, history, and religion. So on all levels the novel is deeply immersive and satisfying.