The most self-consciously intellectual novel by Sally Rooney: Intermezzo

Sally Rooney, the author often dubbed the first great millennial writer, is a cultural figurehead whose power is hard to reckon with. Many praise her abilities to relate uniquely to a generation who came of age as the internet and social media developed fully towards what they are today. Others accuse her of being a one trick pony, saying that she relies too heavily on the same mélange of intelligent, under confident and existentially disillusioned characters whose appetite for atypical romantic relationships is unfailingly matched by their lack of communication skills.

Intermezzo, to a large extent, goes along with this model. The book focuses on two estranged brothers: Ivan, a 22 year old former-incel chess prodigy and sometimes data analyst, and Peter, who is 32 and a successful human rights lawyer. The brothers navigate the fresh bereavement of their father and whilst doing so, they are immersed in unorthodox relationships with the women in their lives.

Peter is seeing Naiomi, a 22 year old student, who moonlights as a drug dealer and fake-OnlyFans content creator. Peter though, is excruciatingly tied to an ex-girlfriend, Sylvia, a literary professor, whose reasons for rejecting Peter’s advances is a source of confusion for a large part of the book. By comparison, Ivan’s predicament is trivial. Though his braces are yet to come off, he is dating a 36 year old woman, Margaret, whose life in the country in Leitrim has voluntarily stagnated into a tranquil flatness after her divorce with her husband who has previously succumbed to alcoholism.

Clear innovation in theme and style should dispel any fears of mindless repetition.

Firstly, this is the most self-consciously intellectual of Rooney’s novels and on which you would almost be tempted to describe as a novel of ideas

Firstly, this is the most self-consciously intellectual of Rooney’s novels and on which you would almost be tempted to describe as a novel of ideas. We do not feel that we are simply immersed in a world of clever people but that cleverness is the very essence of this novel which abounds so much in literary allusion that it necessitates a three page ‘bibliography’ to explain them. Rooney also does not hinge the narrative on a single friendship or relationship, as in previous novels and brings about an emotional displacement away from a principal focus on romantic excitement and towards more complex emotions such as existential disillusionment and grief. A final more prosaic departure from her previous writing is that the novel somehow manages to never require the characters to leave their own country.

Yet whilst Intermezzo may see a maturation in subject matter compared with her previous novels, fundamental oversights in execution meant that this is far from being an exemplary novel, let alone the masterpiece that some critics have hailed it as.

It is frustrating in a novel whose characters so often meditate on the nature of aesthetic experience and its role in the good life that Rooney seems to lose sight of certain fundamental principles of novel writing

It is frustrating in a novel whose characters so often meditate on the nature of aesthetic experience and its role in the good life that Rooney seems to lose sight of certain fundamental principles of novel writing. Particularly vexing was the way in which Rooney failed to develop tension in the novel through violating the injunction to show and not tell, and too often giving the reader what we wanted to read, rather than what was realistic, to a degree that bordered on infantilisation. 

We get many conversations where dialogue snakes around a topic in an unobstructed way which fails to both challenge our assumptions of the characters and probe deeper into their psyche. One should not expect complex female main characters going into this novel. In fairness, there are exceptions to the rule. I think Sylvia is a particularly important character in rescuing the tension of the novel through her violent oscillations between care and self-preservation, Naiomi in offering much needed comic relief, and Margaret in presenting a vision of pastoral quietude that serves as an effective contrast to the febrile turmoil of the two brothers.

This is not to say that this is not a novel which will fail to grip you or to have you invested by the end, but it does leave one wondering at the cult – which may I just say I think has nothing to do with the actions of the author herself – that surrounds Rooney. Rooney holds so strongly to virtues of thoughtfulness, political awareness, and aesthetic appreciation that I often wonder if her books can be appreciated by those with different political and ethical commitments. I now wonder if the conversation also seems to hold true that those who share her commitments so fervently, including myself, may struggle to criticise her.

For me, Intermezzo gets a three and a half out of five and I watch out in excitement and anticipation for Rooney’s future developments as an author.