lou's library

So, I just finished reading Intermezzo by Sally Rooney. Since then, I’ve showered, cleaned the bathroom, cooked and eaten dinner. All the while I’ve been trying to figure out why I didn’t like this book. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far (spoiler warning: there will be spoilers in this review, so if you haven’t read Intermezzo yet, come back once you’ve done so).

First things first: I love Sally Rooney’s writing. So does every basic white girl, I’m well aware. But I seriously believe Normal People to be one of the best books ever written, so I will probably spend the rest of Sally Rooney’s career waiting for her to publish something as good or even better than that. Beautiful World Where Are You? didn’t reach that bar, but I still loved it. Naturally, Intermezzo immediately became my most anticipated release of the year the second it was announced.

When I heard that the book would centre on two brothers, I was really excited to see how Rooney would explore that different sort of relationship. And the portrayal of Ivan’s and Peter’s complex and challenging connection was my favourite part of the entire book. I found their differences and miscommunications to be entirely believable and I love how she portrayed the different layers of their relationship. So that was great!

However, even though the characters were well-rounded, I couldn’t get myself to care about them. Which, in a book as centred on characcters as this, is a pretty bad sign. I’m completely on board with Rooney’s no-plot-just-vibes-theme, but that only works as long as the characters draw you in. I’m not saying they have to be likeable or relatable, I’m fine with hating a character (Alice in Beautiful World Where Are You I didn’t particularly like, but I cared about what happened to her). With Intermezzo, I couldn’t get to that stage. It felt like there was a wall between me and the characters, meaning I was watching them but at a distance that meant I wasn’t able to have any sort of connection with them.

I’m not sure what the reason for this is, but it meant that for the first two thirds of the book, I really struggled to keep reading. I just didn’t care and had very little desire to know what would happen next. I did find the last third more engaging, particularly when we learned more about why Ivan and Peter have such a difficult relationship and got to see more of Peter’s interior world. There were some beautiful passages of interior monologue in that part. But in general, the writing didn’t touch me as is usually the case with Rooney. When I first read Normal People, I actually gasped out loud at some of the sentences, I connected so much with the writing. With Intermezzo, those passages were very rare.

I’ve written an entire blog post about my favourite book settings because where a book is set has such a big impact on whether or not I’ll enjoy it. And curiously, to me it felt like Intermezzo could’ve almost be set anywhere. It didn’t feel particularly Irish, and that’s okay. I’m not saying that just because that has been different in Rooney’s previous novels, that always has to stay that way. But I hardly had any mental images of where the characters were living while reading the book. I couldn’t picture the rooms, let alone the cities they were in. It almost felt like they were existing in a vacuum. I found that very strange and unsatisfactory, to be honest.

What I did enjoy was the chess aspect. I would probably have to reread the book to be able to dive into this a bit deeper, but there probably are quite a lot parallels between a game of chess and the back and forth between the characters. Particularly Ivan and Peter seem to be constantly competing with each other, trying to anticipate the other’s next move and to prove their superiority. So that was a nice touch. Then again, I don’t know the first thing about chess, so all of this might be complete nonsense.

Maybe my opinion will change over time, once I’ve been able to think about the book a bit more. Also, Sally Rooney will always have to compete with Normal People, so my expectations are always going to be impossibly high. I know there’s always gonna be books I’ll like more than others. I just really wasn’t prepared not to enjoy this one. If you’ve also read Intermezzo, please let me know your thoughts!! Please convince me that I’m wrong and it is in fact an absolute masterpiece!! I can’t wait to be proven wrong on this!!