intermezzo, my first sally rooney read

notes on a book you've Totally Definitely Never-Ever-Ever heard of before.

cw/ this is NOT SPOILER FREE!

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The first time I picked up a Sally Rooney book, I was in a Waterstones in London. I grabbed Normal People because I was seeing its cover everywhere—on my timeline, on my "For You" page, on the inside of my eyelids whenever I closed my eyes—and I’d heard whispers that it was being adapted into a television show. I flipped through a few pages, noticed that there were no quotation marks, and rolled my eyes. I didn’t buy the book. I ended up leaving with an adult coloring book, a new bookmark and very little interest in exploring Rooney’s work further than that seven minute skim.

I swear, I don’t try to be contrarian. I promise I don’t. But I’m picky with what pieces of media I give my patience to. This is my tame way of saying that I can be a bit of a judgy prick. I have energy to give you but you better prove in the first few minutes why I should give it to you. That sort of thing. My friends tease me about it all the time, joking that I don’t like anything. Even when I do, they giggle over how my compliments never come without criticisms: “It was a good movie, but—” or “I enjoyed the book, however—.” All my praise is, apparently, a compliment sandwich—or perhaps more accurately, a slice of compliment avocado toast.

This critical streak of mine gets worse when something has been hyped to death. And can you blame me? Have you seen the way social media is shaped right now? Just recently, a swarm of TikTokers used the potential TikTok ban as a kind of confessional, admitting to exaggerating or outright lying in their reviews for profit. It was all very tongue-in-cheek, like, Ha-ha, I lied to you for a cheque, but you still love me, right?

All this to say, when the online bookish personalities started raving about the new Sally Rooney back in September 2024, obsessing over their ARCs and their copies of the final release, I rolled my eyes just as hard as I had in Waterstones that day. I’ve been burned by overhyped books before or, worse, been left completely unaffected and bored. I’m suspicious of anything universally adored. (If no one has an issue with what you’ve done, can you really be doing anything worthwhile?)

But now, months later, I’ve read Intermezzo. And, well—it’s actually pretty good.

Intermezzo (2024) by Sally Rooney

Genre: Literary Fiction

Pages: 454

Peter Koubek, a Dublin lawyer in his thirties, and Ivan Koubek, a 22-year-old competitive chess player, couldn’t be more different. While Peter enjoys a thriving career, Ivan struggles to achieve the coveted title of chess grandmaster. Peter’s charisma allows him to excel not only in the courtroom but also in their local pubs and bars, whereas Ivan is socially awkward and a bit of a loner. Despite their differences, the brothers have recently been forced to confront a shared reality: the recent death of their father.

When I finished reading the book, I immediately jumped onto Substack and posted this at 2:52 AM...

Clearly, my immediate reaction to the book was that it was a perfect read. The story ends with a moving scene between the two brothers, and I must admit, I was riding an emotional high because of it (seriously, I had tears in my eyes). But now, four days later, I’ve had time to sit with it, chew on it, and fully digest what I’ve read.

If you only care to know what I finally rated the book, I rated it ★★★★ stars, but if star ratings mean nothing to you and you want to know the nitty-gritty of what I think, here are my (very) detailed notes.

Notes…

- Peter’s mind was messy, looping and, oftentimes, hard to follow…I deeply enjoyed being in there.

Almost everyone—whether I knew them personally or simply stumbled across their review online—warned me about Peter. They described him not only as a hot mess of a man, but they also criticised his chapters and his narrative voice, saying that it was tedious to read. Some going as far as to say that Peter’s narrative voice was their least favourite thing about the novel. I couldn’t disagree more. Maybe it’s because I’ve been reading a lot of fragmentation poetry lately, but the pinball-like style of his stream of consciousness was not only immersive but genuinely enjoyable. A very interesting and experimental choice by Rooney that perfectly captures aspects of his personality (which I’ll elaborate on later).

His chapters were my favorite to read. By the end of the book, I cared deeply for all the characters, but something about Peter really tugged at my heartstrings—despite him being the kind of man I’d cuss out if I ever had the displeasure of chatting with him over drinks.

- The parallel between their cultural names and their respective relationships with their father.

Oh, it’s not at all, Ivan says. If you heard [Peter], hand on heart, you would swear he was from South Dublin. He’s so obsessed with fitting in with his lawyer friends, it’s actually sad. Like, if he could change his name to O’Donoghue without anyone noticing, one hundred percent he would. Our mother’s last name. Because he hates for anyone to think he’s foreign.

— Intermezzo (2024)

Ivan is characterised as the son closest to their father, a bond which is reflected in him having a name that outwardly reflects their father’s Slovakian heritage. This closeness is a source of pride for Ivan, a pride he not only displays openly but also uses to assert superiority over Peter, particularly during their arguments about the funeral eulogy. Ivan goes as far to accuse Peter of wishing to speak on their father’s behalf solely to “show off how good he is at public speaking,” rather than out of his personal love for their father.

Perhaps I am reading too much into it, but the origins of the name Peter are harder to trace compared to Ivan. With its Biblical roots, Peter is a common name across not only Christian Europe but also the many areas of the world that were touched by the British colonial project, making it difficult to tie the name to a specific heritage. I have a Nigerian friend, an English friend and a Chinese friend—all of them named Peter.

This ambiguity mirrors Peter’s desire to blend into his surroundings and distance himself from the distinct foreignness of his father. Peter values this ability to adapt as seen in the fact that he’s worked hard to cultivate the ability to do so. After leaving home for university, he shed aspects of his identity, choosing instead to adopt elements of other, more respected (in his eyes) cultures rather than embracing the heritage rooted in his father’s—and by extension, his own—ethnic background.

What they were born to, [Peter] has to work for. Taste, manners, culture.

— Intermezzo (2024)

The only clue to Peter’s Slovakian heritage lies in his surname. No matter how much he tries to blend or how deeply he immerses himself in “respectable” culture through literature and music, he will always be attached to the man and the family he’s trying to become better than. He’s not just Peter. He is Peter Koubek. You can’t escape your name. You can’t escape your family. This is a truth that Peter struggles with throughout the novel.

- Grief doesn’t bring you closer. Instead, it makes the gap clearer and forces you to reckon with that distance.

What the hell does intermezzo even mean? That’s the first question I asked myself before I started reading.

in·ter·mez·zo

/ˌintərˈmetsō/

noun

• a light dramatic, musical, or other performance inserted between the acts of a play, connecting them.

• a surprising intermediate chess move made during a sequence of expected moves that interrupts the opponent’s plans, forcing them to address an immediate threat or respond to a new situation before continuing with their original strategy.

After having read the book, I must say the title is perfect. The polysemy of the word clearly manifests within the brothers with Ivan being preoccupied with chess and Peter—in his constant pursuit for a “respectable” culture—being preoccupied with classical music and art, a hobby he mentions in passing quite a few times throughout the novel.

The "intermezzo" of the novel is also clearly their late father, and he embodies the term in both of its meanings. Despite his prolonged battle with cancer, each brother repeatedly describes his death as "unexpected," an event that now forces them to take immediate action—arranging the funeral, deciding what to do with the house, and figuring out who will house the dog. What I find particularly compelling is Rooney’s exploration of their father as an intermezzo in the musical sense. He was the bridge, the middle-man, the presence that facilitated smooth transitions between the brothers’ interactions and drastically different temperaments. In his absence, the brothers are left to clash, unable to navigate their relationship without his steadying influence.

If their father had been here, [Ivan] thinks, it wouldn’t have happened. Raised voices, yes, but not violence. And why not? Their father’s presence would have made it impossible. Not that he would have intervened, only that the fact of his presence, like a forcefield, would have prevented in itself the outbreak of violent acts.

— Intermezzo (2024)

- Everyone (except Rooney herself) is saying that Ivan is neurodivergent. Why is no one mentioning Peter as well?

Ivan is your cookie-cutter autistic-coded character. Socially awkward, obsessed with a “nerdy” game like chess, and apparently really good at sex despite not having much of it. I’ve been seeing this particular flavour of neurodivergent leading man in quite a lot of media lately, ranging from literary fiction to contemporary romance. What I haven’t seen widely discussed by Intermezzo readers is the possibility that Peter is also neurodivergent—arguably in ways that impact his life even more significantly than they affect Ivan’s.

One of the most repeated criticisms Peter has for his brother is that Ivan is an emotionless robot-child. In fact, Peter repeats this sentiment so frequently that I’ve begun to think that he’s successfully persuaded readers that that is actually the case. Ivan the robot, Ivan the unfeeling, Ivan the emotionally stunted…and yet he never seems to have any trouble partaking in deeply emotional conversations with anyone else in the book.

Ivan is straightforward, yes, but he expresses his feelings well and meets others where they are emotionally during several conversations. The “flat, affectless” voice that Peter insists Ivan has never really appears on the page. Instead, Ivan easily delves into discussions about the beauty of art, music, and God. He offers quick and effective comfort to Margaret when she worries about criticisms of their relationship. He’s emotionally attuned enough to revisit and expand on the note he left for Naomi in Part 3. Recognising that, despite her anger toward his brother, Naomi would emotionally want to know that Peter had visited the house looking for her, Ivan makes sure to include that crucial detail in the note.

Even if Ivan is “kind of autistic” in the way that Peter (and a lot of readers) have concluded, not once did I feel that his neurodivergence manifested as a challenge when it came to handling emotion.

So, why does Peter have this opinion of Ivan?

Ivan stood frozen in the doorway, saying nothing. Why even think about all this now? Peter was crying then, openly, with tears running down his face. I’m just really scared, Ivan, he said. I don’t know what to do. I don’t have anyone to talk to. That’s what he said, I’m scared, I don’t have anyone to talk to, that’s how Ivan remembers it. And instead of acknowledging that he had heard these words spoken, Ivan just turned around silently and went back up to bed [. . .]. Ivan never told his parents about what happened that time, Peter crying and saying he was scared. He never even really thought about it again, in fact he deliberately avoided thinking about it, with a sense of embarrassment, and worse than embarrassment, something like shame, resentment, whenever it came into his head and he had to bat it away again.

— Intermezzo (2024)

That’s the crux of it, I think. At a time when Peter needed emotional support the most, Ivan was not only unable to give it but he was also adamantly unwilling. This ties to a point I’ll make later on about the way siblings often hold a still-image of each other in their minds—an image that tends to eclipse the dynamic, evolving reality of their now-adult sibling. The Ivan described in the above quote, the one who turned his back and walked away, is the Ivan Peter knows intimately. This has flattened Peter’s perspective of who Ivan is as a whole man.

Whenever Peter voiced this opinion of Ivan, I always raised an eyebrow. Your brother is unfeeling and robotic, yet you’re the one with an inner narrative that’s painfully stilted? Peter’s chapters consist of incomplete sentences and looping thoughts, all coming together to create an emotionally stunted, play-by-play account of his daily routine. The only time we see a break from the sanitised efficiency of his stream of consciousness is when something disturbs him enough to trigger genuine confusion, immense frustration, physical discomfort (excessive sweating, burning eyes—both of which occur whether he’s using drugs or hasn’t had the chance to use), and the intrusion of suicidal thoughts.

In addition to this, Peter seems to have a clear preoccupation with cleanliness. At first, I thought he was simply a meticulous man; after all, being clean doesn’t automatically make someone neurodivergent. But Rooney repeatedly highlights this desire for cleanliness. Peter cleans up after Naomi the moment she makes a mess, even if he’s tired and just returning home from work. He also wiped down his father’s entire house with a thoroughness that was immediately noticed by Ivan when he first returned with the dog. Beyond this need for spatial cleanliness, there’s a common sentiment expressed by the women in his life that made me think that Peter’s excessive need for cleanliness, his obsession with order, and his terse yet looping way of thinking might point to something else.

[Naomi about Peter] You’re so fucking sick in the head you don’t even see what you’re doing to yourself. Trying to put everyone in their little box. And if we would all just stay there, then there wouldn’t be any problems.

— Intermezzo (2024)

I look at all this and ask: aren’t these all symptoms of mild-to-severe OCD? But, again, this is all just my personal speculation.

- Unfortunately, the issues I have with this book stem from the women and the way they were used (or not properly used) in the narrative.

THE GENERAL ROLE OF THE WOMEN

People who are too close to you often struggle to see the full picture of who you are—a theme explored through the sibling relationship and their individual connections with Margaret, Sylvia, and Naomi. I found Rooney’s exploration of this particularly compelling. Several times, one brother would pass judgment on the other, only for the woman on the opposite side of the conversation to challenge or correct that perspective. In fact, the biggest argument between Ivan and Margaret—despite all the other potential sources of conflict—centered on her questioning Ivan’s view of Peter.

MARGARET

Over the last month or so, I’ve read and watched quite a lot of media that tackles sexual and romantic relationships between older women and younger men (Babygirl (2024), All Fours (2024) by Miranda July). I’m guessing that interacting with those pieces of media did me no favours when reading through Margaret’s chapters and her inner turmoil surrounding the difference between her and Ivan’s age because, by god, I found that painfully generic.

Do I think that a literary exploration of an age gap relationship is inherently boring? Of course not. However, I do think that centering Margaret’s major conflict around that facet of their relationship was a bit of a yawn fest, especially since Rooney purposefully places Ivan and Margaret’s relationship as a mirror to Peter and Naomi’s. The whole book works unbelievably hard to persuade you that the taboo (and I’m using that term very loosely) nature of both relationships are similar, thus making it possible for Ivan, Margaret and you, the reader, to see Peter as a hypocrite when he casts judgment during the brothers’ lunch. The book tried to persuade me, but I just wasn’t buying it. Sure, Peter is a hypocrite but it’s not because his relationship with Naomi is similar, it’s because his relationship with Naomi is, in someways, so much “worse.”

Margaret is thirty-six, Ivan is twenty-two and…what after that? Whereas, Peter is thirty-two, Naomi is a twenty-three-year-old ex-sex worker, known by the other men in Peter’s industry because of her previous job, who is currently being housed and completely financially dependent on him. Now, that’s an age gap relationship fraught with tension!

That’s an age gap relationship I would’ve liked to see more of on the page! I understand that the societal attitudes towards older men dating younger versus older women dating younger are different, but having to read through Margaret’s guilt after having read Peter’s denser and more nuanced guilt resulted in the book feeling slightly repetitive. I read this book in a single day, but I almost always felt the urge to put down my Kindle during Margaret’s sections.

I enjoyed hearing from Margaret not when she was fussing over age differences, but when her new budding relationship with Ivan bumped up against not only the fact that she’s still married, but the fact that she’s still married to a man that her family and her wider community seem to expect her to save from alcoholism, or suffer through said alcoholism with. That aspect of her guilt was interesting, yet it felt like a concern that lurked on in the background, never properly explored.

I think that would’ve been a more interesting thread to hone in on and use to draw a parallel between Margaret and Peter. The concept of someone feeling responsible for saving the people they love, even if they’re past saving, even if they simply can’t be saved. We see that (barely) between Margaret and her husband, and we see that constantly between Peter and his non-relationship-relationship with Sylvia. For a book preaching that life is a tangled web of interpersonal relationships, I was shocked to reach the final page not having read a scene where Ricky happened across Ivan and Margaret while they were out together. Major missed opportunity, in my opinion.

SYLVIA

Another massive, massive missed opportunity. Ever since I finished reading Intermezzo, I’ve been wondering why Rooney chose to give us Margaret’s POV but didn’t include any perspectives from the other women. Whatever the reason may be, I can’t help but feel that hearing from Sylvia would’ve been such a great alternative decision.

Sylvia is not only an interesting, complex character in her own right—her struggle with chronic pain alongside her ever-present sexual and romantic desires—but she’s also fascinating in relation to the two brothers. Sylvia’s accident seems to carry a similar weight for the men as their father’s death. We’re constantly told that Ivan and Peter got along pretty well before, but then Sylvia’s accident caused a massive shift. There’s a clear “before” and “after” in their relationship surrounding Sylvia’s accident, just as the book explores the before and after of their father’s death. And what do both events have in common? Sylvia was present for both, and yet… Margaret is the one who successfully bridges the gap between the two brothers by the end of the book? Hmm. Sure, I guess.

NAOMI

I don’t have much to say about Naomi as an individual, and while reading, it became clear that Rooney doesn’t either. So, um, yeah. But I did appreciate the question that Naomi’s existence raises throughout the novel: Is Peter a good man? Not just a good person, but a good man. Is he navigating the whole “beneficiary of the patriarchy” thing correctly?

A lot like how Ivan lords his closer relationship to their father over Peter, Peter lords his better, and apparently healthier relationship with women over Ivan because of old disagreements they once had.

And how can feminists say they want equality, if what they really want is to be considered biologically more important than men? Feminists, it seemed to Ivan, were campaigning for a world in which men, far from being equal citizens, in fact had to give up their seats on public transport whenever any random woman decided to get pregnant, which happened constantly. That really was his view, at the time, which his brother had never been shy about denouncing and describing as ‘fascist’ and so on.

— Intermezzo (2024)

However, whenever Peter would say anything remotely progressive about women, I couldn’t help but picture Patrick Bateman in American Psycho (2000), spouting politically correct talking points—not because he believed them on a deep level, but because he wanted to present himself as a cultured man. Cultured men are well read and understanding! Cultured men see women as equals and don’t get off on having a young women entirely dependent on them! Ivan even says that whenever Peter voices liberal views, it comes across like he’s “rehearsing” for something.

And don’t even get me started on Naomi and her masochistic streak. She likes pain and finds pleasure in being dominated in bed, and Peter is willing to give her what she wants. But while it's one thing to be the person who desires being hurt, is it really okay to want to be the person doing the hurting? That’s a question Peter grapples with throughout the book, and in apparently classic Rooney fashion, we’re left without a clear answer. Instead, Peter reassures himself by constantly asking if Naomi is happy, rather than wanting to know if she’s grateful—both in the bedroom and in other aspects of their relationship. If she were grateful, it would suggest a clear power dynamic between them, but if she’s happy, then everything he does, even his domination, is framed as a way to serve her. This he can live with. Argh! What an interesting relationship; I enjoyed how Rooney explored it on the page.

Final thoughts…

This is a great book. Is it perfect? No, but the writing is undeniably beautiful, and Rooney’s command over her characters is impressive. I do wish the book followed through on the promise of its premise by staying focused on the brothers and their grief, rather than broadening its scope to delve into the nuances of their romantic relationships. Not to sound anti-Margaret (lmao) but I really do think omitting her POV would’ve kept the book more focused, would’ve made the book a five-star read on my scale.

Despite all that, I’ll definitely be exploring more of Rooney’s work in the future. I’m thinking Normal People might be my next pick because I think her ability to craft focused explorations of intimate, one-on-one relationships will be better displayed in a novel centring around only two people, rather than one that attempts to juggle five.

If you’ve read Intermezzo, I would love to hear your thoughts about it! What other Rooney works should I check out?

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