Book Review: Intermezzo (Sally Rooney)
Sally Rooney is one of the most well known authors nowadays, with her book Normal People being incredibly popular amongst new readers. Now, the literary genius has published a new book about the lives of two very different (but very similar) brothers.
Intermezzo takes place in Ireland, and is about the lives of Ivan and Peter Koubek, two brothers that have ten years between them, dealing with the grief associated with the recent death of their ill father. Ivan, a chess prodigy and prone to awkwardness and philosophical musings, is the younger brother— he’s hit hard with the death of his beloved father, whom he was really close with. Peter, a lawyer, arrogant and righteous, is trying to come to terms with his father’s abrupt passing, and is stuck between the complicated twists and turns of his love life.
This book is surprisingly wonderful, though it deals with heavy topics of death, grief, and existentialism. At times, I found it almost funny, the lyrical wit of Sally Rooney helping to relieve the depressing content of the book. The two brothers (especially Peter) are living very messy lives, unsure about the future and simply trying to find a reason to keep on living, something many of us can relate to, I’m sure. You know, this book spoke to me in many ways. The way that Sally Rooney combines the overwhelming grief that life tends to cause with beautiful moments full of pure love and goodness. It’s a very contradictory book— in one chapter the characters may be on the verge of ending things, and in the next, they’re appreciating the way that the leaves sway in the wind. It touches your heart, really, which is oddly funny. I don’t think this book is meant to be so heart-warming, but maybe it is. Who am I to say?
Regardless of the author’s intentions, though, this book has twisted a knife into my heart on several occasions. The optimism and love for life that is sprinkled throughout the prose and the chuckles of the author, which I swear I can almost hear in between the sentences, makes up for it, though.
The characters are some of the most realistic I’ve ever read— they could be an average person you see on the street. I can almost see them in front of me when I read because the writing makes them feel so genuinely real. It’s not often that the flaws of humanity are flaunted in such a way as they are in this book, but in the world of idealistic social media which portrays unrealistic expectations of the ‘perfect life’, it’s very refreshing to see. That even someone as talented as Sally Rooney still remembers her awkward teenage years, or at least can relate to it to some degree motivates you to keep moving forward. Either because the characters mess up their lives so badly that you get scared into thinking you’ll do the same, and fix yourself, or because of the underlying theme of the book: the need for love. The need for companionship. The need to love life. The need for life, to live.
Has this book got me questioning everything? Yes. Yes it has, but what good is a book if it doesn’t make you think, or feel?
Arya.
