Intermezzo

Intermezzo

by Sally Rooney

5/5 - recommended.

Love, death, families and all the messiness in between.

In brief, Intermezzo, like its title suggests, is a brief window of time. In this case the window is on the lives of two brothers. Ostensibly similar by virtue of being family, they are very different and struggle to communicate and understand each other. Through the trials of life and love, we get a glimpse of a moment in their lives where each grows and learns more about each other and other people along the way.

There is a different style of writing in Intermezzo, it took me a few chapters to get absorbed into it. It is worth perservering if you similarly struggle. The stream of consciousness and unfiltered thoughts of the characters does help give them depth and adds empathy to characters who may otherwise seem cold and indifferent.

I really enjoyed Sally Rooney’s earlier books too, in particular Normal People and Conversations with Friends. Her books are primarily based in Dublin - the city I grew up in - and Ireland in general. I find many of the characters and scenes very relatable. I’m not sure how much this matters; on one level the books are about people and life in general but the characters, their humour and their biases (in particular geographic stereotypes) is very Irish and it is hard to know how much undertanding this background adds to the reading experience.

In many ways, Intermezzo, and indeed other Sally Rooney books could all be named “Normal People” - the characters are ordinary everyday folk. If you are new to the author I’d recommend starting with Normal People and following up with Intermezzo. I am very interested to know how much the Irishness translates to other cultures and languages.