Intermezzo

This week, for your consideration, a discussion of Sally Rooney’s 2024 novel Intermezzo. Long time readers of this blog will recall that at one time, I discussed Ms. Rooney’s Normal People. I first read the second chapter of Intermezzo when it appeared as a stand-alone short story in The New Yorker, and then eagerly bought the book.

Intermezzo came on the heels of Normal People the book, and the popular film adaptation. Ms. Rooney thinks of it as her pandemic book, as it was written in a period of quarantine during the COVID-19 years. Faber and Faber, the book’s publisher, released Intermezzo on 24 September 2024, in what it called its "biggest trade campaign ever"

The novel achieved strong initial sales, becoming the fastest-selling book in Ireland in 2024, with 11,885 copies sold in its first five days. Several Irish bookshops opened early to meet anticipated demand. Critical reaction was mixed, with praise tempered by objections over the book’s length (450 pages).

Sadly, while I had enjoyed the short story adaptation of the book’s second chapter, I didn’t care for the first chapter and set the book aside. But recently, I thought, dang it, I should give Intermezzo another chance (a go, as the Irish would say) and I’m glad I did. I discovered that the choppiness I found in the book’s first chapter and the way it clashed with the style of the second, was of course, quite intentional and an effort at distinguishing two different narrative perspectives. More on this to come.

First, some thoughts about the design of the hardcover edition. On the front cover, we have the author’s name and the title, Intermezzo, set against a background of a chess grid, presented in attractive shades of yellow and gray. Five human silhouettes are on the grid, two male and three female, although they hang upside down and resemble shadows.

This would suggest that the story is about chess players and/or that the game of chess is a metaphor of the story. It is true that one of the principal characters is a professional chess player. The title Intermezzo references both musical interludes and chess terminology. In music, an intermezzo is an interlude occurring between two more significant movements; “in chess, an intermezzo, also known as a zwischenzug, is a move that occurs during a combination or sequence of moves. It involves inserting a surprising move, often a check, capture, or attack, before the anticipated recapture. This unexpected move forces the opponent to respond, potentially disrupting their plans and creating new tactical opportunities.”

TMI! We’ll have to explore this.

It would be a clever idea that a novelist is like someone playing chess, that is, someone who controls the characters as if they were “pawns.” And that unexpected actions of the characters occur—this is a challenging issue. A novelist has the story all thought out, right? She/he “knows” the story. Well, I’m not sure this is always true. Surprises do happen when one is writing. Characters that are being written sometimes seem to become real agents who “take over” a story, acting in accordance with their desires and motives, so that the writer has no choice but to go along. Now, of course this is an illusion, a beautiful one to be sure, but a writer slaving away at a keyboard is the only one who can guide plot. It does get at the issue though of where stories come from: the writer’s unconscious? A wise editor who assembles scattered parts?

Another aspect of how this chess metaphor might be expressed in the story is that the main characters (there are, arguably, five) could be seen as having different agendas, rather like people playing chess against each other. Both want to win but both can’t.

Actually, there’s not a lot of direct mention of chess in the story, but the fact that the cover design and title refer to chess seems to imply the game has some meaning here.

Intermezzo is about two Irish brothers, Peter and Ivan, whose father has just died after a long illness. Peter is involved with two women, Sylvia and Naomi, and Ivan, just one, Margaret. The story may be seen as being about the effect of grief on people’s lives and relationships, although I’d have to say there’s not a lot of direct content about this. There’s some, particularly at the end, but it doesn’t dominate things. Ms. Rooney shows the reader what it’s like to be Peter and Ivan, and part of that is that their father has just died. As one might imagine, male-female relationships are explored in depth, and there’s a healthy dollop of sex!

Hurrah!

Another thing to consider: There is an epigraph before the story begins, and Ms. Rooney mentions it in an afterword, saying she translated it herself. It’s a quote from philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein:

But don’t you feel grief now?

(But aren’t you now playing chess?)

This epigraph suggests that, indeed, the story is about grief and chess. A connection is made between feeling grief and playing chess. Something about playing chess should allow the player to feel grief, presumably from some prior loss that hasn’t before been felt.

Hmmm.

Let’s pause here and resume next time.

Till then.

#Intermezzo #SallyRooney #AlanBray