A review by frogwithlittlehammer
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

reflective

4.25

Reading a lot of the reviews, it’s curious to me how the focal theme of the novel for most seems to be brotherhood, fraternity, siblingship, or whatever. Intermezzo felt so much like a novel dealing with grief and loss, and how suffocating it can be for your body to take action over your life before your mind has the capacity to express how it is feeling. I believe this is why Rooney brings up the separation (or the Aristotelian boundedness?) of the mind and body a handful of times, even how chess theory and logic puzzles and Wittgenstein weave themselves so often into the prose. Instead of getting to know the two brothers in their habitudes, we are introduced to them in the throes of grief, perhaps even the most difficult part, when people no longer dole out their condolences. It was jarring, to get to know Ivan and Peter’s romantic interests in this particular setting, but I guess it’s jarring also to have to meet people in our own daily lives in this way, isn’t it. To think about all the relationships we have lost or have gained because of where we were in our lives in that particular randomly fabricated crossing of paths. And at least for me, the most dangerous and difficult part of the haphazard quality of life is the desperate need to create reason out of it all. By deliberately avoiding this, or at least questioning it, Rooney creates an anxiously honest novel. While I don’t think it was a personal truth of mine, I admired it nonetheless. I think I am just slightly disappointed I didn’t develop a crush on either protagonists.