I love all her books, and agree that the discourse around her work is exhausting (would a male author face this scrutiny?). My only “but” is that her work (with maybe the exception of Conversations) is a bit humorless. I don’t mind the introspection, but the lack of gentle self disparagement becomes a bit tedious.
I hear this from a lot of people, so you're definitely not alone! And I get it. Although I will say when in this one she wrote (as Ivan speaking to Margaret), "Well, I think you're comparing a scenario you made up in your head with a situation that has real people in it," I did unfortunately laugh.
As someone who has really loved Rooney's work, I completely agree with this. People like to compare Sally to Jane Austen (I guess because they're both women who have written deeply about the intricacies of relationships??), but the issue is that Jane Austen is HILARIOUS, and biting in her satires of many of her characters, but Rooney isn't! And there's nothing wrong with that, but I think there is a bit of humor and levity missing in her work so far.
I have a copy of Intermezzo that I have not yet read and may wait until I forget all the reviews so I approach it with fresh eyes (and thoughts). However, that's not what I want to say. Today I walked into a bookshop and two people were talking about a book they both had read and the bit I caught was about how one of them didn't quite enjoy the novel because she didn't believe the way the characters spoke. To which the other person replied "Exactly, I don't talk like that and don't know anyone who does!" I thought that was very interesting because as readers we all react to a book and its writer from our own unique worldview and direct experience, which is subjective and very reductive. It always fascinates me that most of us (I do this too) often decide whether we like a book or not based on whether we can see ourselves in the characters (how they behave, how they look, how they speak) or not, at the cost perhaps of the literary quality and the writing itself. I've read all Rooney has written while proclaiming I still don't know whether I actually like her books. I quite enjoyed Beautiful World, perhaps this is the novel that has slightly changed my perception about the emotional platitute of her characters but with credit to a commentary by Elif Batuman that was very illuminating as a fellow writer and made me appreciate the novel and what Rooney has achieved as a writer under a different light, regardless of my personal and very subjective taste. I'm very curious to read Intermezzo as it seems from your review to be a compassionate and moving story that may change for good my stance on Rooney (said she who bought the book in French as she was in France on publication day and couldn't wait...)
The relatability thing is so strange to me and I never even know how to discuss it because it feels obvious to me that we don't read a book to relate to its characters, but to have a story told to us in the best way possible. And if we relate, great!! But to have that be the main motivation is a little wild to me. Like, I've never related to a single character Donna Tartt has ever written about and look at me, president of her fan club!
Oh, Clara, thanks for saying this! Many people miss on great books because they fixate too much on whether they relate to the characters instead of on the story itself. And then by extension they start developing an animosity towards the writer. I could have easily gone down that route with Rooney and it would have been unfair to her writing and very silly in general.
Yeah, I keep thinking about it actually, and it's not even that you don't read for relatability, it's that you don't *know* what you might relate to until after you've read something. If part of literature is to find out more about ourselves, then looking for points of commonality with characters we think we're totally different from is not an unworthy pursuit ... Anyway, probably a subject for a future essay, I guess.
Loved Intermezzo and loved this review. I too have spent much of the last week or so frustrated with the discourse around Rooney so this was refreshing! Like you I find she cuts right to the beautiful pain of being alive, very much as I experience it. I mean, I should give the caveat that I am a white millennial woman who graduated from the same university as her a few years before her but it can't just be me?!
“The recognition that we live in a fucked-up place that can only be improved1 via love and community is not a new literary concept by any means, but the way these characters claw after it so openly — in their minds, at least, if not always their speech — makes it feel fresh.” YES! Loved this piece and your Note on it a few days back. So excited to read this book 🫶🏻
What a lovely and moving review! I was already planning on reading Intermezzo but am even more excited to do so now. Re: Rooney's earlier books, I am actually in the minority: I LOVED Beautiful World (I actually bought my own copy so I could go back and underline the many lines that hit me like a bus) but had to be persuaded to read it because reading Normal People and Conversations With Friends was like pulling teeth, but I've actually been thinking about rereading them now that I'm no longer the age of the protagonists (insert tired joke about nearing thirty). I also just came back from Ireland, where, although I wasn't reading a Rooney novel, I did think about her a lot, and how Ireland occupies this very specific place in the USAmerican white settler mythology of being able to "return" to your "homeland" while many Irish people, as Rooney pointed out in Beautiful World, are just struggling to pay rent. It's not just non-white people white USAmericans exoticize (although obviously the burden is different). Anyway, thank you sharing your lovely writing!
Not only have I not read Intermezzo, I've not read any of Rooney's books, clearly a huge oversight! As I get on that, I came to say that the paragraph that begins, "I always have the overwhelming thought that a sibling is the last line of defense against loneliness..." was so moving. I can't imagine life without my siblings and am beyond lucky that they appear to feel the same for me. Thank you for putting it so beautifully.
Thank you for your review of Intermezzo! I've been avoiding it just slightly (and even wrote a whole post about avoidance...) and your post is making me want to read it with mu6ch more urgency!
I have justtttt bought the book, because of this review and so I can join the discourse. Will update soon (I will have to read it while being a tourist in Barcelona, so I feel you)
I loved your review and loled at the thought of being caught with the American cover, I enjoyed
Intermezzo so much and it's my second fave Rooney now.
I really had to avoid reviews and have been trying not to read them before I read/watch something, I always think of that tweet that's like little caesars is sooo good when you don't have a bitch in your ear telling you it's nasty
It was a very real concern for me! (also lolll was the original tweet about little caesars?? i've been seeing the memes for years without knowing that smh.)
Clara, I cried reading your writing about Intermezzo and about the woman with her small child. As the mom of a 5 yo, I find myself doing this exact same thing if my kid is near me, last night he wanted me to lay down next to him while his older brother showered because they tend to share their full bottom bunk bed. And both his brother and I kissed him good night.
My kids are much closer in age than those in Intermezzo as are my husband and his brothers but the pain of the isolation from the sibling relationship is enough to make me sob. My only sibling is my twin sister and I can’t imagine a life where we don’t talk.
I’ve read Rooney before and never quite understood the hand wringing. It’s always quite good prose, and I enjoy it. I’ve been waiting until everything online goes away before I dive into this one; I genuinely find ravenous online discourse sucks the enjoyment out of a book/tv show/movie/art.
I love all her books, and agree that the discourse around her work is exhausting (would a male author face this scrutiny?). My only “but” is that her work (with maybe the exception of Conversations) is a bit humorless. I don’t mind the introspection, but the lack of gentle self disparagement becomes a bit tedious.
I hear this from a lot of people, so you're definitely not alone! And I get it. Although I will say when in this one she wrote (as Ivan speaking to Margaret), "Well, I think you're comparing a scenario you made up in your head with a situation that has real people in it," I did unfortunately laugh.
Agree
As someone who has really loved Rooney's work, I completely agree with this. People like to compare Sally to Jane Austen (I guess because they're both women who have written deeply about the intricacies of relationships??), but the issue is that Jane Austen is HILARIOUS, and biting in her satires of many of her characters, but Rooney isn't! And there's nothing wrong with that, but I think there is a bit of humor and levity missing in her work so far.
I have a copy of Intermezzo that I have not yet read and may wait until I forget all the reviews so I approach it with fresh eyes (and thoughts). However, that's not what I want to say. Today I walked into a bookshop and two people were talking about a book they both had read and the bit I caught was about how one of them didn't quite enjoy the novel because she didn't believe the way the characters spoke. To which the other person replied "Exactly, I don't talk like that and don't know anyone who does!" I thought that was very interesting because as readers we all react to a book and its writer from our own unique worldview and direct experience, which is subjective and very reductive. It always fascinates me that most of us (I do this too) often decide whether we like a book or not based on whether we can see ourselves in the characters (how they behave, how they look, how they speak) or not, at the cost perhaps of the literary quality and the writing itself. I've read all Rooney has written while proclaiming I still don't know whether I actually like her books. I quite enjoyed Beautiful World, perhaps this is the novel that has slightly changed my perception about the emotional platitute of her characters but with credit to a commentary by Elif Batuman that was very illuminating as a fellow writer and made me appreciate the novel and what Rooney has achieved as a writer under a different light, regardless of my personal and very subjective taste. I'm very curious to read Intermezzo as it seems from your review to be a compassionate and moving story that may change for good my stance on Rooney (said she who bought the book in French as she was in France on publication day and couldn't wait...)
The relatability thing is so strange to me and I never even know how to discuss it because it feels obvious to me that we don't read a book to relate to its characters, but to have a story told to us in the best way possible. And if we relate, great!! But to have that be the main motivation is a little wild to me. Like, I've never related to a single character Donna Tartt has ever written about and look at me, president of her fan club!
Oh, Clara, thanks for saying this! Many people miss on great books because they fixate too much on whether they relate to the characters instead of on the story itself. And then by extension they start developing an animosity towards the writer. I could have easily gone down that route with Rooney and it would have been unfair to her writing and very silly in general.
Yeah, I keep thinking about it actually, and it's not even that you don't read for relatability, it's that you don't *know* what you might relate to until after you've read something. If part of literature is to find out more about ourselves, then looking for points of commonality with characters we think we're totally different from is not an unworthy pursuit ... Anyway, probably a subject for a future essay, I guess.
Please, do write about it. I'll look forward to reading more of your thoughts on this topic : )
Loved Intermezzo and loved this review. I too have spent much of the last week or so frustrated with the discourse around Rooney so this was refreshing! Like you I find she cuts right to the beautiful pain of being alive, very much as I experience it. I mean, I should give the caveat that I am a white millennial woman who graduated from the same university as her a few years before her but it can't just be me?!
Thank you so much for reading!! And it is very much not just you (also how gorgeous is Trinity, though?)!
It's a lovely spot, for sure!
“The recognition that we live in a fucked-up place that can only be improved1 via love and community is not a new literary concept by any means, but the way these characters claw after it so openly — in their minds, at least, if not always their speech — makes it feel fresh.” YES! Loved this piece and your Note on it a few days back. So excited to read this book 🫶🏻
Thank you, Violet!! I hope you enjoy it! x
What a lovely and moving review! I was already planning on reading Intermezzo but am even more excited to do so now. Re: Rooney's earlier books, I am actually in the minority: I LOVED Beautiful World (I actually bought my own copy so I could go back and underline the many lines that hit me like a bus) but had to be persuaded to read it because reading Normal People and Conversations With Friends was like pulling teeth, but I've actually been thinking about rereading them now that I'm no longer the age of the protagonists (insert tired joke about nearing thirty). I also just came back from Ireland, where, although I wasn't reading a Rooney novel, I did think about her a lot, and how Ireland occupies this very specific place in the USAmerican white settler mythology of being able to "return" to your "homeland" while many Irish people, as Rooney pointed out in Beautiful World, are just struggling to pay rent. It's not just non-white people white USAmericans exoticize (although obviously the burden is different). Anyway, thank you sharing your lovely writing!
BWWAY hit me like a ton of bricks lol. And re the rent/housing crisis -- agreed! Thank you for reading, Raquel!
Not only have I not read Intermezzo, I've not read any of Rooney's books, clearly a huge oversight! As I get on that, I came to say that the paragraph that begins, "I always have the overwhelming thought that a sibling is the last line of defense against loneliness..." was so moving. I can't imagine life without my siblings and am beyond lucky that they appear to feel the same for me. Thank you for putting it so beautifully.
Thank you so much for this comment, Sarah! And I hope you enjoy the books! x
Thank you for your review of Intermezzo! I've been avoiding it just slightly (and even wrote a whole post about avoidance...) and your post is making me want to read it with mu6ch more urgency!
I usually do the same with hyperpopular books; take your time (and thank you)!
Such a great piece
Thanks so much, Pandora!! x
If one has a good grasp of and properly utilizes the comma, dash, semicolon and colon, is there such a thing as a run-on sentence? I don’t think so.
I have justtttt bought the book, because of this review and so I can join the discourse. Will update soon (I will have to read it while being a tourist in Barcelona, so I feel you)
I love this for you and for us! Hope you enjoy the read, Catalina! x
Thanks for the review. Plan on reading the book in the next few weeks.
I loved your review and loled at the thought of being caught with the American cover, I enjoyed
Intermezzo so much and it's my second fave Rooney now.
I really had to avoid reviews and have been trying not to read them before I read/watch something, I always think of that tweet that's like little caesars is sooo good when you don't have a bitch in your ear telling you it's nasty
It was a very real concern for me! (also lolll was the original tweet about little caesars?? i've been seeing the memes for years without knowing that smh.)
I loved the book and loved this review! I’m so glad you shared it.
Thank you so much, Jenna! I'm very happy you enjoyed both. x
Clara, I cried reading your writing about Intermezzo and about the woman with her small child. As the mom of a 5 yo, I find myself doing this exact same thing if my kid is near me, last night he wanted me to lay down next to him while his older brother showered because they tend to share their full bottom bunk bed. And both his brother and I kissed him good night.
My kids are much closer in age than those in Intermezzo as are my husband and his brothers but the pain of the isolation from the sibling relationship is enough to make me sob. My only sibling is my twin sister and I can’t imagine a life where we don’t talk.
This is so lovely to read, thank you Elizabeth!! x
I’ve read Rooney before and never quite understood the hand wringing. It’s always quite good prose, and I enjoy it. I’ve been waiting until everything online goes away before I dive into this one; I genuinely find ravenous online discourse sucks the enjoyment out of a book/tv show/movie/art.