Intermezzo
By Sally Rooney
Faber and Faber, 448 pages, Rs 699

Sally Rooney published her first novel, ‘Conversations with Friends’ (2017), when she was in her mid-twenties. It won both critical and popular acclaim. Within a year, she was back with another novel, ‘Normal People’. It too was a best-seller, and critics thought it was even better than the previous work. In 2021, she published her third novel, ‘Beautiful World, Where Are You’, which opened new debates, but her fan base was only expanding. Meanwhile, her second novel was made into a TV serial by BBC and then the first one on Irish TV.

At 33, she is a literary sensation. She is the Zadie Smith of her generation. The ‘Time’ magazine has named her one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.  Her novels are primarily about young people and the questions they face as they try to make sense of the world: love, identity, career and ups and downs of life. Society and culture form the backdrop to the drama they enact.

Rooney also builds feminist and Marxist layers into what at first glance looks like old-fashioned romance. ‘Normal People’, for example, is about two teenagers who move from the same school in their town to the same college in Dublin. Divided by class and united by their passions, their story plays out with the economic troubles of Ireland.

‘Intermezzo’, her latest work, has already been hailed as the novel of the year. (The only competition is Han Kang’s ‘The Vegetarian’, as the Nobel Prize was announced just around the time of the release of ‘Intermezzo’.)

In structure and scope, it goes a level up on the first three novels. This is about Peter, a 32-year-old lawyer, and Ivan, his 22-year-old brother who is a professional chess player. The brothers are barely on talking terms, and their father is dead when the novel opens. As they, each in his own way, try to come to terms with grief, they find themselves navigating rather complicated romantic relationships. Peter’s long-time girlfriend, Sylvia, does not want to take their ties further as she recuperates after a car crash, but he won’t settle with Naomi, 23, as he remains devoted to his past. The younger brother, meanwhile, is attracted towards a 36-year-old woman whose marriage is practically over.

Some US reviewers, (for example, those writing for the New York Times and the Washington Post) have been overwhelmed, whereas some (notably Andrea Long Chu at Vulture) would not count ‘Internezzo’ as Rooney’s best work yet. All, however, agree it is a powerful, moving narrative that will win the author new fans.