As newspapers start to publish the most notable books of the year, it will be hard to ignore Irish author Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo. The writer of bestsellers such as Normal People, Rooney has often been called the “voice of a generation.” But one should ask how Rooney’s books transcend Irish borders and find a place on these international book lists and in the hearts of thousands of young Indians.
Ireland and India’s shared colonial history has resulted in an inherited angst that the youth can relate to. Rebelling against the colonial shackles that still rule our language and systems of government, Rooney is able to tap into this world with her Trinity College-educated characters who, much like their radical forefathers, challenge the norm. For instance, in Intermezzo, Ivan, a 22-year-old chess genius, is a conscious environmentalist who thrifts his clothes, and Peter, his brother and a successful barrister in his thirties, enters an unconventional throuple, with his childhood love Sylvia and his 23-year-old girlfriend Naomi.
Rooney’s characters constantly work against the expected, which can be liberating for the reader. But the problem arises when there is a disconnect. While Rooney has cracked the formula with her inclusion of Irish young adults who reflect the tired, love-hungry, and purpose-aspiring global audience, she fails to include nuances of context. Global matters concerning women’s rights, the environment, and the housing crisis are solved within chapters, if not lines. It’s glib and grossly problematic. When Rooney’s books are removed from the quaint town of Sligo or the bustling city of Dublin, the context gets watered down. What is being fed to audiences is that complex situations can be solved simply. That the nuances that plague our society, with religion, class and gender intersecting, can instantly be removed. Because if it can happen in Rooney’s Ireland, it can happen anywhere else in the world — India included, right? The unfortunate commodification of this utopia becomes a reductive stand-in for reality.
In Intermezzo, the watered down narration of politics is a particularly hard pill to swallow. Peter is an idealistic human rights lawyer, who unlike his introverted brother, interacts with, and in court fights for, women. Ivan is known to say things that can be considered anti-feminist, like “women tend to lie about getting sexually assaulted.” Peter is initially revealed to be in a relationship with Naomi, characterised by financial transactions and sex, creating an uneven power dynamic between them. When Naomi later faces house eviction, Peter decides to take her in, even fantasising the act of providing for a younger woman, fitting the alpha male cast. Ivan is redeemed when he starts a relationship with Margaret, an older woman in her thirties who works at an arts center. Ivan now plays a role that is eerily similar to Peter’s — that of a man who cares for their female partner in a way that strips the woman off her agency and makes him feel superior. An insight into the brothers’ monologues in the book outlines a dangerous issue — that men can be considered feminists if they display basic decency when it is, in fact, self serving a toxic masculinity.
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Rooney also fails to capitalise on many important themes mentioned offhandedly in the book. The Koubeck brothers are sons of a Polish immigrant and it is surprising that Peter manages to fit into his privileged lawyer circles, given Ireland’s predominant racial and religious homogeneity. There are hints of Peter’s assimilation when he listens to his colleagues converse about vacationing at expensive holiday locations in their youth — something Peter can’t relate to. The burden of being an odd one out is conveniently erased. Instead, Rooney paints a picture of how Peter fits in by being subservient in this context. The hard and fast binary leaves out nuances that are needed to understand that real conversations take place in the grey spaces.
But as someone who is a devoted Rooney reader, I have to give credit where it’s due. To see Rooney bring life to Ivan and Peter’s brotherhood, their melancholic and beautiful love stories, and their striving to truly live, is heartwarming, no doubt. But for the Indian reader, I share a warning, preferably not to be kept in your rearview mirror: “The reality in these pages are farther than they appear”.
The writer is an intern with The Indian Express
