Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

Published 2024 · 449 pages · 135,805 words · about 13 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction

How hard is Intermezzo to read?

Intermezzo scores 67 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 55 out of 100
The novel primarily uses accessible contemporary language, reflecting its modern setting and characters. However, it incorporates literary phrasing like 'resplendent ugliness' and 'genial disposition,' alongside specialized terms from philosophy, economics, and chess such as 'hypotaxis,' 'throughput,' and 'King's Gambit.' This blend elevates the vocabulary beyond simple contemporary fiction, though it remains far from archaic or invented language.
Sentence structure: 70 out of 100
Rooney employs long, flowing sentences that often blend narration, dialogue, and internal thought without clear breaks, demanding sustained attention. While punctuation is generally standard, the frequent use of complex clauses and parenthetical observations creates a dense, demanding reading experience. This style, though navigable, requires readers to actively untangle interwoven ideas and perspectives, similar to but less extreme than Proustian subordination.
Abstraction: 78 out of 100
The narrative frequently shifts from concrete events and dialogue to deep philosophical and psychological introspection. Characters like Ivan and Peter engage in extensive internal monologues about the meaning of life, economic systems, the mind-body problem, and the nature of desire, often detaching from the immediate narrative. This sustained focus on theoretical and existential concerns places the book firmly in the realm of philosophical fiction.
Information density: 72 out of 100
The text is rich with psychological nuance, social commentary, and philosophical inquiry, often presented through subtle observations and layered internal monologues. Readers must process not only the explicit plot but also the characters' complex emotional states, unspoken motivations, and intellectual debates. This constant layering of meaning and rapid shifts between internal and external realities require significant reader engagement, making it denser than typical contemporary fiction.
Narrative indirection: 70 out of 100
The narrative consistently requires readers to infer emotional states, unspoken desires, and the true dynamics of relationships, often presenting characters' self-deceptions as their internal reality. This pervasive subtext and reliance on free indirect discourse means meaning is rarely explicitly stated, demanding active interpretation. The text frequently shows characters thinking one thing while saying or doing another, creating a significant gap between surface events and underlying truths.
Symbolic density: 55 out of 100
While not overtly allegorical, the novel imbues everyday objects and situations with quiet symbolic resonance. Chess functions as a metaphor for Ivan's structured worldview and social struggles, while the recurring motif of dogs highlights themes of care, loyalty, and abandonment. Financial transactions and physical sensations also subtly underscore power dynamics and the embodied nature of existence, requiring readers to connect these elements to deeper character and thematic meanings.
Ironic distance: 70 out of 100
The narrative consistently employs a subtle but pervasive ironic distance, especially in portraying Peter's self-deception and intellectualized justifications for his actions. The gap between characters' internal rationalizations and the implied reality of their emotional lives requires readers to critically assess their perspectives. This ironic mode extends to Ivan's earnest but socially awkward philosophical musings, highlighting the pathos and humor in his attempts to navigate human connection.
Resolution withholding: 75 out of 100
The narrative consistently withholds clear resolutions for its characters' emotional states and relationship arcs. Peter's profound grief and complex entanglements with Sylvia and Naomi remain deeply unresolved, while Ivan's nascent connection with Margaret is fraught with acknowledged uncertainties about age, distance, and future viability. The excerpt concludes with characters in states of emotional flux and precariousness, leaving their long-term happiness and the meaning of their choices deliberately ambiguous.
Structural complexity: 60 out of 100
The narrative employs a shifting third-person limited perspective, alternating frequently between Peter, Ivan, and Margaret, often within chapters. This requires readers to actively track and synthesize multiple internal monologues and subjective realities. While the overall chronology remains linear, the constant immersion in different characters' thoughts and memories, presented through extensive free indirect discourse, adds a significant layer of psychological complexity.

How Intermezzo is regarded

Intermezzo holds a literary regard score of 50 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

Prizes

Where Intermezzo sits in Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism

Placed by a full reading of the text (267 passages), not from reputation. Each verdict quotes the passage that earned it. On the axis from myth to irony, Intermezzo scores 67 out of 100. A second mythos, irony, pulls at it with a weight of 0.3. About the map of stories.

Mode: Low Mimetic
Peter is the kind of person who goes along the surface of life very smoothly.
Symbol: Formal
Language doesn’t fit onto reality like a toy fitting into a slot.
Mythos: Comedy iii (Normal Comedy) (comedy iii)
Well, bring anyone, says Ivan. Whoever would want to come, you should bring.
Genre: Novel + Confession
To love just these few people, to know myself capable of that, I would suffer every day of my life.

Where the story of Intermezzo takes place

  • Dublin in the years after the pandemic, 2022-2024 (2022 to 2024), the main setting
  • Dublin, September to December 2022
  • Clogherkeen, Co. Leitrim, October to December 2022
  • Skerries and Kildare (family houses), autumn 2022

6 things that are true of Intermezzo, with the passage for each

  1. Ivan wins all ten simultaneous chess games at the Clogherkeen arts centre.

    She gathers from the general energy of the ovation that Ivan has defeated Ollie and won all ten of the games.

  2. Margaret is thirty-six and began college in 2004, and Ivan was born in 1999.

    Born in 1999, she says. Jesus. I started college in 2004.

  3. Naomi is arrested and released without charge during the eviction of the squat.

    Released without charge, the man said. It’s your lucky day.

  4. Ivan's dog is a whippet called Alexei.

    He’s a whippet, Ivan replies.

  5. Peter slaps Ivan across the face during a fight at their father's house.

    Peter reaches out and slaps him hard across the face with the back of his hand.

  6. Peter faints on the carpet of his own flat in front of Sylvia and Naomi.

    The way you went down, it was like a sack of potatoes, I’m sorry, no offence.

Scenes in Intermezzo that Frye would name

39 sightings of Frye's terms in the text. The strongest:

Agon, untitled
Ivan has pushed him, Ivan has raised his hands and pushed him back tripping hard against the fireplace The argument becomes a physical fight at the father's house.
Anagnorisis, untitled
Ivan realises that he has done something Margaret would not have wanted him to do. Ivan recognises that his careless disclosure at dinner betrayed Margaret's trust.
Cognitio, untitled
You must be Ivan’s brother, she says. Peter and Margaret recognise each other in the corridor, repairing the family's divided world.
Cognitio, untitled
Congratulations, he says. I’m sorry, alright? The brothers' embrace restores the broken family society.
Anagnorisis, untitled
But it makes sense to me now. You’re in love with her, aren’t you? Sylvia recognises Peter's real attachment to Naomi, pivoting the confrontation.
Sparagmos, untitled
we got evicted this morning. Security people trashed the place and then the guards arrived and Naomi got arrested Naomi's home is violently broken up and she is dragged and arrested.

Books that share these scenes with Intermezzo

About the author

Sally Rooney