I thought it perplexing that critics felt Intermezzo similar to other works by writer Sally Rooney. Certainly, it shares some familiar ingredients: it’s set (mostly) in Dublin, explores personal relationships, and the characters seem to have perpetually miserable lives. Yet the resemblance stops there. Rooney’s new book is a bold exploration of love and grief, and an exposition of how not all of life’s problems can be solved by logic and intelligence.
The epigraph of Intermezzo is taken from Part II of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations: Aber fühlst du nicht jetzt den Kummer? (Aber spielst du nicht jetzt Schach?) (But don’t you feel grief now? (But aren’t you now playing chess?)) The (nonsensical) question is posed in the context of ‘language games,’ a central tenet in Wittgenstein’s philosophy in which he rejects a general definition of language or words and adopts instead the ‘meaning as use’ concept. In this view, words (or sentences) do not have set definitions; their meaning depends instead on how they are used.
Take the word ‘game’ (spiele). What’s a game? The problem isn’t that the reader cannot conjure one singular definition of ‘game’; rather, the meaning of the word changes depending on the context in which it is used. Wimbledon is no hide-and-seek, say. Above, Wittgenstein discusses grief as a pattern (Muster) that weaves through life: though the statement “I do feel grief now” is logically permissible, such a response fails to capture the atemporal and personal nature of grief.
Indeed, much like grief, philosophy and logic are deeply woven into the fabric of Intermezzo. Peter and Ivan Koubek are brothers. Peter is a successful barrister and Ivan is a chess prodigy. In typical Rooney fashion, the story revolves around love in its various instantiations: the Koubek brothers’ love for their late father, Ivan’s love for an older woman, and Peter’s love for his former partner – who is unable to have sex due to a recent accident – and his current, more youthful companion.
The central struggle is one between the brothers. They deeply resent each other, despite sharing many similarities: Ivan and Peter are both highly intelligent, and they both have careers that use logic to solve complex problems. They are also both entangled in complicated age-gap relationships. The law, of course, is a much more social profession than chess, and the shared dating dilemma seems to alienate rather than unite the pair.
Take the following exchange. At dinner, Ivan calls Peter brave for speaking in court every day. In response, Peter says: “Not if you were good at it. No. It’s easy to do things you’re already good at, that’s not courageous. … We’re being hard on ourselves in a way, … because both our lives involve some voluntary exposure to what other people might call defeat. Which I think requires a certain degree of courage. Even if just psychologically.”
To which Ivan responds: “I don’t know. I don’t think I cope with it all too well. It bothers me a lot to lose.” Peter replies: “It bothers me a lot too.”
In many ways, both characters embody their professions. Peter is cool, calm and composed, adept in social situations and difficult conversations. Yet like the law, when faced with a moral dilemma and unorthodox arrangement he suffers a complete meltdown. Ivan is nervous, reflective and deeply kind; bashful as a bishop, yet he is unafraid to trade and make sacrifices for the people he loves.
By setting grief beside logic, and chess beside law, Rooney exposes the limits of systems that promise order while life remains defiantly unruly. The Koubek brothers’ problems are never solved by the cold elegance of an opening or an overlooked precedent; instead, they are revealed, move by messy move, as an attempt to translate private anguish into language that others might understand.
That effort, Rooney suggests, is the real game. One without clear rules, clocks or victors. When the novel closes, nothing has been solved, yet something has shifted: grief is acknowledged, love is embraced, and the silence between two men sounds a little less deafening. If earlier Rooney books questioned whether intimacy could survive economics, Intermezzo asks whether it can survive logic itself. The answer is qualified but hopeful, delivered in prose that slips between clinical precision and romantic ache.
So yes, the novel still roams Dublin streets and features fearful millennials in messy relationships. But to dismiss it as more of the same is to miss the daring way Rooney turns a philosophical foil into a fierce tale of love and loss. Readers willing to sit with ambiguity – who can bear, for a while, to feel grief now – will find in Intermezzo the author’s most incisive and, paradoxically, consoling work to date.
