(Y'know, lookin back on the review before postin, somethin feels a bit too negative about it, but I dunno: I left it here, cuz after all, this is The Pub Club! Ideas are supposed to inspire discussion, not provide answers.)
Ms Sally Rooney's latest effort Intermezzo, is blowin up, but what's all the fuss? Your humble reader blasted through 150ppg in a rapidly short amount of time, however I found that it contained:
Zero levity.
Zero irony.
Zero metaphorical/figurative language.

A book without metaphor has the overall effect of coming off too “serious.” The author doesnt give us any clues unto how she thinks or feels about the events, so we are left tot determine that she takes the events for exactly what they are. Another way of saying this is that she takes the events, characters, plot, setting—all developed here by the writer—at face value. If everything is so serious, to the point we can't even joke about it apparently, because we never do, we are left to compare the events of this novel to other serious events, like the wars currently raging today, or our own personal tragedies. The aggregate result is that the book is not as serious as it appears. Maybe it isn’t meant to be, in which case, it wasn’t executed in the author’s intended way.
With nothing to interpret, we only to judge. Do you like Peter? Do you share Naomi’s opinions on things? Think Ivan is a totally relatable human being? If so, great! If not, then you’ll probably not like them. You find yourself hoping that something crazy happens to them, just to remind you that these are just "fictional" characters, at least I hope so. But the thing is: They’re not literary characters; depitcted as they are they are personality types. Surface level. Face value. Attractive Face. Cashmere sweater. A sexual encounter every twenty pages. Damn, describing it like this no wonder it's so popular... but for someone with seemingly allegorical (socioeconomic) intentions, it’s very strange to provoke so little abstract thought.

If you never joke around, if you have no sense of humour, it’s not only not as fun—assuming, as I do, that reading should be fun—but there’s something untrustworthy in a person devoid of goofs. Crackin jokes let’s the reader know that you don’t really think everything you believe is totally true, cuz, like, how could it be? Nobody’s perfect. Part of the joy of books is sharing in that communal notion that nobody has it 100% right. The tragic sins we commit even when we try our best to be good. That’s part of the joy in life. Rooney definitely understands this, but we seriously wonder if she had any joy in writing this book. It's too workwomanlike. Ms Rooney has set herself a problem to solve: Write a novel; and she’s used her keen intelligence to go about explaining things, filling gaps as if a novel is a crossword puzzle, or… dare I say, a chessmatch. The thing is, it aint tho.
In interviews Rooney speaks of her “duty” when writing, and I’m reminded of Oscar Wilde’s pithy takedown of Henry James for his apparent duty to writing. God, no one cares about your “duty”; they want to read a good book. I’d give anything to read Oscar Wilde’s review of Intermezzo!
& Speaking of 19th century influences… apparently Jane Austen is a hero of hers, and I did detect some Austen in the book in the sense that the characters are believably different from one another. To say Rooney is a bad writer would be going too far (it is instead these rigid, dare I say binary, views on writing that hold her back. I don’t care if it’s correct, I want the paragraphs to transcend!) Other than that—and to be clear writing separate consciousnesses is not easy or common—there is very little Austen to my eye. This is Pride and Prejudice with no Elizabeth, Persuasion without Anne Eliot, ie completely unpersuasive. There is no book without these characters! Why? Because those characters are not only Austen’s stand-in, but they are the authorial perspective of the novel, they are the heart and soul as well as the brain. Without them we’re left with common social interactions, and that’s it.
People spout the Joyce connection a lot too and I never got on with that dude so I dunno, but I also think “stream of consciousness” doesn’t automatically make you Joycean, at least I hope not. I saw more of another son of Erin, Sam Beckett, but again that was just in the stocatto prose, which in itself is not an authorial style. Put Murphy up to this book and the two are apples and oranges.
Finally, there are the social situations themselves. I was recounting to my wife Ivan’s story arc, in particular how he didn’t think he should be nice to pregnant women until a girl let him have sex with her and now he thinks pregant women are cute and can step aside for them and I started getting super offended. I hate the character of Ivan. Full disclosure: I can relate to him, esp in the awkwardness of the initial pages and his interactions with Margaret, but as soon as Margaret agrees to go inside with him (which doesn’t feel plausible) not only does Margaret’s confidence take a nose dive and she fades away as a character, but Ivan gains confidence for gee! the first time! And there is nothing more sickening than a morbidly shy douchebag that has discovered confidence. Peter, at least, is just a normal douchebag. Why is Rooney writing from the POV of men, again?
And as for the marxist rumblings… a $30 hardback about bourgeoise promiscuity, which unintentionally wraps up a lot of pretty much toxic elements and sells them as liberal intelligentsia, seems pretty much Patriarchy 101.
So who is it for you? Wayne or Sally?
Plymoth Argyle manager
Probably loves argyle sweaters (if they are cashmere)
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