Chess and distress

“So, were you ever in trouble? For a moment he says nothing. You mean like, in the chess just now?” - Sally Rooney, *Intermezzo* page 37

This article is Part 1 in a three part series about Intermezzo by Sally Rooney.

Convention vs. Desire

“Loving you isn’t the right thing to do.”

This is the opening line of Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac. The song balances desire with obligation—what the singer wants versus what he should do. He’s in love, “baby I’d give you my world,” but she doesn’t love him back, “you won’t take it from me.” The rejection hurts. And yet—

“How can I ever change things that I feel?”

He’s helpless. We can control our behavior, but we can’t control what desires initiate inside of us. Rejection, embarrassment, pain—these feelings are “powerful enough” to sway us in “the surface of daily life, but not powerful enough for the hidden life of desire” (Rooney, Intermezzo page 121). The singer wants what he wants, even if it’s wrong, even if it hurts.

Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac.

The characters of Sally Rooney’s 2024 novel Intermezzo face this same dilemma. The novel is a battle—rather a chess match—of “maturity against youth…sobriety against decadence, intellect against appetite” (316). Said another way: convention versus desire.

For these characters, “mutual attraction…is simply the strongest reason to do anything” (42). Tough luck when your desires go against social norms, “overriding all the contrary principles and making them fall away to nothing” (42). If characters buck convention for their desires, they lose their communities. But if they repress their desires, they lose themselves.

What to do?

Lindsay Buckingham lets go of his lover: “You can go your own way.” The characters of Intermezzo don’t have such an easy time. They repress their desires and try to avoid making “horrible mistakes” (44). Like normal people.

But as another Irish author once said, I can resist anything except temptation…

Both Sally Rooney and Oscar Wilde are Irish.

King Pieces

The novel is anchored by brothers Peter and Ivan. The first chapter opens just after their father’s funeral.

Peter is a 32 year-old lawyer who is sleeping with college student Naomi. He is ashamed of this relationship, but craves Naomi too much to give her up: “she, trusting, wanting only to please, is letting him, giving herself into his power, to be caressed and played with like a doll” (150). Things get tricky: he pays Naomi, plus he’s still in love with ex-girlfriend Sylvia, who can’t have intercourse due to injuries from a car accident years ago. His dilemma embodies the theme of the book. Who should he choose? The young girl who turns him on like crazy, or his peer-intellectual-celibate-partner?

Peter’s younger brother Ivan is a professional chess player. He devalues the physical and “considers the body a fundamentally primitive object…superseded by the…brain” (27). Character arc set: Ivan is about to learn to appreciate the physical. Big time. Literally, a “door comes open” in his life (a “fire exit door” to passion) and a “noticeably attractive” woman walks in, carrying “a set of keys” (….to his heart????) (21). Margaret and Ivan are drawn to each other immediately: “feeling, again, of their belonging wordlessly somehow to the same camp” (34). But like with Peter, things get tricky. Margaret is 36 and Ivan is 22 (with braces!!!!).

“Clouds of scented steam inside, mirror fogged. Surface of the water all dense with froth…Are you telling me you’ve never shared this bath with anyone before?” - pages 227-228

Chess

Chess plays a major role in the book. Ivan plays professionally and the plot is laid out as a series of one-on-one matches between characters. The word ‘intermezzo’ means an unexpected and dangerous move in chess. Characters are taken off guard by their inner desires and other characters’ behavior. They strike to kill (literally).

This 450 page chess match is recounted in a narration style so fluid, that dialogue and character thoughts stream together without quotation marks or clear breaks. Some paragraphs are pages long. Rooney stays in third person limited, but rotates between characters’ perspectives. It’s not always clear what a character thinks versus says, or which character says what. The language blends into a beautiful backdrop:

“Milky white his skin, and his figure slender and beautiful as a Grecian marble. Unknown youth reclining. So do I, she said aloud. He gave a kind of groaning sound then, smiling, shaking his head. Oh my God, he said. Margaret, Come here. Mint taste of his tongue in her mouth.” (pages 243-244)

Rooney’s words are the board. Characters strike off the page—and at each other.

Check back next week to see who will make the first move!