Title: Intermezzo: A novel
Author: Sally Rooney
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Release Date: September 24, 2024
ISBN: 978-0-374-60263-5

Peter and Ivan are brothers, but they don’t talk.
Their father’s recent death triggers their awkward attempts
to bond. Women distract, play games, bring comfort.
Peter spins: Sylvia/Naomi. Ivan falls for Margaret. Intimate
moments touch inside, and Irish countryside stirs weeping.
If only Ivan could mature and Peter overcome mind-crushing fragmentation.

Is it Xanex? Loneliness? Sexual fixation grinding Peter to fragmentation?
Sylvia’s pain, treatments. Margaret’s secrets. Naomi’s dirty talk
of desires—indulged/thwarted—strong enough to make men weep.
Ivan, inept, can’t rehome his dog or build a career. Messy attempts
at love again eclipsed by rambling recollections of intimacy.
A shared meal amongst brothers suggests elusive/ignored comfort.

Unspoken vows touch, subtle as sky on skin, promising bodily comfort.
But overthinking fear of judgment disorders meeting minds into fragments
so long as no one finds out about Margaret and Ivan’s intimacy…
so what if people with 14-year age difference walk love’s talk?
What are normal people? Those with relatable troubles attempting
to recall last moments with a father, saying I love you, only later, weeping.

Peter’s conformist hypocrisies contradict sensitivities; drugs dull weeping.
So wooing a young woman, laughing in a hot bath, mutual the brief comfort.
Phone calls to Ivan to reconcile, but it’s another failed attempt
Because too many of life’s inexplicable cruelties breed fragments
of Peter hampered by his teeming mind’s ceaseless talk
can he have both—beloved and mistress—flourishing intimacy?

Turn to Margaret, rubbing her forehead, worrying over intimacy.
Ivan’s dog, Alexei, needs a home. Puppy eyes. Pleading. Hearts weep.
Ivan hides himself, obliging her, to avoid townspeople’s talk.
Gossip crushes freedom, but caring for Ivan is soul-fulfilling comfort.
She’d never introduce him to her friends, a shame, fragmented.
Maybe after he gets his braces off, another sincere attempt.

Patient Reader, characters don’t grow here but attempt
to feel understood in conflicts cluttered with intimacy.
Interior life slices desires, complicating love to fragments.
Then breakdowns fetishize sadness unto a good, quiet weep.
Tears. Sighs. Ordinary sex confused with narrative comforts.
Promise: where there’s empathy, loved ones need to talk.

This novel exposes intricacies of interior talk in an attempt
To honor the grieving mind’s solace in reflective intimacy
between lovers. Adversarial brothers weep feelings into fragments.

_{©Rebecca Jane Johnson, 2024}