Grief
Shortly before the start of Intermezzo, the novel's main characters—Peter and Ivan—tragically lose their father. Even though they knew he would eventually pass away from cancer, his death was still somewhat unexpected. Both men deal with their grief by diving headfirst into romantic relationships, though their relationship with each other is often strained. Peter, 32, dates a substantially younger woman named Naomi while continuing his involvement with his ex-girlfriend, Sylvia. Ivan, 22, becomes entwined with an older woman named Margaret. Ivan and Peter's grief forces them to reckon with years of past dynamics, resentments, and misunderstandings.
People deal with grief, much like other adversities in life, in their own unique ways. Though there used to be a commonly accepted idea that a grieving person passes through five distinct stages (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance), this model has since been questioned by psychologists. As the Koubek brothers find out towards the end of the novel, there is no universally guaranteed trajectory for experiencing grief.
Promises
Promises, both kept and broken, drive the relationships between the characters in Intermezzo. The uncertainty of human commitment coexists with the potential for hope and connection. Each character navigates this interplay differently. Ivan, for example, defined himself for many years by his ability to excel at chess. As a child prodigy, the promise of success seemed indisputable because of his talent. When his career began to stagnate, however, he opened his eyes to the possibility that other things also matter in life. He commits to his new relationship with Margaret without giving up on chess. This shows a capacity to keep striving in life despite the uncertainty of outcomes.
Both Peter and Sylvia, on the other hand, feel robbed of a life they felt promised to them. The car accident that severely injured Sylvia and racked her with chronic pain led her to end her relationship with Peter. Due to his conflicting needs and emotional confusion, Peter constantly feels guilty for reneging on his promises to Sylvia and Naomi. This highlights a contradiction between his intentions and his actions.
The Fleeting Nature of Life
The book's title refers to a chess maneuver in which a player catches the opponent by surprise, requiring a quick response from the opponent. This insinuates that life is a high-stakes game that can disrupt all expectations, causing you to reevaluate your position and change course. The fleeting nature of life particularly makes itself apparent to brothers Peter and Ivan following the death of their father at a somewhat young age. The characters reckon with making meaning in their lives while understanding the impermanence of things. By Peter's account, he must enjoy life's pleasures as they come, since he is already middle-aged by the calculation of his father's lifespan (Chapter 15). He also believed that his attachment to meaning would culminate in something greater, but he comes to realize a paradox of sorts, which is that life consists of self-defined meanings while at the same time leading up to "an end without an ending" (Chapter 18).
Margaret is another character for whom the fleeting nature of life is thrown into relief. Being with Ivan at first feels like an escape, as though "life had slipped free of its netting," and that the netting itself (which represents social norms) was an illusion (Chapter 8). However, she comes to realize that the netting itself is her life, and that it holds things in place and makes sense of the world. At times, it seems to Margaret that her life blooms in miraculous beauty, while at other times it shrinks and constrains her.
Love
Through the complex relationships between her characters, Rooney examines what love is. At once definable and ineffable, love seems to consist of definable factors while also being greater than the sum of its parts. Emotional connection, intellectual kinship, sexual attraction, and societal constraints are four such factors that influence the character's relationships. The characters themselves also express different understandings of love. Sylvia and Naomi, for instance, both object to Peter instrumentalizing them to avoid confusing and difficult emotions. At another point in the book, Margaret and Ivan discuss whether love and cruelty can truly coexist (Chapter 10). Rooney never explicitly answers the questions she raises concerning love, but she does portray different renditions of love through the filters of grief as well as capitalism.
Class Stratification
Of all the characters in the novel, Naomi is the most vulnerable to poverty. As a university student struggling to support herself, she supplements her income via online sex work. She eventually relies on Peter to financially support her and provide her with a stable place to live. The questionable ethics of the situation do not escape Peter, though they openly discuss whether he is sexually exploiting Naomi or if she is financially taking advantage of him. Peter often relishes Naomi's lust for life despite her precarious circumstances. However, this causes him to reduce her worth to simply owning a "perfect body" (Chapter 6). This can be read as an example of objectification that contrasts with Peter's aspiration of being a morally progressive feminist.
Despite his own success as a lawyer, Peter also feels the impact of class stratification. As the son of an immigrant, Peter felt driven to achieve only material success, but also to develop a refined sense of taste, manners, and culture. He considers himself mostly assimilated, though still poised between being an insider and an outsider. Peter's unconventional relationship with Naomi conflicts with his desire to be normal and accepted.
Age Differences and Power Imbalances
Power imbalances in relationships can manifest in numerous forms. In Intermezzo, Rooney examines them particularly through her depiction of age differences, though factors like class and gender also play pivotal roles. Both Peter and Ivan are involved in age-gap romantic relationships. In Ivan's case, though he dates a woman 14 years older than he is, their relationship is grounded in genuine affection and clear communication. The question of ethics is more theoretical.
Peter's relationship with Naomi, on the other hand, is more ethically ambiguous because she relies on him for financial and legal support. However, they discuss and even joke about the blurry lines between care and exploitation in their relationship. For example, after Peter bails Naomi out of jail, she points out how being a man and having money opens doors for him that will likely forever be closed to her (Chapter 6). When she moves in with him, they both wonder who is taking advantage of whom, considering that Peter also begins to take care of all her domestic needs. Overall, Peter and Naomi's relationship is technically consensual, but Naomi's consent is shaped by power imbalances while Peter's is impacted by his conflicted ambivalence.
Ivan and Peter's relationship is also impacted by an age difference and strained by power imbalances. Peter has long been driven by the need to "be right," and he wields the word "normal" like a weapon toward Ivan (Chapter 8). Peter is also physically stronger and larger, which is highlighted during the brothers' physical altercation in Chapter 15. Ivan, however, leverages the fact that he was closer with their father as an emotional blow against Peter in an argument. Following the grief of losing their father and years of built-up resentment, the conflicts in their relationship finally come to a head. By the end of the novel, however, they begin working on rebalancing their bond.
Societal Pressure Versus Authenticity
Margaret and Peter face the greatest conflict in navigating social norms versus their authentic needs and desires. Their quandary lies in meeting their perceived expectations of others without leading to what Peter calls "a spiritual death" (Chapter 17). Ivan, Naomi, and Sylvia are quicker to embrace unconventional circumstances. In contrast, Margaret feels that she cannot be "entirely free to live the limitless spontaneous life that she has imagined for herself" because of "the demands of other people" (Chapter 12). For Peter, the pressure to conform forces him to choose between "spiritual death" and "social death" (Chapter 17). By the end of the book, neither Peter nor Margaret resolve to permanently commit to their unusual romantic partnerships, but they do reach turning points. Margaret chooses to prioritize her authenticity over the optics of the situation. Peter begins to be more honest with himself and to align his actions with his intentions.
