Inter Alia

 I remember the oat porridge my mother used to cook. It was not instant oats. She added sugar to the oats and i like how it was lightly charred at the base when cooked, soft and creamy. Then she poured over it hot milk that was made from creamy milk powder in hot water. It was divine. Milk tastes different when it is made with dehydrated whole milk powder. As a child and also in my teens, I had liked putting tiny scoop of milk powder into my mouth. It tasted deliciously sweet.

There are things you recall about your childhood but you cannot truly verify the accuracy of it. To a large extent, we are what we remember about the stuff we have experienced over the years, and every experience we have can only be retold from our memories. There are things we choose to remember and there are others we would rather forget. We tend to romanticize the good memories and try to forget the bad ones in order to move on.

My mother passed away more than thirty-seven years ago.

How often do we tell our own life story?  How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts?  And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life.  Told to others, but – mainly – to ourselves.
- The Sense of Ending, Julian Barnes p.95 (Jonathan Cape Random House, 2011)

Julian Barnes writes about love and memory. After I read the author's The Sense of an Ending, I read several of his other books, both fictions and non-fictions. I recently read his latest novel, DEPARTURE(S) and he tells us this will be his last book. He is certainly a prolific writer and his writings demonstrate a dry sense of humour.

In DEPARTURE(S) Julian Barnes tells the story of how he helped to bring together his two university friends, Stephen and Jean, not once but twice and then their rekindled relationship ended. He was at the City of London from 1957-1964 and then studied at Magdalen, Oxford between 1964 and 1968. Back then at the university, only ' sixteen per cent were women: so, one woman to 6.25 men that was the ratio.' When his friends split the first time after graduating from Oxford , he also loses touch with them. Decades later, Stephen who was now divorced, wrote him a letter and when they met, Stephen asked him to arrange a catch up with Jean because he was still in love with her. He had reached the age 'where most of his friends from a generation, or even half a generation, ahead of him were dying off' so he was happy to have Stephen and Jean back in his life. When they reconnected with one another, they saw 'a fair amount of one another, but somehow without regaining the same intimacy and camaraderie of the earlier years' They visited him separately to tell him things. He made a rule not to pass on what one of them had said to the other. 'Not even a hint, not even if it would have been tactically useful.'

Barnes narrates that 'Stephen was so determined to get it right this time-having spent decades berating himself and lamenting his earlier insistence that they could settle their joint lives forevever at the age of twenty-one- that he got it wrong again, but differently. It was as if he no longer considered, let alone valued, the forty years of life he'd passed between Jean Part One and Jean Part Two;as if nothing of importance had happened in that time. '

Barnes decides to research on the matter and finds that the classic problem in such emotional revisiting is that the parties unconsciously reproduce the same behaviour that had led the initial relationship to founder. The manipulative continued to manipulate, and the over-possessive to over-possess, but without acknowledging it. The intervening years have not brought them greater maturity at all. So here is how he sums up about Jean and Stephen.

' His tragedy is that he can love, but that his love cannot be accepted.'

'Her tragedy is that she cannot love, but that what she does offer is accepted as love.'

'What Stephen viewed as a rounded, dramatic, necessary conclusion to thier two lives Jean saw as - what?-no more than a somewhat intriguing possibility.'

Stephen clearly did not or failed to acknowledge that Jean had remained single all her life until they met again and to Jean, 'non-attachment had seemed like a kind of freedom, not necessarily sought but easily borne; she wasn't sure she needed or wanted anyone seioius in her life at this pre-terminal stage.'

Barnes concludes that what he has written are 'more a novelist's assumptions than an accurate digest 'of all that they told him.; and 'are inevitably coloured' by his' own experiences and preconceptions of life'.

Stephen appears to be still a dreamer in his sixties. It is apparent that he is in love with the concept of romantic love and possibly the idea of Jean as the one that has gotten away. That happens to the best of us if and when we allow ourselves to get carried away.

When Jean died, Barnes now seventy-six, inherited her sixteen year-old dog, a Jack Russell named Jimmy. 'half- deaf and half blind and almost comically toothless.'

Barnes muses that Jimmy does not rage about much- 'he is a stoic who sleeps a great deal.Though he does resent some things, like not being allowed to stop every fifteen yards on a walk, or being given a constant diet of dog food, much preferring human left overs.' Barnes and his friends Stephen and Jean had a conversation about time, or mortality and how Jimmy does not have any idea about metaphysical questions. So Stephen and Barnes concluded that Jimmy does not even know that he is a dog.

At home we are constantly amused by our Holly, a mongrel that had come to stay since the day she walked into our garden looking famished in February 2016. Living is seemingly very simple to a dog.

In DEPARTURE(S) Julian Barnes also tells his own story about the journey he has taken to come to terms with blood cancer, which walks alongside him, kept in check by chemotherapy and medication. He also talks about his first wife, Pat who was six years his senior and died in 2008. She was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour and died thirty-seven days later.

He writes, "raged against the dying of her light, but I didn't imagine that some cunningly concealed fairness or justice came into the matter. Insofar as I could be calmed by any mere phrase, it was one that suddenly came to me back then, and which I continue to employ: 'It's just the universe doing its stuff.' "

'Departure habitually leads to arrival. Not always, of course as with those poetic French dreamsers who never let port. But at train stations, bus depots and airports we gaze at departure and arrival boards. We go, we arrive, we set off in return, and reach home again: we live with this momentum. But these trajectories lie within a larger and more contrary version. In our lives, arrival comes first, and departure comes atthe end - except a departure without subsequent arrival.'

Barnes writes about aging and how he is aware that after forty-four years of being published, he must be repeating himself with the same old tropes and memes, and even repeating his jokes. He makes reference to Involuntary Autobiographical Memory (IAM) and IAM is a memory that could be triggered by a touch, smell, taste or sight and somehow reveals itself unlike a 'voluntary memory'. Julian Barnes' novels make very pleasurable read and his 

Books, food and love

Do you not miss those pre-internet years when we used to receive letters in our mailbox? I cannot quite recall if I had kept a pen pal as a young child. I certainly have fond memories of writing and receiving letters, postcards and aerogrammes in the seventies and eighties before the internet changed everything.

Kate & Frida by Kim Fay is an epistolary novel. It is a story about friendship between twenty-something Frida Rodriguez and Kate Fair, a bookseller from Seattle. On October 21 1991 Frida writes from Paris to Puget Sound Book Company in Seattle, Washington asking for Martha Gelhorn’s The Face of War.Kate happens to be assigned to respond to her request. Kate gives Frida an employee discount to make up for the fact that she has been reading it though she has been careful when reading it. Frida hails from Los Angeles and she is in Paris ‘en route to her future!’ She has a journalism degree and dreams of writing something meaningful. She aspires to be a war correspondent just like Martha. She wants to make a difference and when she goes to Sarajevo, it dawns on her that nothing will make a difference when the city is under siege and a war that she cannot comprehend. She is terrified and realises that she does not have a steely heart that she can live in a war zone where humans are tortured in unimaginable ways.She goes home then returns to Paris. Kate makes Frida a mix tape that includes songs like You’ve Got a Friend by Carole King, With a Little Help from My Friends- ( Beatles version). With a little help from my friends (Joe Cocker version) etc . Sweet.

Both Kate and Frida are both bookstore addicts. Frida who keeps a pixie haircut claims that she has been to thirty-six different bookstores in her life and she is not even twenty-five. Through their letters , they tell each other their aspirations, self-doubts, romance, work and ambition. Kate tells Frida about her Bumpa, her mother’s father who is a man of grace, humility and generosity.They cheer each other on and share thoughts about how to navigate their disappointments and finding beauty in loss. When Kate’s relationship does not work out, Frida feels guilty about having encouraged Kate to go for it. She tells Kate about MFK Fisher and her first marriage, about how she had to leave her husband to find herself. ‘What if no matter how wrong they are for us, we need to love some people so we can grow – and then outgrow them like MFK outgrew Al? What if that’s the whole reason they come into our lives? So we can grow with them and then beyond them.’

In September 1994, Kate, the blond with the shaggy Meg Ryan haircut surprises Frida by showing up in Paris.

Kate & Frida by Kim Fay is about two young women trying to find their footholds in the world. There is so much of the unknown and unknowable, we do not have to try to make sense of everything that happens. While there are always conflicts and sadness, there is also much to celebrate and give us laughter and joy.

Kate & Frida by Kim Fay is a delightful novel about friendship, food and books. In the novel, many books are mentioned and recipes of the food described in the book are also included.

In the Author’s note, Fay writes that while this is a work of fiction, much of it was inspired by her own life. She wrote the novel from her heart to her early twenties self in the early 1990s, working at the Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle. In her words, she wanted her younger self to know : ”You won’t be confused and lost forever. It was not a waste of time loving someone you outgrew. Growing apart from friends because you live different kinds of lives doesn’t mean growing away from your heart’s connection to them. You will recover from the grief that dismantled you when Bumpa had his stroke. You will continue to get things wrong, and that’s okay. Unlike Kate and Frida, in real life I learned these things gradually, through the many periods of growing up that a person experiences during a lifetime.”

The other day, I clicked on my Instagram, the word Niksen appeared. I came to know that it is a Dutch term that embraces the concept of doing nothing, staying idle, letting the mind wander and simply relaxing without purpose. Niksen is something I often engage in except that it is not without guilt. Life is work in progress….journey on.

‘ You are- your life, and nothing else.’ – No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre

Both concepts suggest that you owe it to yourself to live an authentic life because you are your life.

Congratulations and Celebrations

 

The Wedding People by Alison Espach is a story about how two people fall in love and get married and how strangers meet in the most unlikely places and find some connection.

Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels. She has no luggage with her. The hotel has been booked for a wedding party for the entire week but Phoebe is not there for the wedding. She is depressed and suicidal. When Lila the bride meets Phoebe, she is worried that her elaborate destination will be ruined by this stranger. She has spent months accounting for every detail and every possible disaster except for someone like Phoebe.

Phoebe remembers the Victorian Hotel from some magazine that she read while waiting in the fertility clinic. She imagines the Cornwall Inn, a place she has never been to be a happy place.

Two years ago after their final visit to the fertility clinic ‘ when they found out that the embryos had been bad, it had all been a waste‘, she was pregnant and then ten weeks later she was no longer pregnant.

She found the Cornwall Inn online. She said to her husband, Matt,

“At the Cornwall, we can go sailing on an America’s Cup winner.”

She wanted to sit in the hot tub while staring the ocean and he had said that they could slurp oysters and somehow laughed at the same exact time. She had all these ideas about what they could do. ‘They could paddleboard with seals. Go on a “water journey ” at a nearby spa. Visit Edith Wharton’s house one the Cliff Walk . Do yoga by the ocean, not that she had ever done yoga.But she liked the thought of becoming a woman who casually did yoga by the sea.’

‘She made a detailed spreadsheet of excursions, because she was a researcher by profession.’

‘She loved the way Matt indulged her. They were very similar -he was a researcher , too, thought he would never call him that. He was a philosopher. ‘

Phoebe teaches literature while Matt teaches philosophy. They work at the same university. They only aspire to be normal. But Matt is not with her on this trip.They are now divorced.

At the hotel lobby, Phoebe sees a long check-in line. All these guests have come to attend Lila and Gary’s wedding that is to last a week. Lila enters the lobby wearing a glittering sash that says BRIDE, and she has ‘gift bags hanging from her wrists like bracelets made of woven seagrass‘.She hugs every guest and hands out the seagrass bags. She also gives Phoebe one of those gift bags and a really strong hug. Lila finds out that Phoebe is not there for the wedding party when they are both taking the elevator.

‘Phoebe walks into the elevator and feels relief when the doors start to close. Finally to be getting away from the wedding people. To be doing something for a change. To have a key to a place that is not her house.

” Hold the elevator!” a woman calls out.

Phoebe knows it’s the bride before she sees her. She yells like she deserves this elevator. But nobody deserves anything. Not even the bride. Phoebe presses the button to close the doors, but the bride slides a hand between them. They don’t bounce open like they’re supposed to, may be because the Cornwall was built in 1864. An old hotel has no mercy, not even for the bride. ‘

Inside the lift, Lila discovers that Phoebe is not her wedding guest. As the week progresses, both women will soon find their best-laid plans derailed and Phoebe and Lila become unlikely confidantes to one another.

Lila’s mother is a curator and she is working at her mother’s art gallery as her assistant. That is where she meets Gary when he comes in to purchase a painting. She tells Phoebe that she never understands why her mother is obsessed with art. Then when Phoebe says years ago,she used to have ‘clear and beautiful ideas about art, how art is what elevates us, art is the magnificence wrung from the ugly dish towel of existence. Art helps us fell alive‘ but now she can’t stand the sight of her books nor ‘bear the thought of reading hundred of pages just to watch Jane Eye get married again‘. Lila thinks that she has found kinship in Phoebe like they’re old cousins when Phoebe actually cannot explain the kind of darkness that she is feeling and how ‘literature cannot save her in the end‘. As the week progresses, things start to look up for Phoebe. Not only she gets invited by Lila to attend the wedding party, she even becomes Lila’s maid of honour. This is how unpredictable life can be as things can change in an instant.

Alison Espach is a prolific writer and she is brilliant at describing the characters, their behaviour and inner lives. The narratives are keenly observant of social construct and wickedly funny.

I have always been a fan of serendipitous meet and I believe that if there are people whom we are meant to meet we will somehow meet and share some connection and sometimes in a way that you least expect. Life itself is a celebration if you are open to new experiences. Things may not turn out the way you plan, but when you keep heart open, you evolve and grow to become the person you want to be. There is no such place as a happy place if you are not happy. If you are happy, you are happy anywhere.

The Wedding People is darkly funny and romantic. It is a delightful story about life-altering chance meetings.

Where had all the time gone?

 I do not seem to have control over how I spend my time.Just as I’m at a place where I am able to do more reading and writing, life gets busy with everything else again. I feel like Ryder, the protagonist in The Unconsoled written by Kazuo Ishiguro. While my experience is not as surreal as that of Ryder, the point is I am not getting closer to what I really want to do. The uneasiness and anxiety that Ryder feels is totally relatable. Ryder struggles to make sense of the requests and expectations made upon him, and suddenly he finds that he is totally unprepared for the speech and performance that he is supposed to deliver at the concert. When the story begins, we know that Ryder, a renowned pianist has been invited to perform in a small European city and he is constantly disrupted by tasks and requests made upon him since the day he arrives in the city. The Unconsoled is definitely a read that deserves a second and even a third read.

Recently, I fear I have left my brains elsewhere. It is that feeling of trying to hold onto some fragmented thoughts somewhere at the back of my head. Consciously subconsciously I tread forward and endeavour to be mindful of every decision I make, big or small and mindful about how I spend my time. If I reflect on how I have spent my time , I know much time has been wasted in fretting, pottering around and attending to menial tasks. Every day there are tasks and work to attend to, places to go to and before you know it the day has ended. You feel disappointed if you have not even read a page of the book that you want to start reading or deliberated on the ideas that you have scribbled on your notepad when they flashed through your mind just this morning. It is a matter of prioritizing what is important to you and you are unsettled easily.

“There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison. We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself? That is why life is always like a sketch. No, “sketch” is not quite a word, because a sketch is an outline of something, the groundwork for a picture, whereas the sketch that is our life is a sketch for nothing, an outline with no picture.”― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is another book that I hope to read again one day.

Few months ago, I picked up a copy of Elizabeth is Missing from an Indie bookshop at a shopping mall located about ten minutes drive from my home. The bookshop used to lend out books thus some of their books have plastic covers. The shop has since branched out into selling crystals and they only bring in new books occasionally. Nonetheless it is always a pleasure to drop by the shop just to browse through the titles of the books that are sitting on the shelves at a section of the shop. One Saturday, I picked up Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey and I am glad that I did. The novel is an engaging read. I was definitely attracted to the little sketches that appear in the book. Every chapter begins with a little drawing on its first page.

Maud Horsham, aged eighty-two, has become increasingly forgetful. She makes a cup of tea and does not remember to drink it. She arrives at a shop and forgets why she goes there. She has the nagging feeling that her friend, Elizabeth is missing. Her memory is failing her. While she keeps notes to remind herself about things that she does not want to forget, she keeps mixing up the present with the past. As the story unfolds, we come to know that her elder sister, Sukey vanished seventy years ago. That happened shortly after World War II. It remains an unsolved mystery till this day. She is haunted by the mystery of her sister’s disappearance and now thinks that her friend is also missing. She has vivid memory of what followed after her sister’s disappearance. Sukey was married to Frank and her parents also had a lodger named Douglas then. She recalls all the conversations with Frank and Douglas. She remembers steps taken by her and her parents to find her sister but to no avail. Now she is determined to find her friend.

Maud has a son and a daughter. Tom is now married with children and they live in Germany. Her daughter, Helen takes care of her. Both Helen and her paid care-giver Carla warn her not to leave the house. She will not abide by their rules. In her search for Elizabeth, she visits the police station to report that her friend is missing , she even places an ad for missing persons in the local paper, and pays multiple visits to Elizabeth’s house looking for clues. She is unable to retain information hence she has problems piecing together the information she gathers. She carries notes but they are unclear and incongruous…. It is her mental state.

‘I feel in my pockets for notes ,but there’s nothing there, just a few threads and emptiness. I’ve no notes at all. The lack makes me feel sick;I’m cut loose and whirling about in the wind. I wring the fabric of my coat, scrunching up and down in panic. And then, inside the ripped lining, I find one small blue square with my writing on it : Where is Elizabeth?“

Maud calls Peter Marham, Elizabeth’s son .

‘ “Hello?”It’s man’s voice, thick and slurred. I’m on the settee in my sitting room. The phone’s just stopped ringing and it’s pressed against my ear.

“Hello. Who is it?“I say.

“Peter Markham. Who’s this?”The words are clearer now; there’s a whine to the voice.

“My mother’s name is Elizabeth. What do you want?“

Peter Markham : I know that name. “Is that Elizabeth’s son?” ask.

“Oh, did I call you?”I say.

“Course you phoned me.”He says something under his breath.’Bloody’something.”What do you want?“

“Perhaps Elizabeth asked me to call you.” I say.

“Asked you?Why?”he says.”Where are you calling from?”

“don’t know why,”I say.”t must be important.“

I hold the receiver away from my ear and pause to think, gripping the phone until the plastic creaks. When did I see Elizabeth? And what did she ask me to call about? I can’t remember. I rest the receiver on the arm of my chair and flick through the bits of paper on my lap, shuffling past the number for Peter Markham, a shopping list and a recipe for gooseberry crumble. The drone of a car somewhere in the distance is like a fly buzzing under glass, like a memory flinging itself at the surface of my brain. I pick up the phone and hold the next note under the lamp: Where is Elizabeth?My stomach drops.”She’s missing,”I say aloud.’

Peter tells Maud that his mum is alright. She keeps going to Elizabeth’s house but her friend is not there.

The narratives are in Maud’s voice and told in alternate timelines, the past and the present. As a child, Maud was nicknamed ‘Mopps’. Memories of Sukey’s mysterious disappearance keep flooding back while she is bent on looking for Elizabeth, her good friend.

Its author, Emma Healey has cleverly crafted Maud’s mental state.

‘ If I turn left and left again I’m in the kitchen. I have that written down. And there’s a soapy smell in here that remidns me of the walkt to Sukey’s house and a woman bundling a mass of sheets and towels into a washing basket.

” That letter’s for you.”she says, straightening up and nodding to the envelope on the counter. ‘From Tom, and he’s sent us a photo of their cat, for some reason. I’m sure he expects us to be thrilled. What’d you want for breakfast?“

“I’m not allowed to eat,” I say, picking up the photo.”That woman told me.”

“What woman?“

“The woman,”I say. God, I’m sick of explaining myself all the time. That woman who works here. Is that right? “She works here.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know the one… Yes,you do. She works here. Always busy. Always cross. Always in a rush.”

” think you mean me, Mum.”

“No,” I say. “But maybe I do mean her. ‘What’s your name?”

She makes a face at her pile of washing.”I’m Helen,”she says.‘

-Chapter 15 Elizabeth is missing, Emma Healey

Our mind is always playing tricks on us and yet we are afraid of losing our mind. Elizabeth is missing is Emma Healey‘s debut novel. The book is the winner of the Costa Book Award in 2014. Elizabeth is missing was adapted into a British drama film in 2019.

Healey is insightful and observant. The novel is an affecting read.

Beyond Words

 Kazuo Ishiguro is one of my favourite authors who writes interesting stories that make us ponder about the human heart.

Sometime ago I started reading The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro but it was a false start. This month I picked up the book again and am glad that I finished reading it. The book is 535 pages long. Kazuo Ishiguro‘s remarkable prose engages you with the narratives that bewilder you till the end of the story.

The story is narrated in the main character’s voice.

Ryder, an internationally acclaimed pianist arrives in a Central European city. When the taxi driver takes him to the hotel, there is no one behind the reception desk. He has been invited to give a performance that may be the most important event of his life. Somehow he does not seem to remember much of the arrangement and he appears to have visited the city before. He soon discovers that there is a woman named Sophie with whom he has a relationship and he may be the father of her son, Boris. In the course of his three days’ visit, he first meets the hotel manager Mr Hoffman who organises the concert hoping to gain the respect of his wife who is disappointed with him for lack of musical talents. He then meets the conductor, Mr. Brodsky who is trying to reconcile with his long-estranged former love. He also meets Gustav the elderly hotel porter, who hopes to mend his strained relationship with his daughter, Sophie. Meanwhile the Hoffmans’ son, Stephan, plans to impress his parents and hopes to mend the family by displaying his own underestimated gifts as a pianist at the upcoming concert.

Everyone seems to want something from Ryder and he can refuse none of the requests made of him. He appears to have an exaggerated sense of public duty and in trying desperately to attend to seemingly all his duties, he disappoints and has failed Sophie in his domestic responsibilities.

The following is an excerpt about Sophie’s discontent.

‘Something about her expression made me stop. For another moment, Sophie went on regarding me coldly. Then she said tiredly:

“Leave us You were always on the outside of our love. Now look at you. On the outside of our grief too. Leave us. Go away.“

Boris broke away from her and turned to look at me. Then he said to his mother: ‘No, no. We’ve got to keep together. ‘

Sophie shook her head.’ No, it’s useless. Leave him be, Boris. Let him go around the world, giving out his expertise and wisdom. He needs to do it. Let’s just leave him to it now.’

The small town that Ryder is visiting idolizes its artists and when their artists fail its expectations, there is a breakdown within the community. During his visit, he has been repeatedly told that his very presence will restore the city’s reputation and civic morale of the populace. He tries to plead the cause of Mr. Brodsky, a disgraced conductor who is now a pathetic alcoholic and salvage the morale of a community experiencing a sense of despair due to its declining classical music scene but he has his limitations. His allegedly tight schedule is constantly disrupted by new demands for small favours and services that appear to conspire to derail his schedule to speak and perform at the town concert, which is the principal reason of his visit. He cannot recall the details of his schedule or where he has placed the copy of his schedule, all he knows is that the event will take place on the last evening of his stay. In the meantime he keeps encountering obstacles causing him to be deprived of food, sleep, and crucial preparation for the big night. It is apparent that his life has accelerated beyond his control.

Here is an excerpt that describes the scene after Mr. Brodsky’s rendition of the music composition he was conducting.

‘As I made my way back down the aisle, everyone around me seemed to be discussing what they had just witnessed. I noticed many were talking out of the sheer need to talk out an experience, in the way they might have done after a fire or an accident. As I reached the front of the auditorium, I saw two women crying and a third comforting them, saying ; It’s all right, it’s all finished now. All finished now.’ An aroma of coffee was pervading this section of the hall and a number of people were clutching cups and saucers, drinking as though to steady themselves.‘

Ryder tries to correct the views of these critics but in vain. He also tries to comfort Mr Hoffman when the evening has not turned out to be a success.

At one point it dawns on him that the hotel room “was the very room that had served as my bedroom during the two years my parents and I had lived at my aunt’s house on the borders of England and Wales.”’

Ryder’s experience is dreamlike and surreal. The story reminds us about elusive expectations that the society demands and for which we impose on ourselves the wish to fulfil them. What matters is not achievements and prestige. The city will not cure its malaise by pursuing cultural prestige.

The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro is a contemplative read where the conscious and the unconscious meet. It is a mind-bending story about an anxious musician who has encounters with various characters who seem to represent an aspect of himself. It appears that he has a deep longing to please his parents and no amount of success can allay his fear of rejection or not being loved. The story makes us pause to examine what gives life its true beauty, what matters is not achievements nor duty but love and kindness.

Connections

 

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney is a story about family, relationships, grief and all that matters in life.

Sally Rooney is prolific and her prose beautiful. Her stream of consciousness writing style makes the book an enjoyable read.

In Intermezzo , thirty-two year old Peter Koubek and twenty-two year old Ivan Koubek are brothers from Kildare. Peter, a successful and competent Dublin lawyer, seemingly unassailable. Ivan, a competitive chess player has been hailed as the chess prodigy. They have recently lost their father. After their parents had divorced, they were brought up by their Slovak father who had migrated there in the eighties. Their Irish mother, Christine O’Donoghue has since remarried. After their dad’s passing, Peter, sociable and charming, is medicating himself to sleep. He has some remorse that he never really got to know his father. He is struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women, Sylvia and Naomi. He remains close with Sylvia, his first love. An accident years ago has left her with great physical pain and she no longer wants to be intimately close with Peter. She has asked Peter to leave her and date other women. He is seeing Naomi, the twenty-two year old college student who is free spirited and regards life as one long joke. Ivan is an antithesis to Peter. He is socially awkward and is working part-time in data analysis. At a chess event, he meets Margaret , an arts- programme director, divorced and has a turbulent past. In the early weeks of his bereavement, he is attracted to Margaret who is beautiful and kind. Soon their lives become intensely intertwined.

Peter feels that he needs to check in on Ivan as an older brother, so he telephones Ivan with a faint hope that the latter does not answer the phone.

‘ A purring mechanical tone tells him the call is ringing while he sits on the sofa unlacing his shoes. Home from work late, Tuesday night, awkward time to call, and never texted beorehand, almost as if , yes, hoping no one will answer. Duty discharged in that case. Disphenhydramine with a glass of red wine, see what people are saying on the internet. Fall asleep with the lights on for an hour or two if he’s lucky. Wake up again and try something stronger. Watch in claustrophobic dread the passing of hours, scorched feeling in his eyelids blinking. Three in the morning, four another Xanax, open a new browser tab to type out : insomnia psychosis. psychosis average age of onset.can’t sleep going insane. About to hang up when with a dropping sound the call connects and the voice of his brother is saying : Hello? Oddly normal the way he says that when answering the phone. Makes him sound so adult and reasonable.’

Ivan tells Peter that Christine has been texting him about Alexei the dog which he has left with her. Ivan’s voice is ‘flat, affectless, and yet communicating at the same time somehow a wary distrust.’

Peter invites Ivan for lunch. Ivan totally forgets about his Sunday lunch date with his brother as he makes a trip to see Margaret in Leitrim. The two brothers finally meet for lunch. As anticipated, Peter asks Ivan about the friend he is seeing.When Ivan lets slip about the woman he likes and that it is complicated as she has this ex-husband whom she is separated from. Peter is alarmed that she is thirty-six years old, and he remarks,

‘You’re twenty-two, you’re hardly out of college, you don’t even have a job. I’m not trying to be disparaging, but do you think a normal woman of her age would want to hang around with someone in your situation? ‘

After some exchange, Ivan storms off and from then onwards, he blocks Peter’s number preventing him from any further communication.

Growing up, Peter was protective of Ivan until the time Peter left home for college. What happened to Peter after he graduated from university is not clear to Ivan. When Ivan was a child they were good together but when Ivan got to the age of sixteen, seventeen, they started getting into arguments, fights, about politics, history, whatever.

It is apparent that both brothers have a lot in common. They are both mourning for their father’s death and they ‘both wanted their lives to consist of winning all the time‘.

‘No one ever wants to lose. And yet for both Peter and Ivan, this particular feeling has perhaps been more important ,more intense than for other people: the desire to win all the time, and also the naïve youthful belief that it would be possible to live such a life, now soured by experience.’

After their lunch, the lingering bitterness between them is now reaching a point of seemingly no return. This is a story about estranged relationship between two brothers who are very different.

Sally Rooney is undeniably one young writer who can engage us in stories about mundane living and the interpersonal relationships. She is undeniably gifted in crafting ordinary characters and dialogues. In Intermezzo, the author also weaves in the story discussions about social issues such as housing crisis in Dublin, monetary power dynamics, religion, existentialism, social media and societal demands.