Hello, I'm Gilbert Cruz, editor of the New York Times Book Review, and this is the Book Review Podcast.This week, we have our monthly book club conversation, hosted by MJ Franklin.
And this time around, it's one of the biggest books of the year, certainly one of the biggest books of the fall, Intermezzo by Sally Rooney.
Talking about it with MJ are our regular podcast panelists, Jumana Khatib, as well as two editors here at the Book Review, Sadie Stein and Dave Kim.
In addition to discussing the book, they brought in several of the comments that readers and some of you listeners left on our site.
If you haven't done so yet, I urge you to head on over to our book club discussion at nytimes.com and weigh in yourself.Let's turn to our book club discussion.
Hello, and welcome to another Book Club episode of the Book Review Podcast.I'm MJ Franklin.I'm an editor here at the New York Times Book Review, and for this month's Book Club, we're talking about Intermezzo by Sally Rooney.
We chose Intermezzo as our October Book Club book for the simple reason that it is easily one of the buzziest books of the fall.
Anticipation for this latest release was high because across the board, Sally Rooney's books have been commercial juggernauts and they've been met with critical acclaim.So readers were just really excited to see what she was up to next.
And that's definitely been the case with Intermezzo.Even before this came out, there was so much buzz and conversation.Then the book finally did publish and it was an instant bestseller.
So this is all to say a lot of people are reading Intermezzo and we wanted to be there with you to talk about it. And speaking of talking about it, I have three wonderful colleagues joining me in the studio to discuss this novel.
First, we have a returning book clubber, Jumana Khatib.Jumana needs no intro.She's here very often.She was on the podcast just a few weeks ago to talk about the National Book Award finalists.
She joined us last month for last month's book club of The Hypocrite.Welcome back, Jumana.
Also with us is Sadie Stein, another great editor and colleague here at The Book Review.Welcome, Sadie.I am glad to be back. You may remember Sadie from our podcast discussion this summer for The Talented Mr. Ripley.
And last but not least, we have a new voice on the podcast, Dave Kim.Hi, Dave.Hi, good to be here.Dave is a longtime editor at the book review first time caller on the podcast.
And Dave, I have to say, I think it's a bit of a crime that you're not on the podcast more often because there are few joys greater in this life than hearing you talk about a book.
Thank you.I'm excited to be here and I hope I don't disappoint.
I don't think you are.You've changed my thoughts on books I didn't like.You've challenged me on books that I loved.You've introduced me to books I didn't even know about.I feel like Sadie and Jumana were like nodding here.
No pressure, but your taste is infallible.
Actually, Dave, you want to just carry this?
Let me just talk for an hour.
Don't worry, because you're here for a conversation with friends.I'm sorry.I had to make it.I had to.
Dave, it's not too late to get out of here.
Beautiful exit door.Where are you?
before we talk about Intermezzo, I just have a few admin notes.First, at the end of the episode, we will reveal our November book selection, so listeners, stay with us for the whole episode.
And then second, there will be spoilers in this conversation.We can't have a robust conversation about the whole book if we can't talk about everything, and we're not gonna be holding back.
If you wanna avoid spoilers, pause this, go read the book, and then come back to us.And if you don't care about spoilers or if you've already read the book, then stay with us. Without further ado, let's dive into Intermezzo.
To get this conversation started, could someone give us a synopsis?
Yes, happy to, MJ.So this novel follows two brothers, the Kubeks.We have Peter, who is in his early to mid-30s.He's a lawyer in Dublin.And then we have Ivan, who's 22.He's a chess prodigy, competitive player, and casting about.
And these brothers are grieving their father, who's just died at the beginning of the novel. They have had a charged relationship, we come to learn.
And so as these brothers are grieving and trying to figure out who they are, they're embarking on romantic relationships.Ivan meets a woman named Margaret when he's at a chess tournament outside where he lives.She is 36 to his 22.
So that's a challenge from the jump.And then Peter is seeing a younger woman named Naomi, who's a university student.
And at the same time, we come to learn that he's still at least emotionally involved with his first great love, who's a lecturer named Sylvia, who was his high school or adolescent girlfriend.Yes.
And so then the hook of the book for a teaser is, what's going to happen to these people?Can these relationships stand?What is Peter going to do about this love triangle?Will Peter and Ivan reconnect and reform their brotherhood?
So I just want to go around Robin and just ask everyone, how did you feel about this book?Big picture.Love it.Hate it.Feel complicated about it.Tell me your broad thoughts about Intermezzo.I'm gonna start with you, Sadie.
And I would say my feelings changed in the process of reading and changed particularly when I started really immersing myself in the book to a point where I started out being disappointed and feeling almost personally angry because I've historically been a big fan of her work.
And last night, in fact, applied what I think of as the MJ test when I was rereading this at a bar and the bartender asked if he should read it.And I said, you know what?Yes.Interesting.I said, don't start with it.
You talk a lot about how often you recommend books to people, which is... I do be recommending books to random strangers.And I thought, how often do I like a book enough to do that?
I can't do it without a lot of caveats, but of course I said to start with normal people or conversations.And I said, having read those, you may find things about this one disappointing, but even not amazing.
Sally Rooney is better than much of what is written.But ultimately, I quite like it.I think there is a certain warmth and generosity to the storytelling, which I did not expect and which I think is nice to read at this very moment.
What about you, Dave?What did you think of this book?
I liked it a lot.I felt that it was, it was very immersive.I just fell into it.I didn't think I would like it.
I was, I honestly would not have picked this up on my own had I read the description and had this not been a major book that I should have, I should be reading.I was surprised.I really enjoyed it.I felt just emotionally carried.
I felt intellectually stimulated.I felt Just, it was a very positive experience.And yet, I think I can talk, speak to its issues and some of the tidiness and a few points that I might pick a bone with.
But I honestly, despite all that, I really enjoyed it.
I want to dig in a little bit more in first, yeah. I'm gonna send a barrage of follow-up questions your way.One, what about the description put you off?You said based on the description, you didn't think you would like it.I'm curious why.
And then you talked about like the intellectual and emotional resonances of it.What were you picking up on that kind of won you over?
I think in general I'm a little bit allergic to sentimentality and anything that resembles a kind of romantic love triangle.I find those narratives to be low stakes and I don't find myself moved by them at all.
Despite my tastes, I think I let those sappy, sentimental aspects of it to just to really sink in.And I felt myself very much moved by the characters and the situation.
I really felt I understood their dilemmas and their humanity and their vulnerabilities, their flaws.And they felt very real to me.Beautiful.
Dave, our secret feeler.In the room.
I know.It's really uncharacteristic. I know, because I'm totally dead inside and I don't know what happened.
What about you, Germana?What did you think about this book?
I, like Sadie, had complicated feelings.I really, I really like Sally Rooney a lot and have imprinted on her like a duckling because she and I, I think, are the same age.And so I read all of her books in real time when they came out.
This one really threw me, I have to tell you, because all the things that I liked about her previous ones I felt were absent here.I could never really buy into the stakes.
A big part of it is the age gap kind of melodrama where it was like, oh my God, she's 36 and he's 22.And I was, call me when you have like people going through separate Saturn returns. You know what I mean?Then we'll talk.
But I just, I can't, I just, I had a hard time with that.And even, I think she's somebody who's really capable of sketching out a character's real interiority.She's proven that from the beginning.
I actually think, in a way, my favorite books track with the order in which they were published.Conversations is definitely my favorite of hers. And I just didn't feel like that interiority was there enough.I felt it with Ivan.
I did not feel it with Peter.Of course, Peter's zonked on Xanax for half of this.So fine, we'll allow that he's being triangulated by like an OnlyFans model and chemicals.But I had a real block.
It was like an emotional nerve block to feeling for these people.
Tell me more.What was it about?What was going on?What was that block?What wasn't quite landing?
I am afraid I'm going to sound like the Queen of Sheba here.A couple of things, right?I did find Peter's style of narration or interiority to be very disjointed, and I could never really collapse into it the way Dave says.
I just had a hard time with the stakes.That being said, I think that the opening, the first encounter, the first sexual encounter between Ivan and Margaret was beautifully handled. That has everything that you want out of a Sally Rooney gambit.
I guess I shouldn't use the G word in a chess book, but we're going to do it anyway.The Rooney gambit.The Rooney gambit.
I'm not sure what I think, but first I want to share some reader comments and just some reader general thoughts, because this month was our second month of doing our expanded book club reader hub online, and we're having a really fun and thoughtful conversation there.
You can find that hub at nytimes.com slash sallyrooneybookclub, hyphens between every word in sallyrooneybookclub, and I just wanted to share a few thoughts from readers.Danielle from Philadelphia says, I adored Intermezzo.
I read the print book while simultaneously listening to the audio narration.It made for a slower, even more special reading experience.
Anusha from India said, as a 25-something girl grappling with the same issues as most of Rooney's characters, what always strikes me is her ability to crystallize all of my generation's innermost thoughts surrounding faith, love, guilt, and empathy on paper with such ease.
Intermezzo is no different. But we also had some detractors.Karen from Columbus said, I'll try again, but I couldn't get through five pages of this.Confusing.
And Sally from Arizona said, I was generally disappointed in this book, but wasn't sure I could articulate my points of disappointment. I was helped a great deal, however, when other readers brought up The Queen's Gambit and Howard's End.
I found both of those books much more realistic, exciting, anticipatory, and most importantly for me, much more interesting and intelligent plot development.
Some good, some bad, I think complicated is the general vibe in our discussion, but be sure to go check that out.
I mean, as it should be, honestly.It's weird in this case, because it's so divisive.And the reviews have often been glowing, but with a hint of defensiveness.
I think I can explain that defensiveness, because this was my thought going in was, I am not just a Sally Rooney fan.I'm a Sally Rooney defender, because I think she's saddled with so much.
But the title that she has is the first great millennial novelist. I think a lot of times when people approach her books, they're not just talking about the work itself, but they're talking about their anxieties of a generation at large.
What does this mean for a kind of climate of literature and a phase of literature?So I think there's a lot of big picture answering that Sally Rooney is doing that others don't have to do.
And I think when talking about her books themselves, I generally really like them.I think they're smart.There's a charm and a complication to them that feels so rich.That said, Intermezzo, for me, this book did not work.And I have a few reasons.
Some are like the stakes with the age gap-ness didn't feel interesting or electric.
to me especially after books like all fours or even there's a a side age gap relationship in good material for instance and those felt more complicated and more nuanced than just we're dating but we're different ages there was a real spark there that i didn't feel here and then maybe it's just me but i found this is
most egregious thing for me, but I found that the characters in these relationships were flat.I couldn't figure out why Peter liked Naomi, and that's never really explored.Why does Margaret like Ivan?
She says many times that she felt like they were in the same camp, and I just kept thinking, And she keeps repeating this phrase, we're in the same camp.
The camp is supposed to be outsiders, but the first time she thinks this, they're at a chess tournament, and Ivan's not an outsider at a chess tournament.He is like the model that we're aspiring to be.
And we keep, we're signaled and we're told that they're in the same camp, they're outsiders, but you never experience that.And maybe we can have a whole side conversation about poor Margaret.
Poor Margaret, who I think gets the short end of the stick for character development.
Oh, really?I think Sylvia does.Really?Yeah.Wait, should we just dig in?
Should we just dig in there?
I didn't think she was angelic, though.I felt like she definitely is seen by everyone around her as the saint.Ivan looks up to her.She is the only person that Ivan can actually connect with.Peter looks up to her.She is his great lost love.
She's this brilliant lecturer. But I feel like in her actions, you see some of those complications that we have in other Rooney books.She is saying, I don't want you, Peter, but her actions, she's pulling him closer.
She's definitely using him for more than just a platonic friend relationship.And there was a contradiction that I think is characteristic of a lot of Rooney characters that I saw in her actions.I'm getting quizzical faces from the room.
I love that for you. I think Sylvia deserved the opportunity to explore more about, like, how her physical pain and her disability impacted her life beyond the ability to not have sex with Peter.It was mind-boggling.
Like, you know, if you go back to Conversations, there's a scene where one of the characters, I think, has endometriosis or she has difficult periods.That scene blows any of this out of the water.So I'm just was driven half.
I was like tempted to ask my gynecologist.What do you think could have happened?Which is not a good thing.It's not a good it's not a good after reading experience if you have to seek medical advice to like understand the stakes of what's going on.
It felt flat to me.Both those women did.He felt a bit flat too.As much as we've been talking about some of the pearl clutching about the age difference, that was the more engaging of the two plot lines for sure.I bought it more.
You understood that one sex scene was really beautiful and funny and tender.I think almost all the funny parts were related to that plot line.And she can be very funny, which I think always bears mentioning. She also Naomi doesn't get a POV.
So that's part of the problem with bringing her to life.
I also didn't like Sylvia as a foil to Naomi.That's my other problem is I just thought it was like a little flimsy.It was black and white.
The puns are unstoppable here today.Can I mount my last defense of Sylvia?Because I hear everything that you're saying, and I agree.What is this medical condition?What is going on?It is not rendered with specificity, which was really frustrating.
The reason why I liked her, though, is because I feel like I mentioned complications and contradictions in Sally Rooney's characters and dynamics.
There's always, in her books, a sense that these characters are equals, even when they're in different stages.They are equals intellectually, equals in interest, equals a force in their own way, but they have different amounts of charm and power.
So by that, I mean like, Frances and Bobby in conversations with friends.
Frances is the, she's supposed to be the quiet one, she's supposed to be the industrious one, she's the one that writes all the poems, but people are more interested in how Bobby delivers them.But,
Secretly, even though Bobby is more charismatic, more people like Francis than they like Bobby, because Bobby is threatening.
And there's this kind of wavering between who has the power, who has the leg up in that relationship, in those dynamics, that you're just watching throughout the course of the book, and that makes them more complex.
Similar for Connell and Marianne and normal people, Connell and Marianne are intellectual equals.They're both the top of their class.
Marianne is rich, Connell is not, but he is popular, so their social systems are already in flux, and then they go off to college, and that changes again, and you're watching those dynamics play out through the course of the novel.
Sylvia and Peter, I think, had that same type of dynamic.Peter is charming, he's this really great lawyer, he was this debater.
Sylvia is a great lecturer, she's the love of Peter's life, and so their power dynamics are, like, they're both equally brilliant, they have different approaches and understandings of the relationship.
Of course, Sylvia is rendered in a flatter kind of way, but in terms of the spark, the connection of the setup of the relationship, I felt that more between Peter and Sylvia than I felt for the other characters.
See, I actually, I hear you when I reject everything you say out of hand.If only because A, I think that Sylvia is put on a pedestal and part of that is her sexual unavailability.
And then the end result of like Peter and Naomi and Sylvia, and I'm gonna draw this out so you can hit pause if you haven't finished this book, is that like when they end up in this sort of demented trio where it's like,
what is this kind of, like, dream male fantasy where you have the, like, endlessly sexually desirable and available young woman, Naomi, that, like, Peter gets to protect and fund and, like, house and care for.
And then he has Sylvia, who's the sort of, like, emotional connection, the longstanding, I think, probably the most consistent female attachment he's had. What is this?
I hated how the two most salient aspects of these women were just foils for one another.It felt so flimsy and cheap.And I was really disappointed.
that assumes that they have no agency, that they don't have any sort of feelings for the men, that they're just there to be ogled and enjoyed, and I don't know.
I felt like I did get a sense of their interiority, and their motivations, I think, are complicated.I think that's why I actually felt that the characters in this novel were, for me, the most developed of her other books.
And I think that's because they don't make a lot of sense.Their motivations are off.Their causation is weird.There's just something inscrutable about all of them.Why are they doing what they're doing?
Somehow that sense of confusion for me is exactly what made them so real, feel so real.I don't know why that, appealed to me so much, but it did.
I actually think that in this novel, Sally Rooney was really able to throw off the mantle that you had mentioned earlier of the millennial novelist.And I think it didn't, to me, feel like she was trying to make some kind of generational comment
that she was not as engaged in grappling with those worldly issues that she was doing in her previous books.I'm thinking most specifically of Beautiful World, Where Are You?
in which it was split, this was a book that was split between this very realist love story and the kind of worldly issues of the present day. And to me, it just didn't work.
And I felt burdened by the kind of Wikipedia Marxism that we were getting and the kind of transparent binaries, the class anxiety.All of that felt to me artificial in a way that really sank the other side of it.
And I felt with this one, she seemed to not feel that pressure to be a kind of zeitgeisty writer and to just really explore the inscrutability of love and the power of love.I'm sorry to use that phrase.Dave, our feeler.
You're going to get a reputation.
I know.I know.I know.Huey Lewis is singing right now.But I felt like that was a risk for her to take and at least for her.And I admired it.
I was also thinking just how many times in this conversation of this one book we have brought up the prior three and the almost prison of her past success for good and bad that people talk about the inevitable backlash and their fears
inevitably with someone who has success young that they will ultimately lose the real life experience required to keep powering new narratives.And I think it's very brave that she pushed is pushing through and is trying to do something different.
And I don't think it's all successful, but I give her a lot of points for, again, emerging with as much optimism as she did, and being generous enough to provide some kind of old-fashioned storytelling, in a way.
That's an interesting point, and we're going to dive in more into this conversation, but first, I think we should take a quick break. This is the Book Review Podcast.I'm MJ Franklin.
I'm with Jumana Khatib, Sadie Stein, and Dave Kim, and we're talking about Intermezzo by Sally Rooney.
Going into this book, Sally Rooney did an interview with The Times, actually, with the interview podcast, and she spoke about how she doesn't want to feel this pressure to keep changing, and why isn't it enough just to stay in her lane and write great books in that lane?
but I actually found this book, similarly to Sadie, very different than her previous work.
And yes, the obvious way is we have brothers as the center instead of her typical great female protagonists, we have an exploration of grief, but I also felt like the characters were not as innately enmeshed like in her previous books.
They're not great collaborators, they're not classmates, they're not writing these long emails to each other, all the characters in their own way are pretty isolated, which I found really interesting.
And so this book felt like it was playing with isolation, it felt like it was playing with stasis, and I feel like those were interesting new colors to add to a Sally Rooney project.
And lost.Everybody has an identity in this story that's forged by loss, right?The brothers have lost their parent.Sylvia has lost her sexual faculties and the relationship or even like a legible, intelligible relationship pattern with Peter.
Naomi is precarious from the jump, right?The only thing that I think that really gives her any kind of security is her desirability, how she looks in cashmere, like how many people want to pay to see her online.
And so that actually, that's a change too, right?In addition to the different stage of life, they're all responding to something being taken from them in that sense of precarity.
So I guess my question for the table is, given this new kind of approach, other than relationships, was there something that stood out to you about this book?Was there a thing that interested you when you're thinking back on this novel?
You're like, oh yeah, this for me is a really salient topic.
We didn't talk much about the style of the novel and the form.I think maybe we could get into that.Lead the charge.
I read some criticism of that choice, especially in Peter's section, to write in the kind of clipped sentences that she uses, a kind of Joyce-ian stream of consciousness that is
I think it's supposed to illustrate a kind of stark, rational persona in Peter, someone who's impatient, someone who feels that the connective tissue of language is inefficient and that he can just translate his thoughts directly into key words and phrases.
I have mixed feelings on it, I think.I think it poses a challenge for any reader at the beginning to let the book tell you how to be read.And it's, yeah, I don't quite know what I feel about it, actually.
Again, I give a lot of points for experimenting with style.I didn't like all of it as a reader.When I think about it, I appreciate it in the larger landscape, especially because she
has been saddled with this mantle of being the voice of her generation, or a voice of a generation.
Lena Dunham, girls, I see that reference.
And it's a generation which I would say is normally characterized by almost single shooter POV style writing.And so I like people departing from that.
I think this is the book where she, you know, she's liberated herself from the epistolary form and I am like what I like.This is really the most classically written novel.I said my piece that I didn't love Peter's narration.
I found it too disjointed and I could never fully settle into it.But Sally Rooney can really write.And I appreciated a long, fat novel.
Yes, I think we all appreciate the gift of a substantial read to curl up with.
Thank you, Sadie.Yes.And I think that there are moments in the book that really sing from a lyrical standpoint.I think lyrical writing is some of the hardest to pull off, or at least that's what Joseph O'Neill told me, and I believe him.
And that's pretty much all I have to say about the style.
I think even in Peter's bits, there was quite a bit of poetry to that, I think.As stark and as clipped as it was supposed to be, to me it felt very lyrical.In fact, even more so than the other bits, than the other narration.
Do you remember when we started talking, I said that my feelings had changed when I started reading it a little bit more immersively myself.And I think that's part of what I mean is that I found some of the pacing a little jarring initially.
And then when I just spent a whole weekend just lying around doing nothing but reading this book and allowed myself to fully surrender to it, I suddenly grew to appreciate a lot of things about it.
And they aren't necessarily interesting stylistic things.
Now that you say it, Sadie, like probably the most positive endorsement I can say for this style is like every relationship, romantic or friendship, but I think you feel it more keenly in romantic relationships.You develop your own demotic.
You have your own way of speaking.You have your own way of interacting with each other.And maybe that's what this book does impose on you.It's like the same different kind of vocabulary or lexicon that you have in a very specific relationship.
And that's the thing you miss when a relationship's over, right?So maybe it comes close to replicating that feeling.
My frustration with the style is I wanted it to go for it more.I think, Dave, you mentioned Joyce-ian.
There is a fluidity and a malleability of how Joyce and his stream of consciousness, especially in a book like Ulysses, for instance, it's always changing and morphing based on the character's mental states. And that doesn't happen with Peter.
Peter is on Xanax half the time, he is drunk half the time, he is high half the time.Sometimes he's calm, sometimes he's anxious, but his style never changes.And the style seemed to be reflecting his mental state at a given time.
I wanted that to feel more fluid than it actually was.So that's my gripe. But I did get lost in it.
And then more than anything, what I love about Sally Rooney's writing is her, not even just like the sentence structure, but her eye, the details that she lights on.
And I feel like she's really great at highlighting what I kept calling the freighted ambivalences of romance.And can I read a quote?
The quote is, I think it's part of when Margaret and Ivan are getting together for the first time, and Sally Rooney writes, Then he kisses her again.It is, of course, a desperately embarrassing situation.
A situation which seems to render her entire life meaningless.Her professional life, eight years of marriage, whatever she believes about her personal values, everything.
And yet, accepting the premise, allowing life to mean nothing for a moment, doesn't it simply feel good to be in the arms of this person?Feeling that he wants her, that all evening he has been looking at her and desiring her, isn't it pleasurable?
To embody the kind of woman he believed he couldn't have, to incorporate that woman into herself and allow him to have her. Pressed against her, his body is thin and tensed and shivering.
And what if life is just a collection of essentially unrelated experiences?Why does one thing have to follow meaningfully from another?
I mentioned how I thought some of the characters were flat, but just that passage alone, the emotional complexity and emotional journey of it felt so rich to me.
I'm hearing some concessions here, guys, from all three of you.
Sorry, listeners, you haven't seen Dave's crowbar that he's kept under the desk.
I just want to ask, are there any last things you want to touch on?And while you think, I just want to share a reader comment that I thought was really astute and I really loved reading.Grace from New York writes,
One of my favorite things about Sally Rooney's writing in general, and Intermezzo in particular, is her ability to show that caring for someone, loving someone, and being good for someone are three different things.
Intermezzo explores how loving someone is vulnerable and makes you hurt each other and yourself.The way emotional power structures inform how characters conceptualize love shows a defining part of modern relationships and modern romance.
I just thought that was really thoughtful and wanted to share that.
I can't top that.Get this reader.Yeah, Grace, come on the podcast.What are you doing next month?
Yeah, to me, it really showed the kind of deep irony of love and how destructive and miserable it can be.And yet it's so indispensable, like we cannot function without it.And it really illustrated that as cheesy as it sounds.I really felt that.
The violins are going to start swelling.
I know.Huey Lewis is still here.
He's been here the whole time.
I've been here the whole time, just sitting on the desk, just waiting.
What if we just make Dave, like, read and watch rom-coms?I think I'm ready.
Speaking of spinoff podcasts, let's do a spinoff segment.We have some book recommendations.
This time, inspired by Sally Rooney's label as the quote, first great millennial novelist, I wanted to know what are other books that come to mind when you think of the millennial novel? I want to keep that very broad.I want to keep that very open.
That can mean a book about specifically millennials.It could be a book that feels like it captures a particular millennial voice or experience.It could be a book that felt like a millennial publishing moment.
What is a book that this moniker, millennial novel, made you think of?I'm seeing some quizzical looks from truly everybody in the studio.
My look is terrified because I'm really panicking.
The only one I can think of is Private Citizens by Tony Tulidamudi, which is a satire of Silicon Valley, basically.I would, I guess I would call that a millennial novel.
Talk to me about why it came to mind and then why you're like hesitating.What is this book?
A, I'm tired of being affiliated with my generation, because I don't think that we have much to show for ourselves in the literary department.What have been the great zeitgeisty books of the last 10 years?
For me, this is technically not It doesn't follow millennials, but I feel like it was a millennial moment and definitely has a millennial-themed cover, and that is The Idiot by Aleph Bateman.
I feel like the voice of that book, it's clean, it's blunt, it's sharp, it's anxious but knowing, it's wry.Something about the specific blend of the main character's voice in The Idiot felt to me distinctly millennial. Even though she's an exer.
Even though she's an exer.But something about that book feels like a millennial moment for me.And also remember when that book came out and everyone was like, millennial pink book covers.And like, that also is probably making the association for me.
But I have a list if I want to. Okay, so I thought of Luster by Raven Leilani.I mentioned The Idiot.
We have to talk about Halle Butler, the new me, millennials in the workforce floundering, and then also, but now a nightmare, I think people were calling the first millennial midlife crisis novel.
And then, for me, I have Burnham Wood by Eleanor Catton, which I think those characters are technically Gen Z, but the relationship dynamic felt very Rooney to me at the start.But can I ask,
Jumana, you mentioned not wanting to be tied to this particular generation.We're all having trouble thinking of the millennial novel.
What is it about, like... I think it's because we're millennials.We don't feel like a book really speaks to me.
I'm too special for any of you.
Exactly.No one wants to feel like they're just another millennial.I guess I'm a geriatric millennial, which that term gets funnier to me as I get older.Or I should say less and less funny as I get older.I prefer ex-millennial.
about that term, as with everything we're talking about, is it has to do with technology, right?
Like when it entered your life, when a phone became an everyday part of your life, if you started with dial-up and blogs, that's very different from coming of age with social media.It just is.And so I think it's a particularly hard moment to capture.
And I think it's one of the reasons Sally Rooney is notable because she started very young.And so she's been capturing each stage of it.And I think we don't yet know what this moment has been besides chaotic and difficult to cope with fictionally.
I think that's a wonderful note to end on.And I just want to say, Sadie, Dave, Jumana, thank you so much for this conversation.This was really fun.Dave, you were right.You did hear some kind of hedging, some convincing.
This is why I love talking to you about books.
Yeah, it's great.And you've got, you guys have really made me like this book a little less, which I'm not sure why.It's a good thing, but I am receptive to your book.
This is what the book club is all about.The only problem with this one is that I don't hate anyone in this room.
Thank you to everybody who read along with us online and joined the conversation.Thank you to those readers whose comments I read early in this episode.Everyone, please keep the conversation going.
Again, we have an online book club hub for our intermezzo discussion.You can find it at nytimes.com slash sallyrooneybookclub hyphens between sallyrooneybookclub every word there.
And also, a tease at the beginning of the episode that we were gonna reveal our November book selection, and here we are.In November, we'll be discussing 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.We hope you'll join us.
And in the meantime, happy reading.
That was our monthly book club discussion, this one about Intermezzo by Sally Rooney, MJ Franklin hosting in conversation with Jumana Khatib, Sadie Stein, and Dave Kim.I'm Gilbert Cruz, editor of the New York Times Book Review.Thanks for listening.
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