Older Women

Journal: 126

I’ve dated women older than me a couple of times but it has never felt right (and no, I haven’t dated anyone at all for years). I wonder why that is so. It made sense when I was younger, girls mature earlier than boys, earlier than I did anyway, common sense and EQ have always been my weak points.

This occurs to me, again, in the context of reading Intermezzo, Sally Rooney’s latest novel, released in the last couple of months. I had a copy on order and read it as soon as I had it in my hands, but somehow, a review got put on the backburner in the face of other things I just had to post.

I’ve never been happy with Rooney being criticised for writing about angsty 20 somethings (and the flood of writers copying her is not her fault); 20 something is what she was when she came up with her first two novels. Then her third, Beautiful World, Where Are You (2021), was about a thirtyish, successful author – ie. where she was at that time – her best friend and their boyfriends, so hopefully that, and now this more mature work, ends that line of criticism.

Intermezzo – and I don’t understand the title, nothing is between any other things (then I see ‘Intermezzo meaning, chess’: ‘Zwischenzug, also known as “intermezzo” in Italian and “in-between move” in English, is an unexpected move that poses a severe threat and forces an immediate response. This type of move usually happens in-between exchanges or tactical combinations ..’, so there you have it) – is the story of a short period in the life of two Irish brothers following the death of their father.

The brothers are Peter, 32 who works in Dublin and his 9 years younger brother Ivan who is a former chess prodigy now playing less than excellent chess for small sums in rural tournaments and exhibitions. Ivan takes up with an older – late thirtys – woman, Margaret (hence the paras above).

Rooney is experimenting with style. You get the impression her early success caught her unawares, that she is still working out how she wants to write. Beautiful World was a mixture of deadpan description and modern epistolary; Intermezzo alternates close third person between Peter and Ivan, but Peter’s voice is distinctive, an almost staccato stream of consciousness.

Didn’t seem fair on the young lad. That suit at the funeral. With the braces on his teeth, the supreme discomfort of the adolescent. On such occasions one could almost come to regret one’s own social brilliance… God love him. Nearly twenty-three now: Ivan the terrible. (Peter)

Peter’s girlfriend, Naomi, is Ivan’s age – I am reminded of E von Arnim in Love using the same contrast: the older woman with the younger man, vs her daughter and her daughter’s much older husband – but he is still in love with Sylvia, his own age, who was destined to be his lifelong partner when an accident rendered sex too painful for her to endure, and the relationship ended, though she is still his best friend.

So the dramas to be resolved are Ivan and Margaret coming to terms with their relative ages; Ivan and his mother, who left the father and remarried a man with sons Ivan’s age who make him feel shut out; Ivan and Peter fighting, dealing with the death of their father; the Peter, Naomi, Sylvia triangle

Rooney continues her struggle with ideas of the meaning of it all (which I don’t agree with, so I’m glad she’s a feminist, Marxist, pro-Palestinian):

It’s like the order is so deep, and it’s so beautiful, I feel there must be something underneath it all. And at other times, I think it’s just chaos, and there’s nothing. maybe the whole idea of order comes from some eveolutionary advantage, whatever it is. We recognise patterns where there are no patterns… when I experience that sense of beauty, it does make me believe in God. (Ivan)

It’s all wrapped up nicely, too nicely for some tastes, though I think she did Peter, Naomi, Sylvia vary well.

Sally Rooney, Intermezzo, Faber, London, 2024. 440pp

Looking back on my review for Beautiful World three years ago, I see it coincided with my first job for Anthony at Perth Heavy Haulage. I’m still working for him, though he hasn’t had a lot on this year, and I’ve been getting work from another machinery haulage company; but here’s a photo of me with some more ‘Tonka toys’ for him a couple of weeks ago, at a mine near Onslow.

Melanie/Grab the Lapels keeps an eye on my work blog (which is mostly just pictures) and was surprised by the number of dirt roads I travel. The trip after this one was postponed due to rain, but I’ve only been bogged once (so far).

You’ll be pleased to hear my work for my daughter was successful, ‘our’ thesis was accepted without revision and she now has her PhD (in Geology). She has, in the space of 12 months, in her early forties, become both a Dr and a grandmother. And she still has two children under primary school age! She’s a superwoman. I’m off down to Albany tomorrow for the awards ceremony.

Recent audiobooks 

Daniella Kriem (F, Ger), Love in Case of Emergency (2020)
Nicola Cornick (F, Eng), The Forgotten Sister (2020) Hist.Fic/Crime
Scott Turow (M, USA), The Last Trial (2020) Crime
Olivia Hawker (F, USA), The Rise of Light (2021)
Marcus Zusak (M, Aust/NSW), Three Wild Dogs (2024)
Charity Norman (F, NZ), Remember Me (2022)
Adele Parks (F, Eng), Lies, Lies, Lies (2020) – unlikeable characters. DNF
Maya Angelou (F, USA), I Know why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) – memoir
Abdulrazak Gurnah (M, Uk/Tanzania), After Lives (2020) (review)

Currently Reading 

Haruki Murakami (M, Jap), The City and its Uncertain Walls (2024)
Marcus Clarke (M, Aust/Vic), For the Term of His Natural Life (1874)
Natsuko Imamura (F, Jap), Asa: The Girl who Turned into a Pair of Chopsticks (2024) Short Stories
Suzumi Suzuki (F, Jap), Gifted (2022)

AWWC Nov. 2024