Catherine Raynes: Intermezzo and The Siege

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney  

Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common. 
 
Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent, and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke. 
 
Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined. 
 
For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair, and possibility; a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking. 
  
For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude – a period of desire, despair and possibility – a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.  

    

The Siege by Ben Macintyre  

Britain’s best-selling historian writes the first definitive account of the famous televised SAS storming of the Iranian embassy in London in 1980. 

On April 30, 1980, six heavily armed gunmen burst into the Iranian embassy on Princes Gate, overlooking Hyde Park in London. There they took 26 hostages, including embassy staff, visitors, and three British citizens. A tense six-day siege ensued as millions gathered around screens across the country to witness the longest news flash in British television history, in which police negotiators and psychiatrists sought a bloodless end to the standoff, while the SAS – hitherto an organisation shrouded in secrecy – laid plans for a daring rescue mission: Operation Nimrod. 

Drawing on unpublished source material, exclusive interviews with the SAS, and testimony from witnesses including hostages, negotiators, intelligence officers and the on-site psychiatrist, bestselling historian Ben Macintyre takes readers on a gripping journey from the years and weeks of build-up on both sides, to the minute-by-minute account of the siege and rescue. 

Recreating the dramatic conversations between negotiators and hostages, the cutting-edge intelligence work happening behind-the-scenes, and the media frenzy around this moment of international significance, The Siege is the remarkable story of what really happened on those fateful six days, and the first full account of a moment that forever changed the way the nation thought about the SAS – and itself. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks at Me.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Catherine Rain's out book reviewer, has here with what might
be the most keenly anticipated new book of this year.
Hey Catherine, Hey Jack, So tell us about Sally Rooney's Intimzzo.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
So this follows to brothers Peter and Ivan, and they've
just lost their father, had been battling cancer for many years,
and their mother divorced their father years ago, and she's
kind of present in the story, but not particularly involved
in their lives. That she's got a new husband and
step children. And Peter's in his early thirties and he's
a civil rights lawyer, and he's this very kind of
cool presence about him. And he's actually juggling two relationships,

(00:44):
one with Sylvia, his first love, who he's stayed very
close to, and Naomi, who's a college student who's very
carefree attitude, and she makes money from her online following.
And then is Ivan, and he's in his early thirties
and he was a chess prodigy and after a few
years of dealing with his father's illness and struggling to
find success again both in his personal life and professionally,

(01:04):
and he's quite socially awkward, almost the complete opposite of
his older brother. And he's fallen in love with this
older woman, Margaret, who's dealing with divorce, and you know,
she's not sure about their less than conventional romance. And
the cracks of the story that is revolving around these
two brothers and their respective in their lives and their
inability to connect with each other after the loss of

(01:25):
their father and the grief that it causes. And Peter's
playing games with the woman's in his life and Ivan
seeking solace and some old friends and chess, and both
are in over their heads and they hurt themselves in
each other. And the books divided into three parts, and
Sally Rooney builds the tension just in a very intense way.

(01:46):
And the third part is the characters and storylines when
the first two halves begin to meld together, and Peter's
chapters are written in the stream of consciousness style and
Ivan's chapters are real contrast to this, and you know,
like how his mind works and very structured and methodical,
and so you get this story that's also told with
the background of social commentary around it as well. Wage

(02:06):
labor and housing crisis, and monetary power dynamics, and religion
and discussions about all sorts of different things. And it's
beautifully told and very masterfully written, and yet it's well
worth a read.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Sounds great, Okay, cool. So that's intermezzo by Sally Rooney.
How do you reckon it compares to her other books?

Speaker 3 (02:24):
Catherine Um, it would be one of would be one
of the ones that I It's probably not my favorite,
but it would probably be second or third in the rankings.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yeah, I'm very good. Okay. So next up The Siege
by Ben mc By Ben McIntyre.

Speaker 3 (02:40):
So this is nonfiction and it starts in the spring
of nineteen eighty when six armed gunmen storm the Iranian
m embassy in London and take hostages and cause this
very tense six days in which there's British priests and negotiators,
intelligent agencies, the SAS, and they're scrambling to de escalate
this very volatile situation that could erupt. And this small

(03:05):
group of of men who take these twenty six hostages captive,
and there's amongst that is some bb Bleck Sea employees
and this British policeman, a guy called Trevor Locke, who
worked at the embassy and at the perception at the
time was that these were a very clearche Arab group
of terrorists, and they were actually mostly educated protesters who
were against the regime of the aldertokmen who had betrayed,

(03:27):
who felt they'd betrayed their dreams of this independent Arabistan
when the beauti brutal regime of the Shah was overthrown,
and they wanted Britain to take their side in the
independence battle. And this not known by anybody at the time.
This whole operation was bankrolled by said at the police
secret police force of Sadam Hussein, and the operation was

(03:48):
planned by two very notorious terrorists at the time. And
of course this is all captured on live television as well,
and it's just this. You get this, you know, You've
got the police, negotiators, the rival protesters clashing outside the
embassy six and the CIA and everybody's trying to rescue them.
But in side there's Locke and his fellow hostages who

(04:08):
were trying to outwit and outflank their captors. And then
on the sixth day, after terror's terrorists execute the embassy
press attache and dumped his body on the front deilstep
that sparks the essays ray, and you get this story
of ordinary men and women under immense pressure, and Ben
McIntyre is able to with the meticulous research that he's done,

(04:28):
and you get the book that kind of conveys that
tension inside and what happens between the hostages and the captors,
and the volatile mood swings and what the public are
thinking and the paranoia and all sorts of things that
are going on, and you get this very fascinating historical
narrative story that still has ramifications today and it's but
well told. You feel like the parts of the story

(04:50):
and the historical things all come together and yeah, makes
a very good read.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
This sounds awesome, Okay, cool. So that's The Siege by
Ben McIntire. Catherine's firs book, of course, is Intimatezo by
Sally Rooney. Both of those will be on the website.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
For more From Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen live
to News to hawks Hed B from nine am Saturday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.