Asymmetry
The first thing a reader might want to know about this novel is why it's entitled ASYMMETRY.
The book consists of two novellas and a short story: FOLLY; MADNESS and EZRA BLAZER'S DESERT ISLAND DISCS.
If you agree that “asymmetry” means unbalanced, the first one is rather easy to figure out. A young woman, Alice, is having an affair with a famous, older author. Their combined age is 97; she's 27 towards the end of that section. She notices he's looking “decrepit” and that he takes a lot of pills. I was immediately reminded of the J.D. Salinger, Joyce Maynard affair. Anyway, it's a folly. She works as an assistant editor at a publishing house, but she doesn't know who Camus was, pronouncing his name, “K-mus”. He asks her at one point if she doesn't has any higher ambitions. She can't answer that.
The second one, MURDER takes a hundred and eighty degrees flip. It's about an Iraqi-American PhD candidate born in America who gets stuck at the airport trying to get into England to briefly connect with a journalist friend, take a flight to Turkey, then go on to be with his family in Iraq. He's refused entry, despite the fact that he once held an internship there as an undergraduate in medicine. The obvious title reference is to the kidnapping of his uncle; his family pays most of the ransom, but all they get in return is his dead body. There's lots of talk about how the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. Once the Americans defeated Saddam, the regular population turned against the Americans. Here's where the asymmetry comes in. Americans make New Year's Eve resolutions; the Iraqis can't relate; they don't know if they'll wake up in the morning.
The final section moves back to Ezra Blazer; he's doing an interview on PBS radio. One of the questions the interviewer asks is what he'd take with him if he were stranded on a Desert Island. The book he picks is ULYSSES, the strange, esoteric book by James Joyce, about a day in the life of a Dubliner. Ezra regrets never writing a book about Pittsburg where he was born. He also makes a pass at the lady interviewer who is married with two kids. The only similarity I could see with the first episode is that he refers to himself as “decrepit”. The whole interview centers, first off on Blazer's favorite music which is almost all classical, rather like Ulysses in that you need notes in order to know who or what he's talking about. I read the “topics and questions for discussion” at the end. Alice in Wonderland was mentioned as a possible connection between all three sections. Alice went down a rabbit hole with Ezra and Amar went down a rabbit hole with his family in Iraq, but otherwise I barely remembered the references.
The book consists of two novellas and a short story: FOLLY; MADNESS and EZRA BLAZER'S DESERT ISLAND DISCS.
If you agree that “asymmetry” means unbalanced, the first one is rather easy to figure out. A young woman, Alice, is having an affair with a famous, older author. Their combined age is 97; she's 27 towards the end of that section. She notices he's looking “decrepit” and that he takes a lot of pills. I was immediately reminded of the J.D. Salinger, Joyce Maynard affair. Anyway, it's a folly. She works as an assistant editor at a publishing house, but she doesn't know who Camus was, pronouncing his name, “K-mus”. He asks her at one point if she doesn't has any higher ambitions. She can't answer that.
The second one, MURDER takes a hundred and eighty degrees flip. It's about an Iraqi-American PhD candidate born in America who gets stuck at the airport trying to get into England to briefly connect with a journalist friend, take a flight to Turkey, then go on to be with his family in Iraq. He's refused entry, despite the fact that he once held an internship there as an undergraduate in medicine. The obvious title reference is to the kidnapping of his uncle; his family pays most of the ransom, but all they get in return is his dead body. There's lots of talk about how the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. Once the Americans defeated Saddam, the regular population turned against the Americans. Here's where the asymmetry comes in. Americans make New Year's Eve resolutions; the Iraqis can't relate; they don't know if they'll wake up in the morning.
The final section moves back to Ezra Blazer; he's doing an interview on PBS radio. One of the questions the interviewer asks is what he'd take with him if he were stranded on a Desert Island. The book he picks is ULYSSES, the strange, esoteric book by James Joyce, about a day in the life of a Dubliner. Ezra regrets never writing a book about Pittsburg where he was born. He also makes a pass at the lady interviewer who is married with two kids. The only similarity I could see with the first episode is that he refers to himself as “decrepit”. The whole interview centers, first off on Blazer's favorite music which is almost all classical, rather like Ulysses in that you need notes in order to know who or what he's talking about. I read the “topics and questions for discussion” at the end. Alice in Wonderland was mentioned as a possible connection between all three sections. Alice went down a rabbit hole with Ezra and Amar went down a rabbit hole with his family in Iraq, but otherwise I barely remembered the references.
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