Asymmetry: A Novel

I read this book quickly, and greedily, and yet, now that I am finished with it I find that I understood perhaps very little of it and will have to go back and read it again. This is not to say I didn't enjoy the book. I loved it. The writing is superb: elegant, graceful, understated and deeply connected. And there is so much sly humor that I found myself laughing out loud, particularly in the second half, in what could be described as the "dark" half. And yet, because the two separate story lines that form the book are indeed "asymmetrical" it's challenging to assign meaning to this narrative without a closer look. To me, that is the mark of a truly good book, one that has you immediately turning to page one as soon as you've finish the last word, eager to re-enter the world of the novel with a different perspective. Like life, Halliday has created an experience that is multi layered, mysterious, and complicated. And like life, I need to ponder it,and explore it, to fully understand its meaning. I highly recommend this book, if nothing else, for the brain tease it will provide you.

Encouraged by its being one of NYT 100 notable books and several of the blurbs I waded into this, intrigued by the characters in the first twenty pages or so, I kept going with increasing boredom and frustration with the tedious dialogue and lack of character development. It is rare that I don't finish a book. I couldn't justify continuing with this one.

This book, which is essentially a study of the imbalance of power in relationships, was brilliant…but boring. Philosophical…but perplexing. Intriguing…but incongruous.Written by Lisa Halliday, it is actually three novellas, the first two of which have nothing in common and the third of which is a somewhat lame attempt to unite the first two.The first story, "Folly," is a May-December romance between Alice and Ezra that some critics say is a roman a clef about Halliday's own affair with Philip Roth with lots of allusions to "Alice in Wonderland." The second story, "Madness," is about Amar, a young American man of Iraqi heritage, who is detained for several days at Heathrow Airport based (presumably) on ethnic profiling. The story flashes back and forth between the airport nightmare and his life story until then. The third story is a radio interview with Ezra, and in the answer to one of the many questions he is asked, he unites the first two stories. Sort of."Asymmetry" is high-brow literary fiction at its snobbiest and most pretentious, and I was totally underwhelmed.

A thinking book. Beautiful prose hooks the reader in the first chapter then ends abruptly with a seemingly unrelated story about a detention in Heathrow airport. Still well-written- it's hard to get invested in characters that appear strung together. The last chapter lost both me and the additional stars. I grew to hate the pompous writer. It wasn't until a discussion group that I got the full intention of the author. The only way I can describe this book is passive-aggressive. I would have enjoyed the full story of the December-May, Eliza Doolittle romance rather than the suggestion through three unrelated short-stories. This is the time when the idea of show- don't tell may get lost in translation. Either way- it was thoughtfully and precisely written.

I find it hard to understand what all the hype is about. There are clues throughout the book that the reader can pick up to sort-of string the narratives together, but overall the book is a stylishly written mess.

The first section is a brilliant expose of an asymmetrical relationship. Halliday captured a famous aging author and her time with him in a riveting and well written piece. The second section Madness was her own work to make her mentor's point ... write what you know in great detail. She did a great job of failing to follow his advice, but it was too tedious for the reader to endure. Two dimensional characters in a story which she had no connection with, a never - ending boring tale. The third section, the interview was a throw-away and insulting. The first and third parts of the book also seemed to be a listing of famous works of authors and composers for no particular integral reason. It did not serve to connect us to Ezra. If you have to work this hard to analyze a novel to get through its layers it will disappoint. It did.

I enjoyed the first and third parts, but found the second part to be lacking (the airport scenes were great, but the Iraq locations lost me). Somehow I understood the connection between the parts without having read any interviews or reviews first, but that wasn't common among my friends and I highly recommend some research in advance of reading it (others were confused and lost interest and missed context, all of which can be avoided by reading about the connection ahead of time). The book is very much written by and for a high brow literary crowd rather than the mass consumer (I actually found it was trying too hard with the references and clever tricks).

I read this book almost nonstop, pausing only to sleep and take care of work obligations. Otherwise, i read it while eating meals, while waiting for the next conference seminar to begin, every spare moment. It's possible that a sliver of that could be attributed to a bewildered reel at the death of Philip Roth (who was oblique inspiration for a character in here). But i think the majority of it was the twisty, complex, convoluted Rube Goldberg machine of its structure and interwoven themes.