Asymmetry

Got 14% into this, and don't quite feel in the mood for this May-December romance. I already had a share of naive-girl-with-older-men by reading [b:The Lesser Bohemians 28363987 The Lesser Bohemians Eimear McBride https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1469511945l/28363987.SY75.jpg 48208213] and [b:Conversations with Friends 32187419 Conversations with Friends Sally Rooney https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1500031338l/32187419.SY75.jpg 52827120]. This one squeaks me out a bit more, considering she's in her early/mid twenties, while he is in his 60ies/70ies?

Typisch gevalletje verwachtingsmanagement... Het schijnt een fantastisch boek te zijn maar na afloop moest ik toch eens wat gaan Googlen om te kijken waarom.

Drie delen – deel 1 gaat over de relatie tussen een oudere schrijver en een jonge schrijfster-to-be. Het middendeel vertelt het verhaal van een Amerikaanse Irakees die voor een bezoek aan zijn broer terug gaat naar Irak (en flashbacks van een eerder bezoek), ten tijde van de Golfoorlog. Deel drie is een radio-interview met de schrijver uit deel 1.

De drie delen horen bij elkaar, en er is een heel duidelijke connectie tussen de delen, maar kennelijk heb ik niet zorgvuldig genoeg gelezen, want aan het eind was het kwartje niet gevallen.

Verder is het wel een “literair” boek, met veel verwijzingen naar andere boeken, en is deel 1 behoorlijk autobiografisch. Zonder (voor)kennis gaat daar denk ik ook wel wat verloren.

Misschien is 2* toch wat bot, de drie delen zijn prima leesbaar, maar als geheel viel het tegen.

DNF, p.139 (almost halfway).

Asymmetry (the concept) fascinates me: so much of our world is defined by imbalances in power, desire, ability, and most especially information. Every day, and I really mean every day, I spend time observing and analyzing aspects of my life in terms of asymmetries.

Asymmetry (this book) explores the asymmetry of sex between a mid-seventies man and a mid-twenties woman, neither of them in any way interesting or with any spark of soul. No connection between them.

I actually found myself reading beyond page 50 out of curiosity: contemplating my asymmetry of interest. Wondering if there was something for me to learn. I sought counsel today from two wise friends who had finished the book some years ago. I am heeding their advice.

I had high hopes for this book, as many reviewed it to be weird and strange and that is just what I like. However, I didn't find it to be that strange at all. It was broken into seemingly unrelated parts, was fairly lofty, and moved much too slowly, but otherwise was not much different to any other novel. The subject matter didn't interest me all that much, which made it a long read, but I will say the writing was excellent. There were many quotable, shining moments. If Lisa Halliday wrote another book on a topic I was more interested in I would definitely read it.

DNF - couldn't really get into it. I got lost right from the beginning and Alice's relationship with Ezra although intriguing as it was didn't really bring me much appreciation for them or continuing with the book.

I thought a lot about what to rate this book, and still I'm not sure I came up with a good reasoning behind 3 stars. The writing is good- superb even, especially in the first novella. I understand she wanted the reader to do much of the connecting of the dots, but I felt that the trail had too few breadcrumbs for it to feel triumphant at the end.

Looking up the author's background & relationship to Philip Roth certainly was intriguing though.

I feel like I might be thinking about this one for awhile... but not necessarily in a good way?

“As soon as you are born the sand starts falling and only by demanding to be remembered do you stand a chance of it being upturned again and again.”

I think Asymmetry may have a tough time finding its audience. It's a difficult book for the casual reader in some ways: the prose is simple enough, but the structure is entirely a different matter. I think most readers are going to say “what the hell was that about?” while other more astute but critical readers will say “that was hella pretentious.”

The “problem” rests in that Asymmetry is three very distinct stories tied together by the thinnest of threads. “But there's no thread at all,” many readers will say. There is and there isn't. You see, it's all very metafictional and I'm all about the meta. In Part I we have a young woman, Alice, from Massachusetts who works as an editor, dreams of living in Europe, and develops a romantic relationship with a much older National-Book-Award-winning author. The author of Asymmetry, Lisa Halliday, is herself a former editor from Massachusetts who now lives in Italy. Whether truly based on the author's personal experiences or not, it is logical for a reader to assume that Alice is autobiographical. And therein lies the brilliance of Asymmetry because we do not really know Lisa Halliday's story, we only make assumptions based on the few facts we do know. But then Halliday goes in the opposite direction. In a time when we too often question the writer's ability to write from any other perspective than their own, Halliday turns the book on its head and writes a very different story.

A young friend of mine has written a rather surprising little novel about this, in its way. About the extent to which we're able to penetrate the looking-glass and imagine a life, indeed a consciousness, that goes some way to reduce the blind spots in our own. It's a novel that on the surface would seem to have nothing to do with its author, but in fact is a kind of veiled portrait of someone determined to transcend her provenance, her privilege, her naiveté.

...even someone who imagines for a living is forever bound by the ultimate constraint: she can hold her mirror up to whatever subject she chooses, at whatever angle she likes—she can even hold it such that she herself remains outside its frame, the better to de-narcissize the view—but there's no getting around the fact that she's always the one holding the mirror. And just because you can't see yourself in a reflection doesn't mean no one can.

Asymmetry

Asymmetry

Asymmetry