“Asymmetry” by Lisa Halliday (post 2): Part 2 confused one New York Times reviewer, and Part 3 is a parting shot

The New York Times says this is one of the 10 best books of 2018, and reviewed it more than once, but found Part 2 confusing:

“Trapped at the airport, Amar lets his consciousness wander. He tries to reconstruct periods of his life of which he has no memory — ‘Contemplating the blackouts in their aggregate makes my breath come short’ — and pursues epistemological puzzles with the casual and discursive intelligence of the truly bored” (1).

That is part of what I quoted in my last post, but it was not Amar speaking. It was his brother, Sami. I sympathize with the reviewer, because I, too, was not sure who was speaking, until I saw that it was followed by Amar’s remark, “You would have thought there was no one less erasable than my brother” (2, p. 138).

Part 3 is a return to Part 1’s elderly Ezra Blazer (Philip Roth). In the novel’s last line, and the author’s parting shot, he makes an on-air pass at his young radio interviewer, right after confirming that she is a married mother.

In conclusion, the only thing I noted in this novel that is relevant here is those memory gaps, which, if not necessary to the plot or character development, would reflect the psychology of the author.

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/12/books/review/lisa-halliday-asymmetry.html

2. Lisa Halliday. Asymmetry. New York, Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2018.