Caller ID Is Blocked

This notification, on Alice's phone, symbolizes a call from Ezra every time it appears in the novel. It also points to Ezra's studious maintenance of his privacy.

The Nobel Prize in Literature

The esteemed prize, for which Ezra is repeatedly passed over -- until, we learn at the end of the novel, 2010 -- symbolizes the restless dissatisfaction that comes with literary fame of the sort Ezra possesses. Although he has won nearly every literary accolade imaginable, and is critically acclaimed and read worldwide, it continually bothers him that he is not awarded the Nobel.

Books

The books Ezra gives Alice over the course of their relationship symbolize his expansion of her horizons, and how his influence introduces Alice to worlds and ideas with which she had been previously unfamiliar.

Samantha Bargeman

Samantha Bargeman -- the alias Ezra chooses for Alice, so she can...