Status
Available
Genres
Collection
Publication
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, (2008)
Description
When Dr. Leo Liebenstein's wife disappears, she leaves behind a single, confounding clue: a woman who looks, talks, and behaves almost exactly like her and even audaciously claims to be her. While everyone else is fooled by this imposter, Leo knows better. Certain that his real wife is alive and in hiding, Leo embarks on a quixotic journey to reclaim his lost love. From the streets of New York to the southernmost reaches of Patagonia, Leo's quest becomes a test of how far he is willing to take his struggle against the seemingly uncontestable truth he knows in his heart to be false.
Media reviews
It’s unusual — in fact (why be coy?), it’s extremely rare — to come across a first novel by a woman writer that concerns itself with such quirky, philosophical, didactic explorations; a novel in which the heart and the brain vie for the role of protagonist, and the brain wins.
Meteorology, in Galchen's hands, becomes a fertile field, yielding insights into emotion and, in particular, the anxiety caused by knowing that we can never truly fathom the person we love.
User reviews
LibraryThing member JimElkins
The book is disturbed by the overly elaborate and deliberately artificial plot, as several reviewers (for example, the NYT) have noted. But Galchen's strength isn't large-scale, theatrically managed post-surrealism: it's the small-scale, deliberate disturbances she makes at the level of the
"Over the sound of milk being steamed I asked, alarmed, 'Do I stare at you?'"
That line is wonderful: "Do I stare" is just a little bit wrong, like many things in the book, and the detail about the steaming milk (in a coffeeshop) is typical of the concise and uncommon descriptive terms Galchen sprinkles throughout the book. The next line is:
"'You are from Hungary?' came from her, now in a louder voice, to the sound of silverware being sorted."
Almost every line of dialogue in the book is similarly exact and off-tone. Galchen's experiments, in that sense, are more in the line of Gertrude Stein, and that is where I hope her next novel takes her: away from the precious and artificial cleverness, and toward more common, everyday, inexcusable weirdness.
The idea of a psychotic narrator (not just an unreliable narrator, but one whose very reliable and predictable -- and in this case professional -- logic is used unremittingly to excuse and obscure his psychosis) is rare, and "Atmospheric Disturbances" belongs with the non-fiction "Memoirs of My Mental Illness." The problem is that "Memoirs" is real -- in it, a lawyer argues that his own psychosis is controllable -- and it is therefore much more serious, not at all campy, and also, incidentally, far more bizarre than "Atmospheric Disturbances." A closer comparison is Tom McCarthy's "Remainder": they are both meditations on loss of identity, and both cushion us from anything too painful by continuous shows of verbal and logical virtuosity. Less virtuosity, and there would be more danger.
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sentence. Here the narrator meets his future wife:"Over the sound of milk being steamed I asked, alarmed, 'Do I stare at you?'"
That line is wonderful: "Do I stare" is just a little bit wrong, like many things in the book, and the detail about the steaming milk (in a coffeeshop) is typical of the concise and uncommon descriptive terms Galchen sprinkles throughout the book. The next line is:
"'You are from Hungary?' came from her, now in a louder voice, to the sound of silverware being sorted."
Almost every line of dialogue in the book is similarly exact and off-tone. Galchen's experiments, in that sense, are more in the line of Gertrude Stein, and that is where I hope her next novel takes her: away from the precious and artificial cleverness, and toward more common, everyday, inexcusable weirdness.
The idea of a psychotic narrator (not just an unreliable narrator, but one whose very reliable and predictable -- and in this case professional -- logic is used unremittingly to excuse and obscure his psychosis) is rare, and "Atmospheric Disturbances" belongs with the non-fiction "Memoirs of My Mental Illness." The problem is that "Memoirs" is real -- in it, a lawyer argues that his own psychosis is controllable -- and it is therefore much more serious, not at all campy, and also, incidentally, far more bizarre than "Atmospheric Disturbances." A closer comparison is Tom McCarthy's "Remainder": they are both meditations on loss of identity, and both cushion us from anything too painful by continuous shows of verbal and logical virtuosity. Less virtuosity, and there would be more danger.
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LibraryThing member hairball
Can a book have too many conceits? And if it does, is that book then rendered conceited? I pondered this often as I read this book, wondering whether I wished to psychoanalyze the book, which it seemed to desire, or if I simply wanted to read the damn thing. Did I want to think about it, or really,
Leo, the antagonizing protagonist, has decided to cope with that moment everyone in a long-term relationship experiences--the moment when you look at your partner and think, Who the hell is that? Actually, he decides not to cope with it, by determining that his wife has been replaced by a stranger, rather than accepting that there are things he doesn't and can't know about her. Because, I guess, he's special; I mean, that's really a pompous way to look at things. (Leo so pompous, he wouldn't mind being called pompous. Frankly, if I were his wife, I might try to find a way out from under his overbearing clutches myself, but I wouldn't put another person in as a substitute.)
Every other damn person is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, or patient in this book. Why should the book be any different? Well, it's a book. And it's got a lot of things going on, as Leo tries to find his "real" wife. Maybe she did get replaced--I'm just giving you my grudging reading of the book. And ultimately it is, maybe a little, conceited.
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really think about it? And then other parts of my brain were thinking things like, Well, I can see how the author might read a technical paper on something completely unrelated to X, decide to decontextualize it and make it a springboard for fiction, in fact I can see doing that myself, but would I go through with it? Would it hold up?Leo, the antagonizing protagonist, has decided to cope with that moment everyone in a long-term relationship experiences--the moment when you look at your partner and think, Who the hell is that? Actually, he decides not to cope with it, by determining that his wife has been replaced by a stranger, rather than accepting that there are things he doesn't and can't know about her. Because, I guess, he's special; I mean, that's really a pompous way to look at things. (Leo so pompous, he wouldn't mind being called pompous. Frankly, if I were his wife, I might try to find a way out from under his overbearing clutches myself, but I wouldn't put another person in as a substitute.)
Every other damn person is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, or patient in this book. Why should the book be any different? Well, it's a book. And it's got a lot of things going on, as Leo tries to find his "real" wife. Maybe she did get replaced--I'm just giving you my grudging reading of the book. And ultimately it is, maybe a little, conceited.
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LibraryThing member whitreidtan
Surreal, confusing, draining, stilted, hyperreality, posturing, self-consciously clever and ultimately unsatisfying. These are just some of the words that immediately come to mind as I sit here trying to articulate my feelings about this book. For a different reader, one who enjoys postmodernism or
Superficially, the novel opens with psychiatrist Leo Liebenstein's assertion that his wife has been replaced with a simulacum, one who is so close to the original that only the most astute (his) observation could prove otherwise. Ostensibly, the reader is supposed to be clever enough to follow and accept his arguments as truth as well. And so Leo, after failing to convince this doppelganger to admit to her complicity in his real wife's disappearance, takes off on a mission to find the real Rema. His peripatetic journeyings are driven by signs he finds in the scientific (mind numbingly so) writings of meteorologist Tzvi Gal-Chen and by his disappeared pyschiatric patient Harvey, who believes that he controls the weather in his role as a secret agent.
The secondary characters are essentially incidental to the story, even Rema herself, as Leo's thoughts and feelings reign supreme here, even if the reader has determined that he is suffering from a mental illness (Capgras Syndrome for anyone curious enough to research it). Is this an appropriate conclusion on this reader's part? I can't say for certain but it made Leo slightly more sympathetic to me and so I had to go with it. Because honestly, aside from feeling that the main character was fairly delusional and therefore pitiable, I wasn't engaged by the story at all. It was, quite simply, tedious reading. I understood the line blurring going on between reality and perception and the juxtaposition between the scientific and the emotional but none of this questioning within the framework of a very slight story made for an appealing read. A book which isn't immediately accessible is not necessarily bad but it isn't automatically elevated into the pantheon of worthy and complex writing either, a place to which this particular book seems to aspire too graspingly. Obviously I didn't love this book but there certainly are loads of academicians and much higher brow reviewers who think it's all that and a bag of chips so look widely at the reviews before coming to any conclusions. As for me though, I'm sticking with my assessment: "The emperor's naked."
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post-postmodernism, perhaps these words would add up to a more enjoyable reading experience than they did for me.Superficially, the novel opens with psychiatrist Leo Liebenstein's assertion that his wife has been replaced with a simulacum, one who is so close to the original that only the most astute (his) observation could prove otherwise. Ostensibly, the reader is supposed to be clever enough to follow and accept his arguments as truth as well. And so Leo, after failing to convince this doppelganger to admit to her complicity in his real wife's disappearance, takes off on a mission to find the real Rema. His peripatetic journeyings are driven by signs he finds in the scientific (mind numbingly so) writings of meteorologist Tzvi Gal-Chen and by his disappeared pyschiatric patient Harvey, who believes that he controls the weather in his role as a secret agent.
The secondary characters are essentially incidental to the story, even Rema herself, as Leo's thoughts and feelings reign supreme here, even if the reader has determined that he is suffering from a mental illness (Capgras Syndrome for anyone curious enough to research it). Is this an appropriate conclusion on this reader's part? I can't say for certain but it made Leo slightly more sympathetic to me and so I had to go with it. Because honestly, aside from feeling that the main character was fairly delusional and therefore pitiable, I wasn't engaged by the story at all. It was, quite simply, tedious reading. I understood the line blurring going on between reality and perception and the juxtaposition between the scientific and the emotional but none of this questioning within the framework of a very slight story made for an appealing read. A book which isn't immediately accessible is not necessarily bad but it isn't automatically elevated into the pantheon of worthy and complex writing either, a place to which this particular book seems to aspire too graspingly. Obviously I didn't love this book but there certainly are loads of academicians and much higher brow reviewers who think it's all that and a bag of chips so look widely at the reviews before coming to any conclusions. As for me though, I'm sticking with my assessment: "The emperor's naked."
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LibraryThing member TheBookJunky
I read a short story by her a few months ago and enjoyed it immensely (The Region of Unlikeness, in the New Yorker, March 2008), so i was eager to read her first novel. I was disappointed somewhat, no a lot, I guess. This book is about a psychiatrist who believes his wife is not the woman he
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married but has been secretly replaced by an impostor. She is a good writer, but the book is too long, too tiresome, perhaps it is my frame of mind. Show Less
LibraryThing member searose
Like Pullman's Galatea, only reversed; male confusion written by a female author. Place: Britain Perks: Rema/Galatea, science facts, quirkiness.
LibraryThing member BHenricksen
" Atmospheric Disturbances," a first novel by Rivka Galchen, is filled with fun and promise as well as disappointment. Her narrator is a psychiatrist named Leo, who is certain that the woman who came home one day was not his wife but rather a perfect, or near perfect, simulacrum. Although this is a
Leo sets out in search of his true wife and of a patient who has also disappeared. The patient had seemed to have delusions about working for the Royal Academy of Meteorology on a secret project with military implications. A rival group known as the 49 is out to foil things. Have they kidnapped his wife?
As he proceeds on his quest, which takes him to Argentina, Leo consistently psychoanalyzes himself and others in an effort to remain convinced of his own sanity, and Galchen seems to have a firm grasp of the shop talk. But is he really mad, or are all the strange happenings not just in his mind? For much of the novel we tend to opt for the former explanation, but then things start to confirm his "delusions."
Of course I won't reveal the ending, but I will offer a reservation. The novel is disappointing in the amount of work it asks the reader to do to gain a clear picture of how this narrator's mind works and/or how his world turns. At times we wade so far into his brooding that we need hip boots, and we might wonder if it will be worth the effort. And I suspect that for many readers it will not be. Yet, in its best moments, the novel insinuates itself into the tradition of the great writers of distorted realities such Franz Kafka and Thomas Pynchon, and in fact Galchen's secret society, "49," is probably an homage to Pynchon's "The Crying of Lot 49."
If "Atmospheric Disturbances" sounds like your thing, you might also try "The Testing of Luther Albright" by MacKensie Bezos. Her protagonist is not as odd as Galchen's, but Luther also has a few screws that need tightening. This is a beautifully crafted psychological study in which everything in the external world correlates with cracks and stresses in Luther's mind. Is the dam he designed defective? Did he err when installing the plumbing in his house? For a controlling person like Luther Albright, these issues are symbolic of flaws in his relationships, or in his perceptions of them. Tension builds slowly, and the inner demons begin to emerge like cracks in a damn, or in the living room plaster.
Both of these are both first novels, and I think that Bezos's is the better crafted.
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syndrome familiar to psychologists, the author uses it to get the novel off to a promising start for readers who enjoy the bizarre. Leo sets out in search of his true wife and of a patient who has also disappeared. The patient had seemed to have delusions about working for the Royal Academy of Meteorology on a secret project with military implications. A rival group known as the 49 is out to foil things. Have they kidnapped his wife?
As he proceeds on his quest, which takes him to Argentina, Leo consistently psychoanalyzes himself and others in an effort to remain convinced of his own sanity, and Galchen seems to have a firm grasp of the shop talk. But is he really mad, or are all the strange happenings not just in his mind? For much of the novel we tend to opt for the former explanation, but then things start to confirm his "delusions."
Of course I won't reveal the ending, but I will offer a reservation. The novel is disappointing in the amount of work it asks the reader to do to gain a clear picture of how this narrator's mind works and/or how his world turns. At times we wade so far into his brooding that we need hip boots, and we might wonder if it will be worth the effort. And I suspect that for many readers it will not be. Yet, in its best moments, the novel insinuates itself into the tradition of the great writers of distorted realities such Franz Kafka and Thomas Pynchon, and in fact Galchen's secret society, "49," is probably an homage to Pynchon's "The Crying of Lot 49."
If "Atmospheric Disturbances" sounds like your thing, you might also try "The Testing of Luther Albright" by MacKensie Bezos. Her protagonist is not as odd as Galchen's, but Luther also has a few screws that need tightening. This is a beautifully crafted psychological study in which everything in the external world correlates with cracks and stresses in Luther's mind. Is the dam he designed defective? Did he err when installing the plumbing in his house? For a controlling person like Luther Albright, these issues are symbolic of flaws in his relationships, or in his perceptions of them. Tension builds slowly, and the inner demons begin to emerge like cracks in a damn, or in the living room plaster.
Both of these are both first novels, and I think that Bezos's is the better crafted.
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LibraryThing member lilithcat
While browsing the "New Books" shelf at my library, I picked up this book, which begins: "Last December a woman entered my apartment who looked exactly like my wife." Intrigued, I stood and read the first couple of pages and thought, "I must read this". Sadly, I have to report that the book does
When the protagonist, New York psychiatrist Leo Liebenstein, arrives at this conclusion, he is also dealing with a patient, Harvey, who believes that he is receiving secret orders from the Royal Academy of Meteorology in controlling the world's weather. Leo's "false" wife, Rema, whom he refers to as "the simulacrum", suggests that he pretend to be an agent of the RAM as well, transmitting directions from a meteorologist named Tsvi Gal-Chen. The relationship between this therapeutic fraud and Leo's search for the real Rema are the crux of Galchen's book.
Now, am I right? Those plots, and their intertwining, ought to make for good reading. But Galchen's prose is so dense and convoluted that it was hard to get through the book, much less enjoy it. I don't mind that it's never clear whether Liebenstein is himself suffering from mental illness (some reviews firmly state that he is suffering from Capgras Syndrome, though Galchen is never definite) or whether Rema really has been replaced by a fake. Nor do I mind that it's unclear whether the RAM really is trying to stop a cabal of errant meteorologists. What I do mind is that Galchen never makes me care about the outcome or her characters, so at the end (which is very unsatisfying, by the way) I just felt as though my struggle to finish had been a waste of time.
The fact that Galchen uses her own surname, names a person called "Tsvi" in the acknowledgements, and, as one discovers with a bit of research, has used parts of her father's work and history in her book, could have given the novel extra depth, but in Galchen's hands seems merely self-indulgent.
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not live up to its promise.When the protagonist, New York psychiatrist Leo Liebenstein, arrives at this conclusion, he is also dealing with a patient, Harvey, who believes that he is receiving secret orders from the Royal Academy of Meteorology in controlling the world's weather. Leo's "false" wife, Rema, whom he refers to as "the simulacrum", suggests that he pretend to be an agent of the RAM as well, transmitting directions from a meteorologist named Tsvi Gal-Chen. The relationship between this therapeutic fraud and Leo's search for the real Rema are the crux of Galchen's book.
Now, am I right? Those plots, and their intertwining, ought to make for good reading. But Galchen's prose is so dense and convoluted that it was hard to get through the book, much less enjoy it. I don't mind that it's never clear whether Liebenstein is himself suffering from mental illness (some reviews firmly state that he is suffering from Capgras Syndrome, though Galchen is never definite) or whether Rema really has been replaced by a fake. Nor do I mind that it's unclear whether the RAM really is trying to stop a cabal of errant meteorologists. What I do mind is that Galchen never makes me care about the outcome or her characters, so at the end (which is very unsatisfying, by the way) I just felt as though my struggle to finish had been a waste of time.
The fact that Galchen uses her own surname, names a person called "Tsvi" in the acknowledgements, and, as one discovers with a bit of research, has used parts of her father's work and history in her book, could have given the novel extra depth, but in Galchen's hands seems merely self-indulgent.
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LibraryThing member jcmontgomery
“Last December a woman entered my apartment who looked exactly like my wife.”
So starts the story of Dr. Leo Liebenstein and his search for his “real” wife Rema. However, it’s not that easy. As the reader comes to discover, reality is in the eye of the beholder. Is Rema really an imposter?
This book has received mixed reviews, and I can understand why. It isn’t for everyone. But…and there’s always a “but”, the mixed reviews come from readers like me who understand many works of literary merit, but not at the level of a professor or professional critic.
In the New York Times and some Lit-Fic blogs, it was received extremely well. And let me tell you, reading those reviews intimidated me about as much as the book did.
This is a first for me.
The reader brings to each book their own voice, the one in their mind that reads the narrative and deciphers its meaning. It is a voice schooled by life experiences as much as academia. And mine, apparently, isn’t up to the task of having to work as hard as I did to try and get through this book.
That doesn’t mean this is a poorly written book with a dismal plot and undeveloped characters. On the contrary, this book cannot be faulted for any of those reasons.
On simple terms, this is a story about relationships: one between a husband and wife and the other, of the person we are and the person we are expected to be. It is about what happens when these relationships break down and how, if not reconciled, we deal with the resulting fall out of loving someone we thought we knew – but didn’t, not completely.
Rating this book wais hard because I’m unsure of it being tarnished by the fact that I’m not cerebral enough to make this book work for me as it has for others. Also, it could be, that I just don’t have the right mindset at the moment to give this book a fair shake.
So starts the story of Dr. Leo Liebenstein and his search for his “real” wife Rema. However, it’s not that easy. As the reader comes to discover, reality is in the eye of the beholder. Is Rema really an imposter?
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Or is Leo having a crisis such that he can no longer recognize what he once took for granted? That what he has known all along is no longer the same. People change. But in his eyes, she is so different, she has to be another person altogether.This book has received mixed reviews, and I can understand why. It isn’t for everyone. But…and there’s always a “but”, the mixed reviews come from readers like me who understand many works of literary merit, but not at the level of a professor or professional critic.
In the New York Times and some Lit-Fic blogs, it was received extremely well. And let me tell you, reading those reviews intimidated me about as much as the book did.
This is a first for me.
The reader brings to each book their own voice, the one in their mind that reads the narrative and deciphers its meaning. It is a voice schooled by life experiences as much as academia. And mine, apparently, isn’t up to the task of having to work as hard as I did to try and get through this book.
That doesn’t mean this is a poorly written book with a dismal plot and undeveloped characters. On the contrary, this book cannot be faulted for any of those reasons.
On simple terms, this is a story about relationships: one between a husband and wife and the other, of the person we are and the person we are expected to be. It is about what happens when these relationships break down and how, if not reconciled, we deal with the resulting fall out of loving someone we thought we knew – but didn’t, not completely.
Rating this book wais hard because I’m unsure of it being tarnished by the fact that I’m not cerebral enough to make this book work for me as it has for others. Also, it could be, that I just don’t have the right mindset at the moment to give this book a fair shake.
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LibraryThing member bwdiederich
A subtly weird and emotionally affecting little book. I went in not sure what to expect and came out totally in love.
LibraryThing member Niecierpek
Dr Leo Lieberstein comes home one day, and realizes that his wife has been replaced by a simulacrum- a double who looks and behaves exactly like her, yet is not her. What ensues is both a poignant and funny story of Leo’s search for his ‘lost ‘wife.
It’s a really good, interesting and warm
It’s a really good, interesting and warm
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piece of writing. A dream novel for a book club- lends itself to endless interpretations and discussions as it’s rife with mind games bridging science and literature. Show Less
LibraryThing member Berly
The strange tale of Dr. Leo Liebenstein, his missing wife, Rema, and his psychiatric patient Harvey. Leo's wife returns one day with a dog and Leo senses right away that she is a forgery, a simulacrum. With the help of Harvey, who believes himself to be a secret agent capable of contoling the
"I saw the blond woman's face in the mirror, and if she appeared to be looking at the same point in the mirror that I was looking at, then actually she was looking at my face in the mirror while I was looking at her face in the mirror, that our faces could be in the same places (in the mirror) depending on just where one was looking from. So she wasn't thinking of, looking at, only herself. Nor was I thinking of just myself. That's just what it seemed like if one didn't account for anticipatable perceptive distortions."
Hmmm....On the other hand. There are little gems sprinkled throughout: "His response was neither random nor spontaneous; it was predetermined by his previous ideas about me; habits of thought are death to truth; I was outside of my habits; and he -- he was wrong." I kinda like that one.
Reminiscent of Kafka's explorations, but not nearly as deftly crafted. A bizarre little book. Strangely memorable.
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elements, Leo journeys throughout the world in search of his real true love. But is she really missing or is Leo simply going mad? Can overanalysis actually drive you nuts? Read the following excerpt and you decide:"I saw the blond woman's face in the mirror, and if she appeared to be looking at the same point in the mirror that I was looking at, then actually she was looking at my face in the mirror while I was looking at her face in the mirror, that our faces could be in the same places (in the mirror) depending on just where one was looking from. So she wasn't thinking of, looking at, only herself. Nor was I thinking of just myself. That's just what it seemed like if one didn't account for anticipatable perceptive distortions."
Hmmm....On the other hand. There are little gems sprinkled throughout: "His response was neither random nor spontaneous; it was predetermined by his previous ideas about me; habits of thought are death to truth; I was outside of my habits; and he -- he was wrong." I kinda like that one.
Reminiscent of Kafka's explorations, but not nearly as deftly crafted. A bizarre little book. Strangely memorable.
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LibraryThing member Othemts
This is an odd little novel in which a man becomes convinced that his wife has been replaced by a simulacrum and heads off on a wild-goose chase to her home in Argentina to find her. Along the way he gets caught up in what he calls a "meteorological conspiracy" and ruminates on things philosophical
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and psychological (as well as meteorological). I'm pretty certain that the unreliable narrator has a mental problem that makes him believe his wife has been replaced rather than that happening in actuality but the novel is never too clear on the subject. I need to take better notes of why certain books make it on my reading list. This almost reads like a fictional version of one of Oliver Sacks' case studies Show Less
LibraryThing member Lapsus16
Too bad, the first pages are very well written, interesting and promising, but the general feeling is that this is a one idea-one book story. The story becomes utterly unbelievable, there is no conclusion, and the overall sense is disappointment. This book needs to be taken off the shelves,
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rewritten, shortened, edited and the conclusion rewritten. Show Less
LibraryThing member Pennydart
This is a very odd book about a man with Capgras Syndrome, although it’s never identified by that name. Capgras Syndrome, which also figures in Richard Power’s “The Echo Maker,” causes its victims to believe that certain people in their lives are imposters. The main character in
Leo’s story provides a powerful perspective on a human mind trying desperately to make sense out of a world that no longer makes sense, showing both the pain and the humor that can ensue. Unfortunately, the book as a whole fails to be satisfying, because it does not have the kind of narrative arc one seeks in fiction. Leo, at the end of the tale, has not changed; he is the same man as he was in the opening pages, convinced that the woman in his house is not really his wife, and sad because he can only love the “real” Rema. But perhaps that’s the point: Leo is a very disturbed man, who may never recover.
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“Atmospheric Disturbances” is a psychiatrist, Dr. Leo Libenstein, who is convinced that his wife Rema has disappeared and been replaced by a double who is pretending to be her. He sets of in search of her on a journey that will involve one of his patients, a man who believes he can control the weather; Dr. Tsvi Gal-Chen, a member of the Royal Academy of Meteorology (and whose name, inexplicably to me, is a hyphenated version of the author’s); and Rema’s mother, who Leo has never before met, but whom he visits in Buenos Aires. Leo’s story provides a powerful perspective on a human mind trying desperately to make sense out of a world that no longer makes sense, showing both the pain and the humor that can ensue. Unfortunately, the book as a whole fails to be satisfying, because it does not have the kind of narrative arc one seeks in fiction. Leo, at the end of the tale, has not changed; he is the same man as he was in the opening pages, convinced that the woman in his house is not really his wife, and sad because he can only love the “real” Rema. But perhaps that’s the point: Leo is a very disturbed man, who may never recover.
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LibraryThing member arblock
Moments of great insight and beauty.
LibraryThing member TheAmpersand
I picked up "Atmospheric Disturbances" after reading a piece that Rivka Galchen wrote for Harper's. She argued that Daedalus, who built Icarus's wings and successfully escaped from the maze, might be a better metaphor for science's work than his son, Icarus, who is remembered mostly for his hubris
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and tragic demise. I thought that this was a pretty striking idea, so I'm sorry to say that I felt a bit let down by Galchen's debut novel. Like her essay, it's inspired by science – Galchen introduces her meteorologist father as a character and has a good ear for the accidental poetry of scientific terminology. Her writing's her own, too; it's quirky and occasionally very funny. Still, this novel proves what anyone who's already sat through "The Butcher Boy" or read Bessie Head's "A Question of Power" already knows – novels told from the perspective of the disturbed tend to be pretty disturbing, and, in the end, sort of tedious. The metaphor that Galchen's unhinged narrator uses to describe his unraveling relationship to reality is, appropriately enough, inspired by science and, again, very clever, but I'm not sure it makes her novel any easier to read. I also might have been put off by the fact that "Atmospheric Disturbances" treads the same territory as Richard Powers's "The Echo Maker," another novel that I found interesting but also sort of dry. While I admire both Galchen and Powers's willingness to write novels that engage with current scientific theory, it's possible that I'm just too much of a Modernist to enjoy them. I still think that there's a lot left to say about the things that don't show up too easily on a CAT scan: memory, consciousness, and, as Faulkner put it, "the conflicts of the human heart." Show Less
LibraryThing member booksinthebelfry
I found this book somewhat slow going at first, but finished it quite rapidly when I picked it up again after a longish hiatus. Fair warning: If you prefer straightforward narratives (not to mention a narrator whose grasp of reality is not in question), the off-kilter beauty and complexity of Rivka
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Galchen's first novel will not appeal to you. What would you miss? Some very lovely writing and some darkly humorous insights into the hall of mirrors that presents itself to us when we take a closer look at our relationships with people around us (even, perhaps especially, those relationships we presume to be our most intimate). Show Less
LibraryThing member astrologerjenny
A psychiatrist going mad, that’s the gist of this book. He’s hooked into conspiracies around weather; he’s hooked into a fear of losing love; he’s hooked into the madness of one of his patients. He loses his mind, wanders, meets people, survives nicely. This novel, written from inside his
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mind, is convoluted but always interesting. Madness is a construction, and this one makes perfect sense. Show Less
LibraryThing member suesbooks
The process of reading this was so interesting. I enjoyed Dr. Liebenson no longer knowing his wife and his use of meteorlogical terms, but I feel there were many metaphors I missed. It was a very interesting presentation of psychiatric problems.
LibraryThing member TheBookJunky
I read a short story by her a few months ago and enjoyed it immensely (The Region of Unlikeness, in the New Yorker, March 2008), so i was eager to read her first novel. I was disappointed somewhat, no a lot, I guess. This book is about a psychiatrist who believes his wife is not the woman he
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married but has been secretly replaced by an impostor. She is a good writer, but the book is too long, too tiresome, perhaps it is my frame of mind. Show Less
LibraryThing member Olivermagnus
Leo Liebenstein is a middle-aged psychiatrist confronting a strange problem. His wife, Rema, is missing and a woman who looks just like Rema has taken her place. Leo knows this”impostress” can't be Rema because she's carrying a dog, and Rema dislikes dogs. A patient of Leo's named Harvey has
The novel does have a funny side. The quirkiness of Leo's thoughts and the funny way in which he articulates them provides some relief from the overload of analytical information. There are a few diagrams and formulas included, a technique that always makes me feel like an idiot since I don't understand them.
I noticed one of the tags was “WTF” and I have to agree. I went into this book thinking it was a straightforward missing persons novel so I was dazed and confused during the first half of the book. That's my fault because I never like to read any blurbs about a book that I'm planning to read so I can avoid any spoilers. Eventually I realized that this was a completely different style of book written by an author with a great command of language and writing skill. If you subscribe to the New Yorker and like that style of writing I think you'll enjoy this book.
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also gone missing. Harvey believes that he can control the weather, and that he is a secret agent for the Royal Academy of Meteorology which leads to Leo becoming interested in the work of a member named Tzvi Gal-Chen, who has done research on the difficulties of translating Doppler radar data. He goes to Patagonia on a quest to find Rema. Leo poses as Tzvi Gal-Chen, and while this unorthodox technique appears to work at first, Leo becomes caught up in his patient's fantasy and becomes convinced that the real Gal-Chen must have something to do with the disappearance of his wife.The novel does have a funny side. The quirkiness of Leo's thoughts and the funny way in which he articulates them provides some relief from the overload of analytical information. There are a few diagrams and formulas included, a technique that always makes me feel like an idiot since I don't understand them.
I noticed one of the tags was “WTF” and I have to agree. I went into this book thinking it was a straightforward missing persons novel so I was dazed and confused during the first half of the book. That's my fault because I never like to read any blurbs about a book that I'm planning to read so I can avoid any spoilers. Eventually I realized that this was a completely different style of book written by an author with a great command of language and writing skill. If you subscribe to the New Yorker and like that style of writing I think you'll enjoy this book.
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LibraryThing member lisapeet
I liked this quite a bit. I'm usually not all that hot for experimental or postmodern fiction, and I'm not even sure if this falls into either of those categories -- for all its conceptual noodling, the book was still a pretty straight-ahead narrative. Not the most warm fuzzy story I've ever read,
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but really kind of sympathetic in spite of itself. All the eclectic erudite stuff I found fun, and there was definitely some thoughtful stuff about the nature of reality, identity, coincidence, etc. to chew on. This is not for everyone, I think, but I had a very good time with it. Show Less
LibraryThing member viviennestrauss
Interesting premise, enjoyed it but really, it could have been a short story.
LibraryThing member proustitute
Murakami meets Jonathan Safran Foer, in some ways. It will be interesting to see where future work takes Galchen: her own voice and style are definitely here, but I think in some ways she was borrowing a lot and falling back on some surreal, almost Borges-like, scenes as safety nets when the plot
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was getting out of her hands or else needed further prodding. Still, this is a very impressive debut novel and a fun, dizzying read. Show Less
LibraryThing member betweencovers
Involving and thought provoking
Subjects
Awards
Governor General's Literary Award (Finalist — 2008)
Salon Book Award (2008)
Center for Fiction First Novel Prize (Shortlist — 2008)
Young Lions Fiction Award (Finalist — 2009)
Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize (Shortlist — 2008)
William Saroyan International Prize for Writing (Fiction — 2010)
The New York Times Notable Books of the Year (Fiction & Poetry — 2008)
Notable Books List (Fiction — 2009)
Language
Original language
English