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Atmospheric Disturbances (Paperback)

by Rivka Galchen (Author)
2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 272 pages
  • Publisher: HarperPerennial (5 Mar 2009)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0007276850
  • ISBN-13: 978-0007276851
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 406,720 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Product Description

Review

'An original and affecting novel, one that knows how to move from the comic to the painful.' New Yorker 'Genuinely suspenseful, fresh and wry!Galchen is a writer to be watched.' The Economist 'A playful and moving novel.' Daily Telegraph 'Rivka Galchen's "Atmospheric Disturbances" is playful yet profound, Murakami-esque yet original, analytical yet heartbreaking. It's an absolutely stunning and unforgettable debut.' Vendela Vida, author of 'Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name' 'Rivka Galchen has written a powerful novel about love, longing, Doppler radar, and the true appreciation of a nice cookie with your tea. "Atmospheric Disturbances" is fantastic.' Nathan Englander, author of 'The Ministry of Special Cases' 'Reader, you are holding in your hand one of my favorite novels ever: Rivka Galchen's divinely hilarious, heartbreaking tale of Leo's search for his 'lost' wife Rema. This is a novel of Borgesian erudition, wit, and playfulness, though its obsessively pursued subject -- as it rarely was in the Argentine's fiction -- is love, the enraptured lover, and the mystery of the beloved, the intersection of love's fictions, realities, and pathologies. It is also as funny as any episode of the Simpsons (imagine Homer as a besotted and brilliant New York psychiatrist). The prose jumps with one astonishing observation, insight, and description after another. "Atmospheric Disturbances" delivers unforgettable joy.' Francisco Goldman, author of 'The Divine Husband'


Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In this enthralling debut, psychiatrist Dr. Leo Liebenstein sets off to find his wife, Rema, who he believes has been replaced by a simulacrum. Also missing is one of Leo's patients, Harvey, who is convinced he receives coded messages (via Page Six in the New York Post) from the Royal Academy of Meteorology to control the weather. At Rema's urging, Leo pretends during his sessions with Harvey to be a Royal Academy agent (she thinks the fib could help break through to Harvey), and once Re- ma and Leo disappear, Leo turns to actual Royal Academy member Tzvi Gal-Chen's meteorological work to guide him in his search for his wife. Leo's quest takes him through Buenos Aires and Patagonia, and as he becomes increasingly delusional and erratic, Galchen adeptly reveals the actual situation to readers, including Rema's anguish and anger at her husband. Leo's devotion to the real Rema is heartbreaking and maddening; he cannot see that the woman he seeks has been with him all along. Don't be surprised if this gives you a Crying of Lot 49 nostalgia hit.
--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Customer Reviews

40 Reviews
5 star:
 (7)
4 star:
 (5)
3 star:
 (9)
2 star:
 (11)
1 star:
 (8)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
2.8 out of 5 stars (40 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Voyage around her father..., 22 Aug 2008
By Andy Millward (Broxbourne, Herts, UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)      
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
You might view this book as either a beautifully-written and subtly inconclusive thriller about a doppelganger appearing for a man's wife, a detailed analysis of the assorted neuroses and psychoses of a New York psychiatrist, a pseudo-academic treatise on meteorology, a hefty measure of autobiography in which the writer indulges in a voyage around her father, who as stated died in 1994 of a sudden heart attack, and/or a load of nonsense masquerading as fiction!

The blurb states: "Atmospheric Disturbances investigates the moment of crisis when you suddenly understand that the reality you insist upon is no longer one you can accept, the person you love has been somehow reduced to merely the person you live with, and how you spend your life trying to weather the storms of your own making."

All of which are true, though anyone reading the book could not help to think that the facsimile Rema is the real version and that Dr Leo has taken leave of his senses - maybe the fate of psychiatrists everywhere? Full marks to Rema for not giving up on him, though he appears every bit as gaga as his weather-changing patient Harvey (a name artfully chosen, I thought.)

On the other hand, maybe this debate is irrelevant. This is a closely-observed book in which not an awful lot happens but a great deal of time is spent deconstructing it in minute detail. At first it seems refreshing, though as time wears on you tire of Dr Leo and his anally-retentive ramblings. His tale peters out with speculation about how he might go on living with the doppelganger, though we have no word on what Rema's views might be on that. Maybe that's an opportunity for the next novel?

For me, the most decisive conclusion is that I want to visit Buenos Aires and maybe even Patagonia, though probably not with a self-obsessed American psychiatrist, nor with my wife or her mother or any of my clients!!
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Odd, 5 Aug 2008
By Barney McGrew "Charlie" (UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)      
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
Well we can all make pretentious comments about the intricacy and depth of this meandering oddity. However, It failed to grip my attention and I left it unfinished so that I could get on with more worthwhile pursuits rather than wasting time with this. Bring on the `unhelpful' ratings - there was simply no way I could be more positive.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Complicated and Convoluted, 3 Aug 2008
By D. Elliott (Ulverston, Cumbria) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
I chose to review `Atmospheric Disturbances' because I enjoy writings that explore the psyche. I was disappointed. I persevered to the end to honour my Vine Voice commitment but otherwise would probably not have finished - rare for me. Disillusionment stems from the author's approach in narrating the story via the main character, Dr. Leo Liebenstein, in the first person singular - yet Dr. Liebenstein is introvert, insecure, hesitant and generally pathetic with an unwillingness to communicate openly. All this makes it difficult to assess objectively the other characters, and yet these are vitally important if the reader is to determine who are themselves and who are not themselves - the dilemma at the core of `Atmospheric Disturbances'.

Overall the plot is convoluted and it plods along pedantically without impetus. I never felt I was being called on to challenge reality, but only that I was being told via tortuous and tangled dialogue about peripheral or even non-existent problems. The author introduces a variety of subjects, the main streams being psychology and meteorology to produce what could have been a well-constructed complex story, but it became merely convoluted. Dr. Lieberstein could have taken the reader on a journey of discovery but unfortunately he never even resolves his own predicament. Add to this the reliance of the narrator on long complicated comments or conversations that come across as pseudo intellectual or bogus scientific and you end up with a weak and unsatisfactory story.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Unreadable
There are quite a few negative reviews on here about this book, and I feel guilty for adding to the list.

I didn't read the whole book. Read more
Published 1 day ago by C. Robson

3.0 out of 5 stars Doing my head in
A psychiatrist who's clearly mad is always a good start for a narrative - think Hitchcock's Spellbound. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Alan Hansen

4.0 out of 5 stars Ultra-inventive debut novel
Idiosyncratic debut novel - all digressive, quirky, idiomatic phrasing (hints of Dostoevsky and Thomas Pynchon) and a very cleverly constructed plot: A psychiatrist discovers... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Andrew Sutherland

2.0 out of 5 stars Don't bother if you like action rather than psychology
I believe the author intended this book to be one of the sort that makes you think, and makes you question yourself, and what you are reading. Read more
Published 12 months ago by S. Diment

2.0 out of 5 stars echoes of Pynchon
A book that uses an echo to The crying of Lot 49 for me might either be an inspired move or a pretentious self-referential literary exercise. Read more
Published 12 months ago by N. A. Bakhshov

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant unusual novel delving into the depths of mental illness
Leo one day discovers that his wife Rema has disappeared but has been replaced by her absolute double. Read more
Published 13 months ago by P. Sharpe

1.0 out of 5 stars Overwritten
I feel slightly fraudulent reviewing this, as I haven't read the whole book. Unfortunately I found the overwritten prose style unreadable. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Steerforth

2.0 out of 5 stars Mind bending
I know this is really shallow of me but the cover of this book just kept putting me off everytime I tried to pick it up, even so I persevered as I studied psychology and the... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Clare

4.0 out of 5 stars A very smart, very engaging, off-balance and funny book.
I came to this book having read a positive review by James Wood in the New Yorker. It sounded like my kind of book. Read more
Published 13 months ago by ghandibob

2.0 out of 5 stars Hard work
Ok this wasnt the kind of book I usually go for, Im more of a sci-fi, space ships, techno punk fan. But this had me hooked from the start..... Read more
Published 14 months ago by Mr. M. A. Quinn

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