Atmospheric Disturbances - Spoiler Thread

[JeffKamin]

I'm done. Anyone want to discuss here?

[Beth]

I have to admit, I really enjoy a novel with an unreliable narrator. When well-executed, it leaves so much open for the reader to interpret and imagine. I had fun with this one.

[Karl]

I was a little disappointed there wasn't a twist of some sort at the end. The story just kinda played itself out after I realized, early on, that the wife was not an impostor and the husband was crazy.

My favorite sentence:
"I must confess that the insignificant price of letting a room from Magda relieved me; nevertheless, perseveration over the price of my last-minute, open-return airline ticket disturbed my sleep; and yet when I would succeed in tripping my thoughts off of perseverations on my profligacy, I would then proceed to ruminate over my miserliness, worrying that, in agreeing to such a cheap rate, I was taking advantage of my wife’s mother."
Atmospheric Disturbances, page 95, first sentence

What's yours?

[elihoughton]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzvi_Gal-chen

[JeffKamin]

Section of on-line interview with Rivka:

Q: You borrow from his studies for one of the book’s most interesting confluences of science and emotion. Weather cannot be predicted, because the present state of weather cannot be determined itself. Therefore, as Leo decides, love that was found under false pretenses must be lost.

Galchen: Sometimes you realize that a thing you knew so well had contained weird, other alien worlds. For me this is always best evidenced in my mom, who obviously I’ve known pretty well, but I’ll realize every so often that I didn’t know her so well. Perhaps that’s the experience in any love relationship, where you don’t even know the situation currently, and it’s necessary to be startled out of your misconceptions. You’re always going to be slightly less wrong or wrong in a new way.

[JeffKamin]

Anything in particular you want me to research for tonight's discussion? Any advance questions?

[JeffKamin]

This is not my beautiful wife...

Do you trust the critics for your book club picks? I used to rely on them quite heavily for my book choices but am beginning to doubt that process as a viable option. If you’re interested in a new book and can’t get a positive word-of-mouth review from a friend, perhaps it’s more useful to depend on sites like Goodreads.com or Amazon.com instead of paid published book critics. How do you make your book club choices?

Our 63rd selection was Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen. Most of the major critics raved about it yet we found it to be lacking, derivative and boring. I had noticed the Amazon.com review drop from 4 to 3 stars soon after the paperback publication which was a sign to me that regular readers may have liked it less than critics.

To be fair, Galchen’s novel does deal with some interesting issues of an unreliable narrator, obsession, jealousy, lasting love, falling out of love, psychosis and enabling. But the purported mystery is not here. It’s obvious from the start the main character is suffering from a mental illness. By the half way point of the book you realize it’s not going to be Vertigo but mostly Harvey meets A Beautiful Mind. Then you have another half of the book to read to this foregone conclusion.

At its best the book captures that feeling summed up in the Talking Heads’ tune, Once in a Lifetime. You wake up one day and wonder how your life became what it is. You feel its not what you had planned yet here you are. How did you get here? What can you do? Is the person you fell in love with the same person today as they were ten years ago? Are we who we think we are or who others perceive us to be?

The critics raved. We read it. We were underwhelmed. What next?

[Carter]

Unsympathetic protagonist. Rightly or wrongly, books of that type have not been well-received by this group. Another example: Theft.

I think you can still look to critics for some guidance if you listen to particular critics. Try this: pick a half-dozen books that were generally adored by the group, find a critic who adored them too, then take a look at what else they recommend.

I stumbled upon an Amazon reviewer who picked several of my all-time faves as her all time faves, so I've checked out some other stuff she was into. Wow, what a great resource she has turned out to be! Something you might try for yourself.

[elihoughton]

[JeffKamin]

Yes, I was hoping to compare and contrast these two relationships in the books back-to-back. Good catch.

[JeffKamin]

Guest post on Book Club Girl site:
http://tinyurl.com/qvfour

[TawdryAudrey]

I've read three books from Books and Bar (well four if you count the Raw Shark Texts, which I read but then wussied out before the discussion). The writing was rich and inventive even if the story wasn't. I didn't like the narrator but that didn't matter. It kept me interested even if I "got it" before the halfway point. I just want to read more of Rivka Galchen's word porn. Beautiful.

[TawdryAudrey]

I fell asleep after finishing the book and I just felt drunk off of the words. That and I probably was actually drunk.