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The Diagnosis

by Alan Lightman

2.79 · rating details · 431 ratings · 64 reviews

From the bestselling author of Einstein’s Dreams comes this harrowing tale of one man's struggle to cope in a wired world, even as his own biological wiring short-circuits. As Boston’s Red Line shuttles Bill Chalmers to work one summer morning, something extraordinary happens. Suddenly, he can't remember which stop is his, where he works, or even who he is. The only thing ...more

Paperback, 384 pages

Published February 19th 2002 by Vintage (first published January 1st 2000)

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May 29, 2011

Craig Robertson rated it

I rate this novel as a two, sort of half way between one and five. Lightman gets a one for characters and story, but a five for sheer writing prowess. This is a completely schizophrenic work. On one hand it is riveting with his use of language and his ability to create mind bending visual images. This brilliance is juxtaposed to an inexcusable storyline and structure. None of the characters are sympathetic or likable, the direction is lamentably predictable, and there is no resolution. Cassandra...more

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Jan 23, 2011

Alex Telander rated it

Shelves: books-read-in-2001

The Diagnosis by Alan Lightman is a captivating book that I a perfect example of one of the best story-writing techniques; throughout the book, right up to the ultimate pages, the reader has no real idea what the main character is going to do, or what the author is going to make him do. A useful tool that keeps the reader hinged onto the book, riding the edge of their seat, until the end and only then will they feel satisfied.

The opening portion of the book features the main character...more

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Apr 21, 2010

Dennis Littrell rated it

Shelves: fiction

Lightman, Alan. The Diagnosis (2000) ****
A novel of despair and dark humor

This is a novel about the numbing of our lives. What is our disease? We don't know. What is the cure? There is no cure.

Is this the price we pay for the guilt we feel for never being man enough? How is it that we fail in the midst of success? We are sick, but what is the disease? What is the diagnosis? Where is the pain? It is not physical. We feel it in our minds and in our souls. ...moreLightman, Alan. The Diagnosis (2000) ****
A novel of despair and dark humor

This is a novel about the numbing of our lives. What is our disease? We don't know. What is the cure? There is no cure.

Is this the price we pay for the guilt we feel for never being man enough? How is it that we fail in the midst of success? We are sick, but what is the disease? What is the diagnosis? Where is the pain? It is not physical. We feel it in our minds and in our souls. We are tired, weary. We know the prognosis--it is death, of course--but what is the cause?

In this tortured comédie noire, Professsor Alan Lightman gives us his vision of the materialistic horror that is our lives, the information and subsistence overload that is suffocating us to death. Bill Chalmers, second level management cog, begins to unravel. First his memory goes, and then is recovered, but then the numbness sets in, in his fingers, his legs. And it advances. We watch as he fills up with bile, bile, everything is bile.

We are angry, but like Bill Chalmers we cannot lash out. We are married to the corporation, as Chalmers is to Plymouth where he "processes information." We do not learn that he does anything more specific. It doesn't matter what the information is. He processes it. The company's motto is "The maximum information in the minimum time." The vagueness of the content of their information mirrors the emptiness of our lives. More information for what? Faster for what? To what end? We do not know.

The doctors, who would diagnosis us, Lightman assures us, are like gleeful clowns in their vast ignorance, playing with their high tech toys, a cyclotron for PET scans, a "cell separator...like a portable washing machine...," spinning dials and writing articles for the Annals of Psychosomatic Disease, comparing notes with colleagues over the Internet, by cell phone. Meanwhile the patient is but a curiosity, a subject for examination and study.

Lightman uses the empty dialogue of our lives for comedic effect. We say nothing to one another and we answer with nothing, although sometimes we cry out, and life goes on. Chalmers's wife is numbing herself with alcohol while she conducts a bloodless affair by e-mail. Like Chalmers and his wife, we are estranged from life itself. "He hated the mall the same way he hated himself, except that he hated himself more because he was a part of the mall and he knew it" (pp. 343-344). Yes, the mall and our vast hunger to consume are symptoms of our disease.

Chalmers is angry (as his shrink Dr. Kripke so astutely discerns, although that is all he discerns). Chalmers cries out in his mind: "I'm going to break every machine on this planet...I'm going to rip the phones out of the wall" (p. 303, no exclamation marks). But he never has and he never will, and that is "the problem" that has become "an illness."

How real is Lightman's "diagnosis" of our society? Consider this, the fastest growing class of disease in this country is autoimmune disease, e.g., rheumatoid arthritis, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, etc., diseases of unclear cause in which the body is apparently assaulting itself. (Compare Lightman's delineation on p. 274).

Juxtaposed among the pages is a tale of the last days of Socrates and of one of the men who condemned him. Somehow Anytus, the ancient Greek, and Chalmers, the American, are brothers in their strange failure amid the trappings of worldly success. Anytus killed Socrates, the flower of Grecian civilization. Chalmers is killing himself. Why? Again, they do not know. We have a stupendous wealth of information, but all of it is useless, as Mrs. Stumm, the wife of one of the information executives, tells Chalmers as she waves a hand at a stack of papers, "What is this crap?...Useless. This stuff is useless." (p. 255). She speaks the truth, but they cannot hear it.

Lightman's art owes something to the imagination of Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun, in the latter chapters, and something to the spirit of Joseph Heller's Catch-22 throughout. There are shades and echos of the black humor of Evelyn Waugh and Nathanael West. This is a fine novel with a strong sense of the spiritual emptiness of our corporate existence. One senses that Lightman feels that in love there is a flicker of hope, but that is all. The mind goes, like the mind of Chalmers's mother, and with it, the possibility of love. Or perhaps there is a moment of redemption in the intense experience of the minutia of our lives, as when Chalmers studies and lovingly draws the leaf he sees outside his bedroom window. Only this and nothing more interrupts the bleak and lonely landscape of Lightman's vision.

--a review by Dennis Littrell(less)

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May 26, 2009

Justin rated it

Alan Lightman wrote Einstein's Dreams, a book ruminating on physical and spiritual matters, often finding profound connections between the two. It wasn't quite a novel, but it wasn't exactly an essay collection either. It was poetic nonfiction I guess, and it was lovely.

The Diagnosis is a straight-up novel, and is far less enjoyable to read. It demonstrates Lightman's appealingly uncomplicated, gently reflective prose, but the story it tells is utterly joyless, without giving you any...moreAlan Lightman wrote Einstein's Dreams, a book ruminating on physical and spiritual matters, often finding profound connections between the two. It wasn't quite a novel, but it wasn't exactly an essay collection either. It was poetic nonfiction I guess, and it was lovely.

The Diagnosis is a straight-up novel, and is far less enjoyable to read. It demonstrates Lightman's appealingly uncomplicated, gently reflective prose, but the story it tells is utterly joyless, without giving you any good reason to sit through the joylessness. It's a meditation on the digital age and the corporate world, and the emptiness of human existence in an age dominated by computers. It starts off with a bang, as protagonist Bill Chalmers, a generic potbellied executive drone, loses his memory while riding the subway to work. He forgets everything, where he is going, what he does for a living, even his own name, and winds up on a harrowing journey wandering the Boston streets without a clue as to where he is going or why.

But following this thrilling, scary opening, Lightman seems unsure where to go. Chalmers' memory returns, but his mental acuity does not. Suddenly slow moving and thinking, it's like he's had a stroke but the doctors can't find anything wrong with him. He loses his job and his body and brain begin to deteriorate, dwindling down into nothing. That's really about it as far as plot structure goes: a guy basically disintegrates without cause or reason, and we watch him and his family suffer for 300 pages. There are mildly interesting scenes in which he seeks help from different figures in the medical community (hence the title), then eventually from a law firm, but Lightman neglects to develop potentially interesting characters, almost as if he forgot about them, and they all melt together into one terribly negative caricature of doctors, psychologists, and lawyers, and anyone else one might go to for assistance with a mysterious illness.

In the end, I just didn't get what Lightman was trying to do with The Diagnosis. I don't need my literature to be all sunshine and roses, but any story this dour had better at least present some interesting insight into its subject matter. But books about the decline of modern civilization in the face of technology are a dime a dozen, and this book doesn't add much new to the genre.(less)

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Apr 20, 2011

Ben rated it

Shelves: bookmooch, i-own

A really interesting book that captures more of his fantastical prosaic style that gripped the reader so tightly in his masterpiece Einstein's Dreams, than do some of his other novels. I can understand how many people were frustrated or bored with this book, as it can be very slow at times. The majority of the book is entirely inside of the main character Bill's head, a place which is often abstract and devoid of the definitive action that grounds many people into the book they are reading. Alth...more

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May 07, 2010

Grace rated it

I picked this book up from a library book sale thinking it would be interesting to read. The blurb on the inside cover certainly made me think it was going to be like an episode of House. It was not.

The Diagnosis started out with Bill spontaneously losing his memory, going insane, and later on spontaneously recovering his memory. After that it just slid downhill for me.

A majority of the book dealt with how Bill, Bill's family, and Bill's colleagues reacted to his illnes...more

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Oct 27, 2007

Ruth rated it

I actually listened to this on tape. I buy used tapes so don't always have much selection. Picked this becausese I tend to be fascinated by things medical. I kept listening in hopes of a resolution. Btween the first tape and the last I suffered through a major Slough of Bad Writing.

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Dec 13, 2008

RandalM rated it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jan 08, 2011

Lauren rated it

Reading the summary or the inside cover of this book will lead you to assume it's something akin to a medical thriller or mystery. Nothing could be further from the truth.

This book is the exhaustingly extended version of a fable. It's a prolonged philosophical journey that will leave you completely unsatisfied if you were looking for even a remotely exciting fictional read. It's a social commentary, and it really does a HORRIBLE job of making its point - and it's point makes it neces...more

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Sep 12, 2011

Ali Al-Hajamy rated it

3.3.
Wonderful concept. I started reading it three days after downloading it, even though I have thousands of other books I could have picked up, because it sounded that good. And it was...For the first third. I read that portion of the book in about an hour because I simply could not stop. The approach to a man who cannot remember anything about who he is and where he's going, but only his corporate motto, and how people react to that man in our modern age was well thought out and a deligh...more3.3.
Wonderful concept. I started reading it three days after downloading it, even though I have thousands of other books I could have picked up, because it sounded that good. And it was...For the first third. I read that portion of the book in about an hour because I simply could not stop. The approach to a man who cannot remember anything about who he is and where he's going, but only his corporate motto, and how people react to that man in our modern age was well thought out and a delight to read. The writing is stunning, if at times a little too purple for my liking, and the last pages read almost like music.
However, the execution of the other two thirds was a painful slog that took me two days to finish. Due to the fact that this is not an especially long novel, I read with a screenreader at over 600 words per minute, and my lack of friends with whom to speak or hang out with, and willingness to spend hours at a time doing nothing but reading, there is no reason it should have taken me that long to read the rest of it. I read Gravity's Rainbow in a week, and Infinite Jest in two, I think. During the summer of 2010, when I had a lot more nothing to do than usual, I read It and Under the Dome, by Stephen King, in a week. The truth is that after that first third, I started finding excuses to put it down, just for a few minutes, you understand, and I'll pick it back up in a little while and read like there's no tomorrow, well, okay, just a little longer, hmmm, there's a page on TV Tropes that sounds interesting, which means I had better free up seven or eight hours... You get the point. When I start finding excuses to stop reading, shit is not going well.
There are many emails transcribed throughout the book, complete with typoes and all header information. I didn't mind the typoes, but the header information is unnecessary and excruciating to skip over every few pages.
The Frequent philosophical passages were okay, but were too long and distracted from the story.
Yet I must give Lightman some credit for getting me immersed in the story of a lot of awful, unlikeable characters, and making me care what happens to them. I couldn't fucking stand Bill's wife, yet I could empathize with her struggles and pain. His son is the most likeable character in the book, and the way he reacts to his father's illness is heartbreaking.
I may read this again, just for the writing and social commentary, but it's going to take a lot of self-convincing.(less)

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Jun 26, 2008

El rated it

Shelves: late20th-centurylit, science-and-medicine

Bill Chalmers marks his days by knowing where specifically he is to be what time. Meetings, appointments, time allotted for e-mails and phone calls, family, etc. So when Bill suffers a severe memory loss on his commute to work one day his life is forever altered. He eventually remembers his purpose, but only after being taken to the hospital under humiliating circumstances. The return of his memory does not mark the return of his health; in fact his health deteriorates from that point on - f...moreBill Chalmers marks his days by knowing where specifically he is to be what time. Meetings, appointments, time allotted for e-mails and phone calls, family, etc. So when Bill suffers a severe memory loss on his commute to work one day his life is forever altered. He eventually remembers his purpose, but only after being taken to the hospital under humiliating circumstances. The return of his memory does not mark the return of his health; in fact his health deteriorates from that point on - first in numbness in his extremities, then his inability to walk or have any control over his motor skills, and down the spiral he goes. He spends a significant amount of time visiting doctors, none of whom are able to shine any light on what has caused his illness; as is typical he is asked to see a psychiatrist as it is insinuated that perhaps his illness and his deteriorating physicality is really all just in his mind and if he just learns how to control his anger...

Alan Lightman does a great job at describing this character's frustrations, from spending time with incompetent receptionists in doctors' offices to the doctors themselves not shedding any light on the issues to watching his family and his job fall apart as quickly as does his body. It is a horrifying story and one that makes one latch on to what is truly important as this man on the page loses absolutely everything.

Not as powerful as Lightman's previous Einstein's Dreams but then if he wrote everything exactly the same where would be the sport in that? I have read complaints primarily about the lack of resolution in the end and I have no sympathy for those with this complaint. Very rarely is there resolution in real life and debilitating illness is a frightening thing, particularly when there is no diagnosis. Granted this is not an uplifting book, and it hurts to see how each of the characters is affected by Bill's illness; but it is well-written and intense and pretty accurate as far as sickness goes, both of the mind and the body.

My only real complaint is the amount of typos in the e-mail sequences. My brain exploded in just about every sentence during those pages and it baffles me that such educated people (doctors, lawyers) are unable to write a complete sentence without several typos. Working with doctors myself I know how they write e-mails (generally on the fly), but I also know they put a lot more time and effort into those that go to their patients. Or they have their secretary fix those mistakes before they hit Send. More importantly, however, is the fact that most doctors do not communicate with their patients via e-mail. And the fact that the doctor in this book did really irked me.(less)

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Jul 03, 2007

Stephany fisher rated it

Recommends it for: not recommended for those who like clean, resolved endings.

This is no trifle of a beach read -- it is a book with accessible language and a fairly enjoyable plot. However, though it has been well reviewed by critics, it has also confounded them. The book is about a man who has his nose to the grindstone at work. He faces pressures both from competitive workmates and the fast pace of technology including cell phones, e-mails, texts, etc. While on his way to work on the subway one morning, he forgets who he is and where he is going. After a surrealistic j...moreThis is no trifle of a beach read -- it is a book with accessible language and a fairly enjoyable plot. However, though it has been well reviewed by critics, it has also confounded them. The book is about a man who has his nose to the grindstone at work. He faces pressures both from competitive workmates and the fast pace of technology including cell phones, e-mails, texts, etc. While on his way to work on the subway one morning, he forgets who he is and where he is going. After a surrealistic journey of sorts, he regains his memory only to lose his neurological faculties. The medical system is no help either. Rather than give a diagnosis or offer any real help, the doctors follow their own agendas. They show very little regard for his true needs; they make him jump through the hoops of the medical system offering no human connection or plausible help. He becomes paralyzed and eventually finds his only connection with the outside world is tracing the shadow a leaf throws on the floor. His friends and family are unsupportive, with the exception of his son. His son is a computer geek, a champion of his father's quest for a diagnosis, and a child ignored by both his parents.
The reader is also shown the e-mails from an online philosophy course on Sokrates (sic) that his son takes. In this story, Sokrates is betrayed a jealous man who fears Sokrates is blaspheming the democratic ideas of the state by stirring up questioning of accepted principles. This man helps prosecute Sokrates leading to his death sentence. While Sokrates swallows his poison with grace, the betrayor's son tells his father that Sokrates has been drawing all over his prison cell, telling the story of the human soul. This man's son is disgusted by his father's disregard for the great philosopher, and one gets the idea the man betrays Sokrates in great part out of jealousy (since his son has much more admiration for Sokrates than his own father). What stumps most people is why the Sokrates story line fills up so much of the book. Lightman may be trying to draw a connection about man's lust for power and his love/hate relationship with progress. How can we move forward if it means we might be left behind? Will the process of keeping up destroy us in the end? In the main story line, our protagonist is a weak man who allows himself to be crushed by the fast pace world around him, preferring to miserably try to move up the office food chain than to find peace. In the end, he allows himself to weaken to the point of being paralyzed, blind, and near death. In Sokrates' case, though, he is not weak himself, others around him are threatened by his potential power over the masses and make sure he is crushed. The father son relationships in both story lines are complex. However, the juxtaposition may be Lightman's offering of hope for the futility otherwise demonstrated in this book. To address the pains of progress experienced by us or those around us, we would best be served in nurturing our relationship with our parents. Social progression will not come easily and we will easily be crushed unless we understand the handing of the torch from one generation to the next. If either father truly listened to or understood his son in these stories that make up the book, a great philosopher would have lived a lengthier life, and our protagonist may have been able to find enough light in human connection to understand how to maneuver around the suffocating information highway.

(less)

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Jun 01, 2011

Clare rated it

I read this after having loved "Einstein's Dreams" for years. This did not live up to my hopes at all. The story was intriguing at first and as always Lightman's descriptive skills are pretty impressive but the story got rather mind numbing as it went along. My biggest issue with it however was his use of emails as part of the storyline. The email text and misspellings (though I understand they were part of the point he was making) were infuriating to try and read and I eventually gave...more

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Oct 25, 2010

Ted Burke rated it

Out of the DeLillo playbook, a business commuter gradually loses the use of his limbs, and his confronted with medical experts who disguise their inability to treat him and render a diagnosis by having him submit to yet more tests. A novel full of comic moments and sleights of hand-- the father's relationship with his son is sad stuff, two-hankie time-- but there is strong feeling of what the world would be like if all the things that we plug into stopped giving us the illusion of in...more

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Nov 01, 2011

Jeffrey rated it

The theme has been done before, again and again and again, so when an author chooses to tackle it yet one more time s/he really should have something brilliantly different to bring to it. Lightman makes a dedicated effort but ultimately overreaches a bit and ends up bludgeoning the reader with his thesis almost as hard as Bill is bludgeoned by fast-paced, vapid, unreflective techo-society. The saving features of the novel are the effective capture of an anxiety-ridden lifestyle that, for better ...more

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Aug 12, 2009

Kristen rated it

Shelves: modernlit-novels

Havinf absolutely adored "Einsten's Dreams" I had high hopes for "The Diagnosis". It is an altogether fine book, with Lightman's excellent writing, but it was no "Einsten's Dreams". The opening sequence was riveting, but then began all of the email communiques...Not a bad book by any means, just not what I was expecting from Lightman.

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May 11, 2010

Preeta rated it

Loved Einstein's Dreams, and so keep turning the pages hoping for something resembling that great read. Sadly disappointed, a dark and depressing book with on a small nightlight of hope throughout. Interesting touch of misspelled emails throughout - but lost its novelty by the end.

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Jan 04, 2009

Sam rated it

I really wanted to like this better, and I think the author has a lot to say about how our information-saturated culture makes it difficult to 'read, mark, learn & inwardly digest' the data that is sent our way, but it was ponderous reading.

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May 15, 2008

Cat rated it

This book has been described to me as Kafkaesque which may be true for the initial action of the plot. But Lightman quickly establishes his own tormented and intricate style.

The Diagnosis is full of parallels and symbols. Email dialogues illustrate a very thin line between intimacy and disconnection. A college course on Plato gives readers a mirror image of an ancient man who, like the main character, becomes disoriented and detached. And constant wandering views into strangers...more

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Apr 02, 2009

Robert rated it

Well, it gathered steam and I enjoyed the ending (no spoilers). there are some messages therein, but also a literary exercise, I think, and that's not too much fun.
"I'm not as f***ed as those people!" Whew!

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Oct 01, 2009

Lee rated it

As some of the other reviewers have noted, my expectations for this book were high, based on my reading of "Einstein's Dreams." I kept waiting for this book to capture my interest but it never did.

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Jan 09, 2012

Tony Fecteau rated it

Shelves: bookclub

You have to keep reading to find out what happens. This is definitely a page turner. The main character is confused and quite confusing for the readers.

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Jul 13, 2008

Robanne Johnston rated it

It was exciting at first...the idea of losing your memory. But then it fell apart. The insight into a patient and his lack of understanding about what is wrong with him was disturbing. At times I thought his thoughts and behaviors might also be a symptom so I was expecting it to come together somehow. It didn't and was terribly hard to finish. Unfortunately, I have a "finish-what-you-start" guilt thing, so I finished it and I'm glad it's done. Also, I saw no point to the greek history...more

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Aug 12, 2010

Wendy rated it

A really really bad book. Don't waste your time. Listened to this on CD, a decent ending might have saved it, but it was not to be.

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Nov 22, 2009

Tom added it

Shelves: fiction

A fascinating novel about a man with a mysterious illness that cannot be diagnosed...other than the malaise of post modern mankind

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Oct 09, 2011

Talia rated it

· review of another edition

I live in the world of progressive illness with no known diagnosis. I hope I am handling it better than Bill does in this book. I feel for him, and recognize the stages of acceptance and grief. I dislike the lack of resolution of any of the hanging threads in the story, but I will try some of Mr Lightman's other books.

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Oct 09, 2009

Karen rated it

The Diagnosis: A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries) by Alan Lightman (2002)

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Oct 15, 2007

Amber rated it

If I could have the time back, I would unread this book. More upsetting than revelatory, this books reveals only that people who have not gone through chronic illness think it's dramatic to do so.

It's fucking not.

The book was pretty accurate in almost all of its premises: breakdown, difficulty of diagnosis, withdrawal, lack of communication, interpersonal relationships. The one assumption I could not agree with was that the book was worth the time it took to write or read...more

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Jan 03, 2010

Jhoanna added it

Shelves: banished-to-the-8th-circle-of-hell

I'm sorry. I give up. It sounded interesting, but I would have known I'd hate it if I'd read the backcover summary of the book thoroughly, which ends with "Ultimately, Bill discovers that he is fighting not just for his body but also for his soul." Bleh.

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Aug 31, 2008

Samantha rated it

This book really disappointed me. I went into it after the exquisiteness of "Einstein's Dreams" but rapidly found myself slogging through this text just trying to finish it. While certain passages were vividly and achingly written, I found it hard to empathize with any of the characters, found the use of highly-typoed emails gimmicky, and actually skipped the chapters dealing with Socrates all together after trudging through the first two. There was some potential here, but not enough ...more

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About Alan Lightman

Alan Lightman is a physicist, novelist, and essayist born in Memphis, Tennessee. He is an adjunct professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the author of the international bestseller Einstein's Dreams.

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