false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166759201m/16798.jpg 16798 12 In the bravura opening chapter of Alan Lightman's novel <I>The Diagnosis</I>, a nameless horror befalls Boston businessman Bill Chalmers in the hubbub of his morning commute. As he jostles his way aboard the train and makes cell-phone calls to check last-minute details on his morning meeting (for Bill is punctilious), a realization surfaces in his brain, "like a trapped bubble of air rising from the bottom of a deep pond." He has forgotten where he's going. All he can remember is his anxious urgency and his company's creed, "The maximum information in the minimum time." Acutely aware that he's got a 9:15 appointment, but recalling only the first six digits of his phone number, Bill helplessly gazes out the window. "Trees flew by like flailing arms.... Railroad tracks fluttered by like matchsticks. Trees, white and gray clapboard houses with paint peeling off, junkyards with stacks of flaccid tires." Lightman's Kafka pastiche is as pitch perfect as his verbal music: note the rhyming <i>x</i> sounds in <i>stacks</i> and <i>flaccid</i> (which is not pronounced "flassid"). <p> Terrifyingly soon, Bill is mad, homeless, beaten, and experimented on by comically evil doctors. He recovers and reunites with his family, but inexorably, mysterious paralysis ensues. Doctors try to diagnose him. Coworkers offer empty condolences and plot to steal his fast-track job. His wife seeks consolation with a passionate virtual lover on the Internet, a professor she's never met in the flesh. His teenage son triumphantly hacks into AOL's Plato Online, and Bill's last days are counterpointed with the trial of Socrates and his troubled, rich inquisitor Anytus. Instead of the real story, we get a second shimmering Lightman fable. Anytus's strife with his rebel son, a Socrates supporter, parallels Bill's grief as his son is distanced from him by illness. <p> Though I felt glimmerings of understanding from time to time, I never did fully figure out exactly what the Socrates story and Bill's decline have to say about each other, nor what Bill's paralysis says about modern times. I implore a smarter reader to explain it to me in the customer comments below. But I can tell you that every character is resonant, and every sensory particular is exquisitely precise, as in Lightman's biggest hit, the Italo Calvino pastiche <I>Einstein's Dreams</I>. <I>--Tim Appelo</I> 1348220 2000 The Diagnosis: A Novel total:290|5:17|4:50|3:100|2:88|1:35| 290 796 399 43 2 0 false false Mon May 25 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon May 25 20:33:00 -0700 2009 Tue May 26 15:50:14 -0700 2009 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 ...more...]]> 1 1 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Sat Oct 27 11:35:43 -0700 2007 Sat Oct 27 11:38:07 -0700 2007
]]> 3 0 false true Mon Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2003 Sat Dec 13 21:02:15 -0800 2008 Sat Dec 13 21:03:24 -0800 2008 ...more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Jun 25 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Jun 22 10:37:48 -0700 2008 Thu Jun 26 04:52:44 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Tue Jul 03 21:49:18 -0700 2007 Tue Jul 03 21:56:03 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Aug 12 14:01:10 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 12 14:03:14 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Wed Nov 01 00:00:00 -0800 2000 Sun Jan 04 10:12:55 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 04 10:15:26 -0800 2009 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. ]]> 4 0 false false Thu May 15 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Mar 19 10:37:41 -0700 2008 Thu May 15 07:40:23 -0700 2008
The Diagnosis is full of parallels and symbols. Email dialogues illustrate a very thin line between intimacy a...more...]]> 2 0 false false Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 02 20:56:24 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 02 20:59:08 -0700 2009 "I'm not as f***ed as those people!" Whew!]]> 1 0 false false Thu Oct 01 19:37:19 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 01 19:41:58 -0700 2009 1 0 false false Sun Jul 13 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Jul 13 23:48:02 -0700 2008 Sun Jul 13 23:59:37 -0700 2008 more...]]> 0 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2001 Sun Nov 22 11:54:13 -0800 2009 Sun Nov 22 11:55:33 -0800 2009 1 0 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Sep 10 14:26:56 -0700 2007 Mon Oct 15 08:07:20 -0700 2007
It's fucking not.

The book was pretty accurate in almost all of its premises: bre...more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Oct 09 14:31:46 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 09 14:31:46 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Sun Aug 31 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Aug 31 20:27:41 -0700 2008 Sun Aug 31 20:27:41 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 0 false false Mon Mar 19 09:21:45 -0700 2007 Mon Mar 19 14:21:34 -0700 2007 There were sections that were lucid, flowed nicely and that...more...]]> 1 0 false false Tue Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Aug 05 12:05:36 -0700 2008 Tue Aug 05 12:10:09 -0700 2008
An unsympathetic protagonist, an unbelievable character of a son, a wife whose own story begins but never goes anywhere. And a...more...]]> 2 0 false false Tue Mar 04 04:42:51 -0800 2008 Sat Mar 08 17:49:58 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Jun 23 08:48:53 -0700 2007 Sat Jun 23 08:48:53 -0700 2007 more...]]> 0 0 false false Tue Sep 02 12:48:30 -0700 2008 Tue Sep 02 12:50:57 -0700 2008 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=16798