The Air We Breathe: A Novel
by Andrea Barrett
|
|
Sign in to Goodreads to see your friends' reviews of The Air We Breathe: A Novel.
discuss this book
friend reviews (0)
To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.
lists with this book
This book is not in any lists. Go add it to a list.
other reviews (showing 1-20 of 259)
Read in April, 2008
This is Barrett’s fourth book since she hit her stride as a writer, her eighth over all. Her two best works are the short story collections, Ship Fever and Servants of the Map. Plus there is the very good novel, The Voyage of the Narwhal. All three have certain characters that overlap, scientists, immigrants, wanderers. Descendents of a couple of these characters make it into this novel set in an upstate New York tuberculosis sanatorium and its surrounding village, where wealthier tubercular p...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Set in the Adirondacks of New York in 1916, where tuberculosis patients gather because the air is therapeutic. The wealthier, more established patients recuperate at private cottages, whereas a number of European immigrants are sequestered at a public sanatorium. Miles, a patient from the cottage, begins a discussion group at the sanatorium. Naomi, a fickle young woman whose mother owns the cottage where Miles stays, and whom he’s fallen for, escorts him to and from the sanatorium. The m...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in October, 2007
I love Andrea Barrett - her stories are the ones I often find lurking in back corners of my brain, with indeterminate heritage. As in, I often think that the historic narratives she's invented are in fact dreams I've had, or stories I've heard about my ancestors. Servants of the Map did this to me especially. I think I can attribute this to Barrett's grace. She writes about science in such a way that I think I understand it, and because it seems so organic to me, I think it came from somewhere ...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in February, 2008
When Andrea Barrett was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2001, she moved to New York City to begin her new novel that would become The Air We Breathe. The day was September 10, 2001. Like many writers after 9/11, she was unable to put words to the page. It took her a year to begin writing this novel, but when she did what came out was poignant and close to everyone’s heart, even though it is set in 1916 at the onset of World War I.
The story takes place in the Adirondacks at a sanitarium ...more
The story takes place in the Adirondacks at a sanitarium ...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in September, 2007
Set in a tubercular sanitiorium in 1916, Andrea Barrett's new book is as lovely a novel as I've read in a while. The life of the patients at Tamarack Lake Sanitorium are incredibly hemmed in and circumscribed by their illness. They are taking the "rest cure" which is pretty much what it sounds like: lots of rest and fresh air. In an effort to liven up their humdrum routine, a wealthy patient from one of the nearby cure cottages starts up a discussion group at the sanitorium. This h...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in April, 2008
recommended to Carolyn by:
a friend (who had not read it)recommends it for: science/historical/fiction fans
When my husband was eight years old his mother entered a tuberculosis sanatorium. On Saturdays he and his three brothers would stand below her second floor window and shyly converse with her. Eight years later she returned home, almost a stranger to her children.
I am very curious about life in the TB sanatoriums. So, I was anxious to read a novel where the setting is in a sanatorium in 1916. The novel provided an interesting description of life there. It was a life of stringent health r...more
I am very curious about life in the TB sanatoriums. So, I was anxious to read a novel where the setting is in a sanatorium in 1916. The novel provided an interesting description of life there. It was a life of stringent health r...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
I had such high hopes for this book - it was written by a National Book Award winner who teaches creative writing, it is historical fiction, it has very well-researched scientific details. I went into this expecting it to be an automatic 4 star minimum. But sadly, it was not. The basic story line was great - patients at a tuberculor hospice at the dawn of WWI. Apparently, many of these characters carried over from her previous book, Ship Fever, which I haven't read. My main complaints are...more
Like this review?
yes
1 comments
Read in January, 2008
First, I should say that I remain a huge fan of AB's and will continue to buy her books. But...
It started out so perfectly beautifully, just like Andrea Barrett can always be relied upon to do. But she fell into a pattern of resolving conflicts too soon and somehow not building up the one she wanted me to connect with.
I feel sorry for the characters. They were well defined in some ways, but failed to realize their potential.
POSSIBLE SPOILER?...........
And as much as I trie...more
It started out so perfectly beautifully, just like Andrea Barrett can always be relied upon to do. But she fell into a pattern of resolving conflicts too soon and somehow not building up the one she wanted me to connect with.
I feel sorry for the characters. They were well defined in some ways, but failed to realize their potential.
POSSIBLE SPOILER?...........
And as much as I trie...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in November, 2007
I’ve loved Andrea Barrett’s previous stories and novels, and I really wanted to love this novel, too. The premise, a collective narration of life at a tuberculosis sanatorium in the Adirondacks in 1916, seemed promising and intriguing. But the novel never took off for me and was heavily expositional. The characters felt two-dimensional, and seemed to exist at the service of the research and historical facts, instead of the other way around. And while the collective “we” narration is inte...more
Like this review?
yes
1 comments
Read in April, 2007
My least favorite of all Barrett's works, I still really enjoyed it. The pleural first person, yet also nearly omnicient narrator had a theatrical Greek Chorus feel that was quite appropriate for the collective tradgic flaws of the patients at this TB hospital in upstate New York. I also am so so so so so thankful that Barrett included in the back a family tree of all of the characters of her previous works and how they are connected. I was tempted to reread and disassemble all my other Barre...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
I very much enjoyed this book. It is not a book that draws you in and keeps you reading - in fact, the characters are a bit undesirable, over all, and the ones you wished you knew better get short shrift. But it is a great exposition of "fictional" life in a tb ward in upstate NY - and captures the madness of xenophobia during WWI quite well. Also, Barrett's scientific expertise works well in this case, as she describes chemistry and x-ray technology during these foundational and ex...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in January, 2008
A very good book but not for those who like action. This is all about relationships and history. The book is set in 1916 in a tuberculosis sanitorium in upstate NY at the very beginning of WWI. I learned a lot about that time period and the culture of the sanitariums and private "cure" houses. Class payed a huge role in the quality of care people received, as it does today. Fear of "terrorists" in America during the WWI era was as destructive then as now. Even in the mid...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in March, 2008
While I got caught up in this book by the end, I did not find myself as enthralled in it as I have been in her short stories. I was so excited about this book that I think nothing could have met the expectation. It was cool to see exactly how all of the different families that appear in her stories weave together and I loved the Adirondack and New York State references. However, the plot felt forced and the characters felt anachronistic. I'm going to stick to non fiction for awhile. I still...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in December, 2007
What a disappointment! Andrea Barrett is one of my favorite authors--her delight in science and her ability to tell a rollicky good yarn are unusual combinations--but this novel is glacier slow and somewhat preachy. If she had been less obvious that her story is a metaphor for the craziness after 9/11, I would have enjoyed it much more--which is not to say that I don't agree with her perceptions about 9/11 or the fallout from it. Also very unsettling, and I think, unsuccessful, was the voice ...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in February, 2008
Very disappointed in Barrett's approach to what could have been a much better book. Individual characters had promise, but rather than develop them through their own voices, the whole story was told by "we" -- an anonymous woman patient at the TB sanitorium. The convergence of a wide range of issues seemed strained and took far too much explanation: imminent WWI, love triangles, communication issues, science, medicine, xenophobia, family relationships. The most interesting character --...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in January, 2008
Set at a tuberculosis sanatorium in the Adirondack mountains at the brink of WWI. I really liked this setting and time period: there's great excitement over advancements in scientific technology, like x-rays and warfare, and the recently immigrated Jewish patients have interesting stories. But ultimately, I just found this book sort of dull. I didn't believe in many of the characters and got turned off by an overdone connection between patriotic zealotry then and now. I've never read anything el...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
recommends it for:
Readers who read for for the beauty of language. Annie Dillard fans.
Andrea Barrett is a wonderful writer. The Air We Breathe is definitely a character-driven story, which I love, and the language and historical context make up for the subtle, almost non-existent plot. Not an action thriller, but definitely worth reading if you're into historical accuracy and well-developed characters. This is a book that you don't mind reading slowly, over time, whenever you find an hour or two just to yourself. And when it's over, you look around for one just like it so you can...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in March, 2008
I am really surprised how much I enjoyed this novel. A period piece for sure, it slowly rolls through the days of patients at a TB sanatorium on the eve of war. Classic pacing with a sudden rush of events after so many pages of slow unfolding, followed by a short, sad denouement. Coincidentally, this is the second book I've read recently which prominently features the ill effects of early X-ray research. (Evidence of Things Unseen was th...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in December, 2007
recommends it for:
anyone
This is the first novel (not short stories) i've read from Barrett, and I thought it suffered from a lack of intensity. The plot focuses on a tuberculosis sanatorium during WWI, where some recent immigrants are sent by the state of NY. What I did like was that Barrett outlines the history of several characters we meet in her short stories, such as Leo Marburg and Eudora. I think the pacing of a novel does not suit her writing as much as a short story. In her short stories, every sentence is pare...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in February, 2008
recommends it for:
Historical Fiction fans
I really liked the unique setting of this novel, but I struggled to get through it. I am not sure how to classify it but would probably consider it just a basic historical fiction. There were threads of a romance and of a mystery but I didn't feel like either of those themes were substantial enough to motivate you through the book. The characters were interesting but not all that relatable to me and I was frustrated that so much was left open and answered only by the family tree in the last 2...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
