Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen

Ok. This one is really really strange. First Rivka is writing this novel about her father Tzvi Gal-Chen, at least in part. He flits in and out of the book like a firefly and it is clear that Rivka loves and admires him, although he is fictionalized quite convincingly.

So any way, Dr. Leo Liebenstein arrives home one day to find that his wife has disappeared, leaving behind a woman who looks, talks and behaves exactly like her. Certain that Rema is still alive he commences a quixotic quest for her leading him to Patagonia among other venues. His Sancho Panza is one of his psychiatric patients, Harvey.

In any event, we all fail to see clearly the world around us, or in this case, the woman we love, but the journey to discover, or re-discover true meaning, qualitative or quantitative is always the most important thing.

This comic and picaresque novel is well worth reading and has chapter titles such as: 1. A method for Calculating Temperature, Pressure and Vertical Velocities from Doppler Radar Observations.

Just so you know, Rivka Galchen received her MD from Mount Sinai School of Medicine, having spent a year in South America working on public health issues, She recently completed her MFA at Columbia University, where she was a Robert Bingham Fellow. The recipient of a 2006 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers Award, Galchen lives in New York City.

All of this is depressing to me since she is 25 years younger than me!!

Apropos of nothing: As Yeats says in his Song of Wandering Aengus:

I WENT out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,	5
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,	10
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran	15
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;	20
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.