The apearance of a previously hidden theme

I just recently realized a theme present in the book Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen that has been present the whole book. Galchen makes the point that an extended drive toward deciphering the words of the mad can drive the curious pursuant of the truth mad as well. It is rather difficult to find quotes for this theme, since the author has been supporting this theme since the beginning of the book, and I just haven't noticed. One time madness may be overcoming Leo is in the library, when he is researching the works of Tzvi Gal-Chen. He decides that he has not "abandoned my faith in experimental controls. I quickly wrote down three more note cards: HERONS, WOOL PROCESSING, HEMOCHROMATOSIS"(55). These three research topics are totally random, but Leo thinks they may lead him to results based upon random occurances that seem coherent. This ideal much the same as Leo's patient, Harvey's assumptions about his day based upon the weather. Leo has spent so much time hunting down his missing psychosis patient that he is also going crazy. Another example of Leo's possible descent into psychosis is when Leo is taking a 'primary investigation' of where Harvey is. He decides to take "the number 1 train heading downtown... Near the bottom of the island, I exited, ascended, crossed the street, redescended, waited, and reboarded the subway going uptown."(33). Leo is so obsessed with finding Harvey and learning his thought patterns that he also goes crazy, trying to find 'evidence' by taking the subway in circles.
Another thing that the author Galchen does to make her novel interesting is add strange thoughts that everyone thinks but no one voices to her book. Leo wakes up from a nightmare, and it is still the middle of the night. He complains that "I tried to fall back asleep, and I think I did, but it was the kind of sleep where one later wakes up exhausted, with the convction of having slept not more than minutes"(49). This has happened to everyone at some point, and helps us conect this book to reality. It also is interesting and refreshing to see that in a book, since so little of these obscure phenomena are actually published. Later, Leo is talking about a trip he had to Austria with Rema, and says to her (honestly, he thinks at the time), that he can 'more or less' speak German. He later reflects that "I thought I'd remember German despite having never actually forgotten it, having never-as I vaguely felt I might have- listened to German radio broadcasts, or spoken German as a child. But we get these wrong feelings sometimes, feelings like articles slipped into our luggage but not properly ours"(56). This has happened to me quite a lot, where I gte the feeling that I have done something I haven't. When I read this, I was interested by how perfectly this matches the experience I have had with this phenomena. Soon after, I asked my parents if they have noticed this happen, and they have. It is incredible how widespread this observance is. These observations help keep Galchen's novel alive and readably interesting. They also help set up Leo's eccentric and detail oriented persona.

A topic/the Author's Style

For quarter 3 reading, I chose the book atmospheric disturbances by Rivka Galchen. The book is about a man who comes home one day and believes his wife has been replaced with a duplicate. He spends the remainder of the book (as far as I know), attempting to locate her. It has many topics, major ones, almost one each chapter, but I believe one of the important underlying ones in the first section of the book is the point of appearances. Dr. Leo Liebenstein is a psychiatrist. From the author's descriptions, Leo is astute and fits his job. In the very first page of the book, Leo notices (about his wife) that she had the "Same everyting, but it wasn't Rema"(1). He goes on to make several psychological observations about why the fake Rema (his wife) is different than the real one. The topic here, physical appearance as a defining aspect of a person, is brought up in this quote. Any man such as Leo who has lived with someone for an extent of time will come to be accustomed to their idiosyncracies and subtle traits. The imitation has the same appearance, the same Argentinian accent, even the same flawed english. But to a psychologist, or to one with a close bond to Rema, it is obvious that the woman in his apartment is an immitation, jdging just, for one example, by her love of dogs. Another line applying to this topic comes in a part of the book when Leo and (the false) Rema are having a conversation at home. Leo thinks "the longer I stared at that knuckle the more it grew foreign rather than familiar. Pretty hands. Pretty knuckles. Pretty little way of holding a tea mug"(30). Leo knows the doppelganger is not the real Rema simply because of the real Rema's quirky inability to look 'pretty'. He knows an impostor even from a small gesture with a tea mug. This staunchly supports the topic of image and appearance. It says that appearance is not a good judge of character (or reality) and that judging solely by image will throw you off course.
Another interesting thing about this book is the unique literary style. This is the first book of author Rivka Galchen. She has an MD as a fiction author and therefore has the somewhat groundbreaking potential to write detail oriented yet emotional prose. There are examples all over the text, but one that stands out in particular is actually the chapter titles. One chapter, divided into subchapters, has the titles "my mesalliance"(18) and "A pyrrhic victory"(21) for the subchapters. I had to look up mesalliance (anxiety), and pyrrhic (initial) to understand the meaning of the chapter. I actually find this to be a good thing since not only does the interesting word choice keep you on your toes and provide better description, but it also emphasized certain underused words that prove to be key. I think the author did this on purpose, to help the reader understand the important points of the rather convoluted plot. Another unique literary trait of this book is the sort of 'analyzing sentance' at the end of each chapter. At the end of chapter 5, Leo says "Though my initial progress did not look or feel like progress, I believe it was a kind of progress, that of just staying in place, of not slipping backward into despair"(34) These summarizing sentances, at the end of almost every chapter, are quite useful to better understand the story's progression. They also give the reader a sub-topic to chew on, (a clincher?) For example, this 'summary' makes the reader wonder if non-regression can constitute progress. This aspect of the wirting style helps keep the reader interested and following the plot.

Cash by Johnny Cash (creative name, right?)

This first section of Cash by Johnny Cash mainly establishes his personality. Johnny cash is feisty. One can see this when he is talking to a reporter about a robbery on is home. He says "No, we're not [leaving], this is our home."(56) People were trying to get him to leave Jamaica by robbing his house, but he didn't back down. Cash is also a convincing person. When he is trying to buy a house from John, he is able to make John sell the house. He says "Well, say you sold it. If you did, what would you have to have for it?"(45) In the end, he is able to get John to sell the house. This first section of the book develops Cash's character into a deep individual that you can empathize with.
The first section of the book, although it does talk about Cash's personality, mainly describes his background. I think he is trying to get the reader to empathize with him. In the beginning of the book he is talking about his family and poverty. For example, he says that his "daddy had a lot, but he didn't have money."(5) I think he is really trying get you on his side by saying he grew up poor. I think he does this again, near the same place. He says about money "he had to take whatever work could be had."(5) Once again, i think he was trying to win empathy from the reader. By describing his background, Cash relates himself to us, allowing us to step into his shoes.

Outside reading #4 (I hope this is a valid topic)

Ok well hopefully this song will continue my theme of strange topics for outside reading. The song is American Pie, written in 1971 by Don McLean. I decided to choose this song because it has many interpretations. One fact is fairly clear, however. The song is very likely about the death of Buddy Holly, and how when he died, the "music died" for McLean. McLean actually said as much in an interview. The interesting part, however, is that the song seems to reference other musical artists as well, although this can not so easily be confirmed. I think the line that mentions "the Jester", (with the jester/ on the sidelines/ in a cast), actually refers to Bob Dylan, (he is sometimes called the jester, and I believe that when he sang about the joker in 'All Along the Watchtower', he was referring to himself, since he seemed to be on the joker's side). The song also possibly mentions the Byrds. They actually say the word birds once, and on songmeanings.com, the administrator actually spelled the word 'Byrds'. Also, the line 'helter skelter/ in a summer shelter' may refer to a Byrds CD, fallout shelter. Finally, the line 'eight miles high/ and falling fast' refers to the Byrds song Eight Miles High. I couldn't find actual evidence of any of these tree references anywhere, but it seems really coincidental. The line may, however, refer instead to the plane crash that killed Holly. Online, I found many more possible interesting references, such as to the Rolling Stones and to the Beatles. I think the overall topic of the song is the decline of music in McLean's life. The song has an overall negative tone, and I think an era of music ended for McLean when Holly, (the American Pie?) died.

American Pie." Lyrics007. 27 May 2008. Lyrics007. 30 Oct 2008 http://www.lyrics007.com/Don%20McLean%20Lyrics/American%20Pie%20Lyrics.html.

Sharks Are Weird. (Outside Reading)

This article describes the second known occurrence of the virgin birth of a shark (a birth with no father). This was an interesting article since virgin birth is a concept very foreign to us as humans. Having said that, however, it should be mentioned that other animals have also had virgin births. The specifics of the article are that an autopsy of a blacktip shark showed a fully grown embryo. The dead shark had had no access to male sharks for the past eight years. I thought this article was interesting because human virgin births exist only in biblical tales, and it is a very strange and foreign concept to us. People should be aware of this since it may alter their view of nature and the noteworthy capabilities of other species.

" DNA test proves it -- baby shark has no father." CNN. 10 Oct 2008. CNN. 11 Oct 2008 .
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/10/shark.virgin.birth.ap/index.html
(Originally October 11)

A New Point Of View (Outside Reding)

I don't know if I was supposed to read a forum, but I hope this is OK, because the content is thought out and neat, (proper grammar and spelling, not slander). The post is someone's opinion about problems in the US government right now. The poster has several points, but he starts by mentioning that the 2 major presidential candidates, in the process of campaigning for office, have not been doing their jobs as senators. It is unclear exactly how the author can back up this point, but it is still an interesting prospect, because not many people seem to notice this. The article also brings up the essentially undiscussed topic of term limits- the poster thinks that a president shouldn't have served too many terms as another prominent political figure. This is also an interesting point since too many terms in a different office gives a name notability, and a president shouldn't receive votes purely based on notability. The final complaint of the author is that presidents shouldn't have purely political experience, (law degrees, social science degrees), that they should have education (or degrees) in math and science as well. This is a debatable point, since political education obviously would help as president, but a mathematics degree could also be useful since it would allow the president to make more logical decisions, (about budget, military movement, etc.) by himself. Overall, the author's points are clearly debatable, but definitely worth considering.

"What happened to campaign reform?." Rolling Stone. 9 Sep 2008. Rolling Stone. 2 Oct 2008 .
http://www.rollingstone.com/forums/?plckForumPage=ForumDiscussion&plckDiscussionId=Cat%3a738938f9-1261-44ee-82c6-fb85fdcd8430Forum%3a37d4a2a8-e28c-4500-abb5-19d3d2e33e36Discussion%3a80166a48-ee15-4272-b3b3-484dfc008c54&plckCategoryCurrentPage=0
(Originally on Oct. 2)

First Real Post With Relevant And Work Intensive Content

This is a very strange piece since it's content is an enormous departure from american culture. A rich buisinessman was handing out money to waiting civilians. The Indonesian citizens stampeded each other in eager attempts to reach the money. At least 21 were killed. This sort of relates to The Iliad theme of brutality. Eager citizens gave no thought to the lives of others when working towards their own goal. They were strangely brutal (trampling women and children) to reach their goal. Even though the brutality may pay off in the short term, they will have the deaths of others on their conscience forever. This is like Achilles in The Iliad, when he was torturing Hector's dead body. He would enjoy it in the short term, but it would haunt his conscience in the long term.


Saptura, Andy. "Indonesia cash handout spurs deadly stampede." CNN. 15 Sep . CNN. 15 Sep 2008. http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/09/15/indonesia.stam

(Originally done Sep. 15)