Aegis 2010
102
Book Review >>> Boris Hinderer
Atmospheric Disturbances Galchen, Rivka. Toronto: HarperCollins, 2008. 256 pp.
Is an exact copy as good as the original? That is the question psychiatrist Leo Liebenstein, the main character from Rivka Galchen’s novel Atmospheric Disturbances, is forced to grapple with. One day Leo’s young Argentinean wife Rema disappears and he is greeted at his home by an exact replica of his missing wife. This fake looks and acts as his wife does, and even knows things only his wife could know. “Do you remember that little fight?” she asks him (208). Yet something within the impersonal, detail-obsessed Leo, tells him that this new woman is a fake. He sees that this “ersatz” wife has “fine lines of age on her face” and interprets this as a mark of an imperfect copy as opposed to the simple effects of age upon his wife (36). He sets off to find his real wife using every resource he has, including his Schizophrenic patient Harvey, Rema’s mother, and even the local library. His search takes him from his apartment in New York to Patagonia, and all the while, he is hunted by his wife’s imposter, or “doppelganger,” as he calls her. She seeks to convince her mad husband to relent his search and return to his life in New York; yet, the cold and clinical Leo is unmoved as she cries and tries to tell him, “it’s you who’s not yourself” (140). Galchen explores the perseverance of love through Leo’s continent-spanning hunt for his wife, as well as through the “doppelganger’s” quest to regain her husband and save him from his own insanity. Even in the face of contrary evidence, Leo clings to his quest to recover his beloved Rema. Atmospheric Disturbances also serves to show the kind of unlikely partnerships that arise in times of desperation. Leo finds himself working alongside his patient Harvey, who believes himself able to control the weather. Leo finds an odd mentor in the form of a meteorologist named Tzvi Gal-Chen. Oh, and Tzvi may or may not be dead, but either way he responds promptly to emails. And to thicken the mystery, Rema may also be impersonating Tzvi. These are the kind of twisting, farce-like conundrums that give the book its unique charm. In researching the possible whereabouts of the missing Rema and the work of meteorologist Tzvi Gal-Chen, Leo starts using terms such as “Doppler Effect” and “mesoscale meteorology” to address the problem of how one can know real and authentic from the fake or the copy. In the case of his missing wife, he calls it “the Dopplerganger Effect.” He ponders whether we can ever be happy with replicas or whether we will be haunted by the sense that a clone is just that, an imitation. The story is told through the perspective of an intelligent, oddly observant and very confused man in the form of Leo. This point of view, as well as Leo’s strange allies and their pursuit of truth, infuses the book with a distinct and quirky sense of humor. The reader can
