Usually I appreciate Schillinger’s reviews, which is why I was astonished to find her bringing a bunch of paper-thin gender assumptions to Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen in the NY Times:
Galchen’s narrator, a fussy 51-year-old psychiatrist named Leo Liebenstein, believes that his beautiful, much-younger Argentine wife, Rema, has been replaced by a “doppelgänger,” a “simulacrum,” an “impostress,” an “ersatz” spouse…. Leo hops a plane to Argentina…. using Gal-Chen’s research on retrieving “thermodynamic variables from within deep convective clouds” to guide his own blundering “attempts at retrieval” of the “real” Rema. No, this is not chick lit.
It’s unusual — in fact (why be coy?), it’s extremely rare — to come across a first novel by a woman writer that concerns itself with such quirky, philosophical, didactic explorations; a novel in which the heart and the brain vie for the role of protagonist, and the brain wins. While the voice and mood of the novel are masculine, clinical and objective…
Since when has there been a presumption that debut women novelists are writing chick lit? Why on earth does the phrase “chick lit” even come up in a review of this novel, which Schillinger goes on to compare to the complex work of Borges? If Rivka Galchen had skipped the photo and changed her name to oh, say, George Eliot, there would have been no trace of chicklitiness in this review.
Like I said, I usually appreciate Schillinger’s book reviews, but she seems determined to avoid Atmospheric Disturbances. “If this were a different kind of novel,” she writes, describing plot points of this other, hypothetical novel; two paragraph later “In a different kind of novel,” opens the path for an alternate denouement than the one written by Galchen. She spends a lot of time writing about the books this book isn’t, and not nearly as much writing about what it is.
No, this is not chick lit. It never tried to be. Only this reviewer made than connection — leap — and as a female writer, I’m offended that she did.
Totally agree with your measured objections to Schillinger’s review, FWIW. You’re abso-deffo correct when you question the reviewer’s inability to accomplish what all reviewers must achieve, that is, to objectively review what exists, not spend those precious words offering readers subjective alternatives to what’s underhand(ed).
It’s fine to compare a book to / with others; but, to fill space rewriting a book in a review amounts to a kind of literary criminal act. As for the misnomer, “ChickLit,” a specious say-nuthin’ categorisation, one that really irks yours truly, I am of the opinion that a true assessor would dismiss usage of the exclusive term entirely (unless, as I pointed out on Frank Wilson’s blog, “Books, Inq.,” the reviewer also regularly deploys “DickLit” or “PrickLit” designations).
I, too, generally appreciate Schillinger’s judgments; but, in this piece, she proves not only has Elvis left the building, the building has categorically exited the planet. Quel fromage. Also, the syndrome is not Asperger’s; it is a genuine psychiatric illness, “Capgras Disorder.” (Tony Rosato, once a Second-City / SNL star, suffers from it; a tragic story here in Canada; to learn more, interested parties can a-g’ogling go.)
yes the disorder is Capgras Syndrome but someone should point out and point to Richard Powers’ The Echo Maker. I was disappointed that Liesl, in her review, wasn’t aware of it.
“Astonished” is an appropriate reaction. See my Amazon review at
http://www.amazon.com/review/RJ9YXVLMG37DB/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
which I wrote in astonishment & disbelief after waking up Sunday morning and (uncharacteristically) glancing at the Book Review section before (why be coy?) the baseball box scores (I’m a guy). Oh, and if you want a sense of how the threshold for tolerance of gender assumptions has shifted over the last few decades (in the wrong direction), notice the hostile comment on my review by a *woman* poet (the commenter “Adrienne” is the poet Adrienne Su).
I’m looking forward to letters to the editor about the L.S. review over the next few weeks. Too bad that Daisy Fried, another woman poet but one would could really have entered the fray with appropriate wrath in this context, squandered her one letter permitted per year in last week’s issue, in a letter about William Logan’s review of the new edition of Frank O’Hara’s selected poems.