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The Diagnosis: A Novel Audiobook
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(2.01) - 603 listener ratings
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Publisher Description
Alan Lightman's first novel, Einstein's Dreams, was greeted with international praise. Salman Rushdie called it "at once intellectually provocative and touching and comic and so very beautifully written." Michiko Kakutani wrote in The New York Times that the novel creates "a magical, metaphysical realm . . . as in Calvino's work, the fantastical elements of the stories are grounded in precise, crystalline prose." With The Diagnosis, Lightman gives us his most ambitious and penetrating novel yet. While rushing to his office one warm summer morning, Bill Chalmers, a junior executive, realizes that he cannot remember where he is going or even who he is. All he remembers is the motto of his company: The maximum information in the minimum time. When Bill's memory returns, "his head pounding, remembering too much," a strange numbness afflicts him, beginning as a tingling in his hands and gradually spreading over the rest of his body. As he attempts to find a diagnosis of his illness, he descends into a nightmare, enduring a blizzard of medical tests and specialists without conclusive results, the manic frenzy of his company, and a desperate wife who decides that he must be imagining his deteriorating condition. By turns satiric, comic, and tragic, The Diagnosis is a brilliant and disturbing examination of our modern obsession with speed, information, and money, and what this obsession has done to our minds and our spirits.
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"You have to keep reading to find out what happens. This is definitely a page turner. The main character is confused and quite confusing for the readers."
— Tony (4 out of 5 stars)
The Diagnosis Listener Reviews
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" Read this for school... not sure what to think besides a total dissatisfaction with the lack of resolution... "
— Mary, 1/4/2014 -
" I didn't even enjoy the process of reading this book that much... but I kept with it just hoping that there would be a payoff in the end. There wasn't. "
— Janet, 12/26/2013 -
" pretty good but dropped the ball at the end..... "
— Amanu, 12/13/2013 -
" Intriguing at first, but became increasingly difficult to read. Difficult in the boring sense, which is a shame because it was well written. The email excerpts really started to bother me, mostly because of the intentional typos. I enjoyed the fictional Socrates side story, but I don't think I've made the connection yet to how it relates to Bill. Something to discuss at book club... "
— Sara, 10/26/2013 -
" I kept waiting for something to happen. After 369 pages I was still waiting. "
— Chandra, 10/12/2013 -
" As some of the other reviewers have noted, my expectations for this book were high, based on my reading of "Einstein's Dreams." I kept waiting for this book to capture my interest but it never did. "
— Lee, 8/27/2013 -
" I had read part of this novel some years ago but not finished it. Now I've read the whole thing. Mixed feelings. I'll quote Kirkus Reviews, which says it best: "haunting if ultimately unsatisfying metafiction." "
— Sue, 7/21/2013 -
" I read this book for the AP Institute Conference in Vermont. I can honestly say I didn't really enjoy the book, but I did like the issues it brought up and the discussions we had as a result of it. "
— Laura, 2/12/2013 -
" DON'T GET SICK !!!!!! "
— Rick, 9/18/2012 -
" I'll give you a diagnosis, alright. You have suckitis. "
— M, 7/25/2012 -
" The most maddening aspect of this book was how pitiful the payoff is at the end. The poor reader suffers through 300+ pages of worrying about the main character who suffers from an undiagnosed illness only to find out....nothing. "
— Kay, 6/14/2012 -
" Not a bad concept but poorly executed in almost every way. "
— Bobby, 10/13/2011 -
" Interesting book about a man in health care hell. Did I enjoy it? No, but it made me very anxious, and i had to finish it, so it must have been good "
— Sally, 1/22/2011 -
" I actually listened to this on tape. I buy used tapes so don't always have much selection. Picked this becausese I tend to be fascinated by things medical. I kept listening in hopes of a resolution. Btween the first tape and the last I suffered through a major Slough of Bad Writing. "
— Ruth, 1/17/2011 -
" I didn't love it but was excited by its relevance to my research interests in modern technology, disease, neurasthenia, gender, etc. "
— D.Travers, 10/3/2010 -
" A really really bad book. Don't waste your time. Listened to this on CD, a decent ending might have saved it, but it was not to be. "
— Wendy, 8/11/2010 -
" Loved Einstein's Dreams, and so keep turning the pages hoping for something resembling that great read. Sadly disappointed, a dark and depressing book with on a small nightlight of hope throughout. Interesting touch of misspelled emails throughout - but lost its novelty by the end. "
— Preeta, 5/11/2010 -
" Well-written but bordering on too existential -- depressive tale from an author who readily admits he thinks technology will be society's downfall. "
— cassie, 3/5/2010 -
" The Diagnosis: A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries) by Alan Lightman (2002) "
— Karen, 10/9/2009 -
" As some of the other reviewers have noted, my expectations for this book were high, based on my reading of "Einstein's Dreams." I kept waiting for this book to capture my interest but it never did. "
— Lee, 10/1/2009 -
" Well, it gathered steam and I enjoyed the ending (no spoilers). there are some messages therein, but also a literary exercise, I think, and that's not too much fun. <br/>"I'm not as f***ed as those people!" Whew! "
— Robert, 4/2/2009 -
" Ahhhh, dang. Couldn't, just couldn't get through it. Fascinating topic but too much atmosphere of stifling, realistic office/corporate speak kept getting in the way. Picked it up because I LOVED Einstein's Dreams. "
— Karen, 1/5/2009 -
" I really <strong>wanted</strong> to like this better, and I think the author has a lot to say about how our information-saturated culture makes it difficult to 'read, mark, learn & inwardly digest' the data that is sent our way, but it was ponderous reading. "
— Sam, 1/4/2009
About Alan Lightman
Alan Lightman is the author of several novels, including Einstein’s Dreams, a New York Times and international bestseller, and The Diagnosis, a finalist for the 2000 National Book Award. He is also the author of several collections of essays and numerous books on science. His work has appeared in the Atlantic, Granta, the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, and Nature, among many other publications. A theoretical physicist as well as a writer, he has served on the faculties of Harvard and MIT, where he was the first person to receive a dual faculty appointment in science and the humanities.
About Scott Brick
Scott Brick, an acclaimed voice artist, screenwriter, and actor, has performed on film, television, and radio. He attended UCLA and spent ten years in a traveling Shakespeare company. Passionate about the spoken word, he has narrated a wide variety of audiobooks. winning won more than fifty AudioFile Earphones Awards and several of the prestigious Audie Awards. He was named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine and the Voice of Choice for 2016 by Booklist magazine.