The book by Galchen
In this section of the book, Galchen shows the protagonist, Leo, visiting his mother-in-law, Magda, in a bid to understand the whereabouts of his wife. Upon his visit, the protagonist notices several things are out of order in the family. He cunningly gets access to the Rema’s gallery, whereby he sees the various pictures of her wife, at a young age. With numerous instances of symbolism, Leo describes his journey to finding Rema. One evening when he returns to the house, he finds Magda with a “Dog-man,” who scares him, and later that evening, Magda brings up the topic of dogs, a symbol used to represent sexual desires, when Leo says that Magda’s dog slept with him that night (Galchen 96). With his daily notes, he kept a record of the mysterious happenings within the days. For instance, he wrote about “the mysterious dog, Rema’s husband, Royal Academy, and Tzvi Gal-Chen.”
One evening, when he returns home, Leo finds a woman, who resembles her Rema, smells like her, kisses like her, and loves to tickle his eyelids, just like Rema. In the house, the simulacrum, which Magda believes to be Rema, starts talking about her marriage life, ignoring the presence of Leo. Galchen explains the next moves and the decisions taken by Leo in every scene, with the explanation showing the reasons for his decisions and choices. By reading this book, it is evident that Leo describes his different perception of Rema and the simulacrums she encounters. In this scene, the simulacrum does look like Rema, but then Leo explains that her emotional affiliation and other small, yet important details of her depict that she is far from his Rema. For instance, when she calls over the phone to ask about his whereabouts, Leo ridicules her, and instead of breaking down into crying, she keeps explaining herself (Galchen 120). From this episode, Galchen wants to give a description of the real Rema.
By using first-person to communicate, Galchen wants to teach us how to read this text, and how to understand it. The concept of double unreality, request readers to reflect on both what is written and the intended message. For this reason, Galchen uses Leo to tell readers the various intentions of the novel. For instance, Harvey, Leo’s patient, is delusional, believing that he has the ability to control weather patterns and that he works as a secret agent in the Meteorology Royal Academy. When the simulacrum cried out that it was Leo who was not himself, Galchen wants to bring the idea of grief and pain, as expressed by Leo. Galchen provides an explanation of a confrontation between Leo and a “foolish friend,” who had suggested that Leo loved his father much, only for Leo to dismiss him (Galchen 143). Here, the Galchen lets the readers begin a sentence with a clear vision of what it could mean, but in the end, he leaves a darkened counsel.
Galchen also uses this film to express her grief in losing her father. By using Leo, who had lost his father, she pays tribute to her father. Double unreliability is depicted in the context whereby Leo denies meeting looking for his father, a context that relates to the author’s quest to pay tribute to her father. Finally, Galchen enables the novel to shift from a painful mood to the comic aspect of the novel, techniques that make the novel to comprehend.