Rating: 
Summary: Critique of modern times and ways
Review: This novel enlightened me, woke me up, and perplexed me. The title of the story apparently refers to Lightman's emotionally supressed and depressive "diagnosis" of our times. "The Diagnosis" is the "modern" story of an organization man suddenly confronted with humility, frailty and the truth of his world. The story is linear; the author sparkles with obviously clear insights into the feelings and attitudes of someone once in charge, who becomes dependent on others for his physical and spiritual well-being. What perplexed me was the interposed fictionalized story of Anytus, apparently one of the important, but deeply troubled, characters instrumental in Socrates' death sentence, and the death itself. While the Anytus story line paralleled the modern story, I didn't understand its purpose. Was it to show that life and lives haven't really changed? Was it to show what can happen when one makes a Faustian pact? The characters are well-drawn, particularly the protagonist. While the author's intention is an important one, I felt it to be too vague in the telling, especially because of the secondary story line.
Rating: 
Summary: Changing Nature of the American Dream
Review: It could happen to anybody, anytime, anywhere. You take the same train to the office as you have done every working day for the past nine years. Then suddenly you lose it. Your mind becomes a blank. You cannot remember which stop to get off at, or even where you work. Then the panic attack starts. You begin to sweat, imagining all the other commuters are looking at you. Finally reduced to a gibbering, naked wreck crouched on the floor of the train carriage, you are escorted by police out of the station to the nearest psychiatric hospital. What happens next to Bill Chalmers, the protagonist of Alan Lightman's brilliant new novel, is even more frightening. Mistaken for a worthless vagrant headcase, he is subjected to illegal, invasive experiments, from which his brain emerges irreparably altered. He escapes, only to be mugged. Somehow he finds his way back home and picks up the pieces of his life, his experiences a fractured, elusive memory. Like Lester Burnham in the film American Beauty, Chalmers goes into free fall from society as he knows it. Unlike Burnham, he is not given a chance to re-invent himself. He has it all, or so he thinks: nice house in an affluent area of Boston, swish car, good job, loving family. But the price of his success means communicating with his son via e-mail - even when they are both home. It also means long hours at the office, which pushes his wife into a cyber love affair. The similarities to American Beauty don't end there, though Lightman adds an unusual twist by cleverly working into the story the fate of Greek philosopher Socrates, a paragon of virtue in a corrupt society. Chalmers loses his job as he degenerates physically and mentally, but comes to realise there is more to life than trying to live the dream. This is a dark story about the erosion of moral values and the high cost individuals pay for information overload in the workplace today. Erudite and philosophical, Lightman is also a skilful storyteller who captures the reader's attention from the opening paragraph. Provocative and challenging, The Diagnosis shows the fallibility of humans in the pursuit of greed and ambition. Socrates reasoned that to "know thyself" was the key to existence in society. For Bill Chalmers, it's a voyage of discovery that proves to be a tragedy waiting to happen.
Rating: 
Summary: THIS COULD HAPPEN TO YOU!
Review: I had the same feelings reading the Diagnosis that I had reading Alice in Wonderland...wonderful, scary, funny, improbabale...but at the same time totally possible. Bill Chalmers gets on the commuter train in Boston and soon finds he doesn't know his destination or the seventh digit of his phone number. Horrible things happen as he falls down his rabbit hole. I was swept up in this novel and kept thinking about how fried my own brain becomes from information overload, and trying to do too many things at once. Bill's son's addiction to the internet is something I see in me and most of my friends. Alan Lightman is a Kafka for 2000. When you finish reading the Diagnosis, and you should read the Diagnosis, read or re-read, Thoreau...we all need to relax.
Rating:
Summary: Why read The Diagnosis?
Review: You all know what The Diagnosis is about, so I'll keep myself from summarizing and cut right to the point: The Diagnosis, while (in my mind) certainly entertaining and involving enough to prompt the reader to finish, does not find its footing in being a good page-turner or thriller-style novel.
The reason it is important, then, is its overall message, which I believe most of us are aware of already. However, Lightman's writing style so uniquely conveys the sense of chaos and meaninglessness, the "spiritual poverty", that confronts our society that I would recommend it to anyone who considers themselves humanistic or "spiritual", as well as aspiring professionals. This book forces you to consider where you stand in your own life and re-think your priorities. As a student halfway through college, it only helped to harden my resolve to do everything in my power not to end up the "Bill Chalmers" type, idly pursuing the so-called American Dream, and to search for more than mere money and material comfort in my life.
I've noted on some of the other reviews posted here that a lot of my fellow readers didn't understand the point of the Socrates/Anytus interludes. While I agree that the life of Bill Chalmers somewhat paralleled the life of Anytus in terms of his relationship with his son, I think it is also crucial to realize the significance of the fact that Anytus was the person primarily responsible for the death of Socrates. Socrates, for those who don't know, was the "gadfly" of his city, and had the ability to prove to people that they had no real rational basis for their beliefs and values. He made people reconsider their priorities and examine themselves on a much deeper level, a talent which eventually made him a threat to his society. He had a real passion for people, it seems, which overrode all desires for fame, fortune, etc., and he did not fear death.
So then, what is the point of these interludes? I believe that the execution of Socrates by Anytus' efforts mirrors that of Bill Chalmers' true "self" by his daily life in a society with little regard for people as human beings. I think this is what Lightman was really getting at...perhaps he should have devoted more time to Socrates and his teachings instead of simply focusing on his death. I am reminded of Mel Gibson's treatment of Jesus in The Passion.
Rating: 
Summary: ugh
Review: I listened to this book ( 10 Cds!) waiting for something to happen.... waiting, waiting, ( does this sound like the book) and was just totally disappointed in the book. It went no where after a very exciting beginning and left me totally cold. If you are thinking of reading it, don't.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed
Review: I agree with another reviewer who says this book started strong but then lost momentum. I finished it to keep my word, having told someone I would read it and share what I think ... which is the following: there is no resolution to the conflict (it is left hanging, abandoned); characters are not fully developed; and the juxtaposiiton of Anytus's story is more irritating than illuminating. The story could have been rendered more effectively as a novella. The theme, though compelling certainly in this information and computer age, becomes cloying by the end of the book. We get it, Mr. Lightman. Human health and personal interactions are more fragile, indeed, than man's creations to improve both. They flourish while we founder. What we don't get is the engaging storyline, the simple "what's-going-to-happen-next" delight in reading a story that entertains as it instructs, and reassures as it reveals. On this count, the novel fails committed readers who read on, faithfully, watching Bill Chalmers' mysterious condition deteriorate, undiagnosed. Then the book ends.
Rating:
Summary: Starts Fast , Ends Slow...
Review: ...much like the protagonist of the novel. The opening chapter is fantastic but the book seems to stall after Chalmers is released from his job. I like the jabs at technology and society and the idea of the human machine failing while the electronic revolution keeps moving forward but I thought that the e-mail sections of the novel were a bit tedious and the internet affair of Bill's wife just disappears. I agree that not all questions should be resolved in a good novel but this one left too many. Buy the book if you don't need a feel good ending (sorry!) and enjoy reading Kafka.
Rating:
Summary: Lightman sees the light
Review: This is a rare accomplishment indeed. A surreal, at times mystical, revelation of modern times. A man witnesses his growing helplessness within the framework of a society which not only fails to discover his "illness," but is smug, self-satisfied, and all but divorced from their own humanity. Lightman's visual portrayals and his incredibly delicate imagery are profound indications of his sensitivity to the dehumanizing influences that surround us. He has no quick fixes, even though in one passage his character, Bill Chalmers, strikes out at the crass materialism which tempts his teen-age son. This is far from being an unrealized novel--it is most certainly one of the most honest and cogent portraits of our society that I have read.
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