37 pages • 1 hour read
Taffy Brodesser-AknerFleishman Is in Trouble
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Systems
While Toby and Rachel’s relationship is strong, Toby uses the image of a functioning system to explain his felt sense of security. Shortly after getting engaged to Rachel, Toby thinks, “Praise the Lord! Praise him in his infinite wisdom! He felt then the peace of systems. He felt the solidity of a middle-class path. The world finally felt solid beneath him” (176). After the marriage began to dissolve, the image of the system as a source for security began to fade. As Toby ascends an elevator to Cyndi and Todd Leffer’s apartment with Hannah and Solly, he reflects, “Elevators had never bothered him before, but lately, his faith in systems was wobbly. Why had he put so much trust in elevators in the first place? Why did everyone?” (79).
Following his divorce, Toby begins to question his faith in the functioning of many things that he had never questioned before.
Of course, systems such as elevators are metaphors for marriage itself. When Toby asks why everyone puts such faith in elevators, he is also calling into question why people put such faith in the institution of marriage. Like the cables of an elevator, the supports of a marriage may suddenly snap or break without warning, but Toby never questioned such things until such a break happened to him. Toby view of the impersonal workings of an elevator as suddenly suspect shows how pervasively divorce has affected his thinking.
Block Universe Theory
While they are in the Hamptons, Solly asks Toby what a Block Universe Theory is. Toby responds:
It’s a physics theory. It’s the theory that there are infinite universes in infinite dimensions, all going on at once. Like no matter what’s going on, that moment still exists forever. Time isn’t forward. It’s all happening at the same time (112).
Once it’s introduced, the Block Universe Theory—the idea that multiple Fleishmans could be living out their lives in multiple quantum realities, all at once—becomes a running motif throughout the novel. At one high point of happiness, Toby thinks:
Poor Toby in all those other block universes. Poor Toby who was still figuring it out. This Toby knew. This Toby couldn’t believe his incredible fortune, to have many twilights lying in front of him, and all the bad ones behind him (242).
The Block Universe Theory invokes the possibility of other narrative worlds and possibilities for Toby. His contented status after a date with Nahid is just one way his life could have gone; in another reality, Toby might be spending that night with his kids, at home on his phone, or seething mad at Rachel. All those other Tobys are experiencing those lives at the same time that he is experiencing his.
The ending of the novel makes reference to the Block Universe Theory as well. Looking out the window of his apartment, he notes the wide range of possible experiences and emotions awaiting him out in the city, before reflecting that amongst those emotions, he has stored up some optimism that “would stay there forever” (373). Rachel walks in the door the next moment, suggesting that this optimism might carry Toby and Rachel some way into the future. No matter which timeline Toby creates, his newfound optimism will be part of him.
Listening to the Patient
One of Toby’s mottos throughout the novel is “Listen to the patient” (46). Though first used in the context of diagnosing a rare illness, the phrase has symbolic implications as well. In the context of Rachel’s disappearance, listening to the patient means interpreting the clues suggesting that Rachel and Sam might be lovers.
Later, Toby reflects on his friendship with Seth and understands for the first time that Seth might be lonelier than he has always let on. Here, too, Toby admonishes himself for insufficiently listening to the clues Seth had given—“Why hadn’t Toby understood this before? Listen to the patient, etc., etc.” (269). In the end, listening to the patient is an antidote to the fantasies that lead Toby to draw false conclusions about many of the people around him, including Joanie and Nahid.
