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Special Topics in Calamity Physics |  |
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Special Topics in Calamity Physics | |
Ten points if you identified this as the plot of Vladimir Nabokov''s Lolita. Extra credit if you also recognize it (minus the pedophilia) as the plot of a much-ballyhooed first novel by Marisha Pessl, who tackles the art of fiction by vigorously associating everything in her book with something else. Constructing the novel as if it were the core curriculum for a literature survey course, complete with a final exam, Pessl gives each chapter the title of a classic literary work to which the episode''s events have a sly connection: Chapter 6, "Brave New World," describes the first day of a new school year, while in Chapter 11, "Moby-Dick," a large man drowns in a swimming pool.
Along the way, there are thousands of references to books and movies both real and imagined, as well as an assortment of pen-and-ink drawings. The book''s young narrator, Blue van Meer, has fiercely embraced her father''s didactic advice: "Always have everything you say exquisitely annotated, and, where possible, provide staggering Visual Aids." Blue''s cross-referencing mania can be surprisingly enjoyable, because Pessl is a vivacious writer who''s figured out how to be brainy without being pedantic. Like her protagonist, she''s eager to make good use of the many books she''s read and the movies she''s seen. And she loves similes like a fat kid loves cake (Blue would annotate this properly as a line borrowed from the rapper 50 Cent), never settling for one per page when three or eight will do.
But hunkering down for 514 pages of frantic literary exhibitionism turns into a weary business for the reader, who after much patient effort deserves to feel something stronger than appreciation for a lot of clever name-dropping and a rush of metaphors.
As a Harvard freshman recounting the events of the previous year, when her childhood "unstitched like a snagged sweater," Blue remembers being thoroughly in thrall to her father, a political science professor who changes jobs at third-tier colleges so frequently that by age 16 she''s attended 24 different schools. To compensate for this rootlessness (her lepidopterist mom died in a car crash when Blue was 5), Dad has promised his daughter an undisturbed senior year in the North Carolina mountain town of Stockton, where Blue will attend the ultra-preppy St. Gallway School.
It''s at St. Gallway that Blue''s dedication to her pompous, theory-spouting father begins to waver. Her attention is diverted by the school''s most glamorous figures, a clique of five flighty kids called the Bluebloods who meet every Sunday night for dinner at the home of their mentor, Hannah Schneider, a charismatic film teacher.
Blue is miraculously granted admission into this rarefied society, but the reader is not so lucky, having to settle for the novel''s customary blizzard of comparisons instead of real characterization.
Most enigmatic of all is Hannah, who''s both a concerned mother hen and a shady blur of evasions and secrets, and who may or may not be having an affair with (a) one of her students; (b) Blue''s father; (c) random elderly men whom she picks up at seedy diners. Blue makes it clear in the book''s first chapter that later in the school year, Hannah will be found hanging by an electrical cord from a tree in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and the final third of the book charts Blue''s efforts to prove that the teacher did not commit suicide, as the coroner concluded, but was murdered.
Like Hannah, Pessl herself is something of an expert at evasion, nimbly avoiding scenes that might require emotional delineation, hiding behind this Nabokovian sentence structure or that Hitchcockian plot twist, always equipped to defend each dodge with the tacit reproach that, hey, it''s only a high-school murder mystery, lighten up. Yet here and there the author betrays glimpses of sensitivity, in Blue''s genuine expressions of grief for the early loss of her mother and in this moving evocation of loneliness, framed (of course) in a simile: "To the far-off tune of the blue Volvo driving away, it slipped over me, sadness, deadness, like a sheet over summer furniture."
These briefly poignant moments are enough to make a reader wish for more, for a book that is less about other books and more about life. Having already aced the test of novel-writing as a literary trivia game, the real work for Pessl begins now, if she dares to stop making glib comparisons and starts to stare directly at things, as only she can describe them.
Reviewed by Donna Rifkind
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Bookmarks Magazine
With a murder that occurs in the opening pages and a narrator who joins an elite clique of students, Special Topics bears resemblance to Donna Tartt''s 1992 classic, The Secret History—as the novel''s publisher is more than happy to remind us. Critics call this comparison a publicity coup, as the two novels differ greatly in narration, orchestration, and tone. Organized as a "Great Books" course, the novel requires careful attention (and literary knowledge) from its readers, especially when Blue spouts esoteric tidbits. Although most critics were utterly compelled by Marisha Pessl''s debut novel, a few thought it mean-spirited and too smart for its own good. "A 500-page headache is as possible as a bracing joyride," notes the New York Times.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
After 10 years of traveling with her father, a perennial (and pedantic) visiting lecturer at various, obscure institutions of higher learning, Blue Van Meer finally settles in as a senior at the St. Gallway School in Stockton, North Carolina. There she is bemused to find herself part of a charmed circle of popular kids called the Bluebloods and the protege of the mysterious film-studies teacher, Hannah Schneider. When a friend of Hannah''s dies at a party the kids have crashed, this extravagantly arch and self-conscious coming-of-age novel turns into a murder mystery that--although never as Hitchcockian as its publisher claims--is, nevertheless, almost compelling enough to warrant its excessive length. Intriguingly structured as a syllabus for a Great Works of Literature class, Pessl''s first novel is filled with references to invented books--and to some real ones, too, including several by Nabokov. Overkill? You bet. But, as a result, the novel is generating a great deal of buzz that will excite the curiosity of readers who enjoy postmodern excesses and indulgences of this sort. Michael Cart
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Janet Maslin, The New York Times
A whirling, glittering, multifaceted marvel. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Daily News, New York
...playfully compelling ... give the author an A. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
San Diego Union-Tribune
...a satiric tour de force ... such precocity, fueled by such intelligence, is a treasure. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Hartford Courant
Reading Pessl''s muscular and flexible prose is like watching a highly trained gymnast flip across the mats. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
People, Critic’s Choice
Pessl’s literary pyrotechnics are just a sideshow; it’s her irresistible heroine Blue who makes the novel’s heart beat. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
The New York Observer
[A] snappy debut novel... a wordy, funny book. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
The New York Times Book Review
...exhilarating synthesis of the classic and the modern, frivolity and fate...this skylarking book will leave readers salivating for more ... --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
The New York Times
Required reading for devotees of inventive new fiction. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Glamour
[A] witty romp... Will make you think and laugh. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Harper''s Magazine
There is a voice here to like, part Huck Finn, part Holden Caulfield, part Fran Leibowitz, and part Nora Ephron... --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
