Special Topics in Calamity Physics
by Marisha Pessl
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Book Reviews of Special Topics in Calamity Physics
Book Review: This book is what's WRONG with modern Pop fiction!
Summary: 2 Stars
Many MANY people have left long, eloquent reviews, both for and against, regarding this book. So I think I'll just keep it simple. Superficially, this book will alternate between annoying you because the author's so long-winded and making you laugh with her clever word-play. And frankly, if she could've done all that in 300-350 pages, it might've been bearable.
However, this author decides to use 500 some-odd pages to craft a story where ALL the characters are totally reprehensible and lacking morally and ethically. I think the liberals at the New York Times LOVE this book, and bestowed it said book awards etc etc, because it promotes a mantra that everybody can act just as stupidly and irrationally as they want and it's "no big deal"! It takes perverse, adject behavior and dresses it up as "coming of age" youths exploring their passage to adulthood. In the end, I think it's all just nonsense! In "Special Topics in Calamity Physics", all the corrupt characters are glorified and the truly honest, decent people are lampooned (poor Zach Soderberg knows what I'm talking about!!). The right-wing whack-jobs talk about "social decay" and we all scoff. But THIS book is what they're talking about! I mean, since when do you exalt books where EVERYONE'S the antagonist? I completely understand the humans are flawed, but have we rationalized that fact to the point where we now glorify that fact instead of trying to "better ourselves"?
Alright alright, I lied. I didn't keep this review simple...sorry!! In my opinion, it's a virtual waste of valuable reading time. Often times it IS funny, well-written, and the cultural references were very clever. But at its core, I found the emotional congruency of the characters so flimsy, so pedestrian, that it ended up leaving me with the feeling that the 40something hours I took to read it I can never get back!
And finally, 500 pages FOR THAT!?! Just ridiculous!!
Book Review: Beware!
Summary: 1 Stars
Yes, I know all the professional book reviewers love this book. Ignore them.
Reading this book was a trial. The author is so in love with her own "voice" that she does not know when to stop (a sentence, paragraph, chapter, or book).
I realize that Blue, the narrator, is not supposed to be perfect. She is purposely written as a precocious, pretentious, condescending (but inexperienced) person with major Daddy issues.
So what? She's still annoying to be around. I did not like her. I did not want to spend time hearing her opinions. And as for admiringly quoting "Dad" every second page, that got old, fast. The run-on sentences, the constant metaphors, similes, references to books and films: all this is cute for, what, maybe 2 chapters? Not 500 pages.
I could easily understand why the bluebloods did not want her to join their clique. In fact, one of the unexplained things in the book is why they suddenly start liking her. Because she got drunk and vomited?
Besides, the characterizations of the bluebloods is criminally weak. Only one of them is fleshed out. For the other four, each has a characteristic or two (handsome-and-manly, gay-and-obnoxious, in-love-with-the-teacher, girlish-and-scared), and nothing else is learned about them. This is bizarre laziness for the writer of a 500-page novel.
Finally, a word about the mystery at the heart of the book: What the hell? It is actually psychologically interesting for while, wondering why Hannah and the bluebloods and Dad act in certain ways. But the resolution in the last 50 pages or so removes any depth that may have existed and turns it into standard spy-novel garbage. (I guess I would have failed the test at the end of the book. What a shame.)
Do yourself a favor. Don't buy this book. If you are curious to read it, take it out from a library.
Book Review: Entertaining, if somewhat flawed, read
Summary: 4 Stars
When I first started reading this book, I quite frankly didn't know whether or not I'd be able to finish it. It seemed pompous and pretentious without historical precedent, and there were times when it was simply painful to read. But although it took a little while, I finally began to accept Blue van Meer as the speaker, rather than Marisha Pessl. For the first hundred or so pages, all the name-dropping and arcane allusions felt more like the author trying to show off than it did the narrator trying to detail her Life Story, that aspect of existence that her father believes is so important. Once I got into the story, though, and the Suspension of Disbelief started to sink in, I accepted the pretentious and sometimes elitist thoughts of Blue as simply a reflection of her upbringing by her father, Gareth, who is without a doubt (and without dispute, at least from most of the characters in the novel) incredibly pompous and arrogant.
That being said, Blue is still a very likeable narrator while being completely human. There are times when her friends in the Bluebloods come across as cardboard cut-outs, but the three main characters--Blue, Gareth, and Hannah Schneider, the shady Intro to Film teacher--are all completely acceptable to me, at least in the context of this novel. While some of the critics have said the book gets tedious towards the end, I actually had the opposite reaction; for me, the last third of the book was the most gripping and entertaining part.
Special Topics in Calamity Physics definitely gets a recommendation from me. I feel like it's worth reading, even though it's totally understandable to me that some readers won't like this type of book. I thought I was going to fall into that camp myself for a while. But overall I feel like most readers will get some enjoyment out of it if they just stick with it and wait for the pay-off.
Book Review: Disappointing denouement!
Summary: 3 Stars
Marisha Pessl's Special Topics... bears a remarkable resemblance to Donna Tarrt's amazing debut novel The Secret History. It even has a parallel plot: group of priveleged, snarky academics? Check! An instructor they idol worship? Check! An outsider who is reluctantly brought into their innner circe? Check! A murder or two? Check! The fall out that later ensues? Check! Special Topics... is a promising novel from a promising writer but not even half as entertaining as Secret History because of Pessl's overwrought pretension.
I have no doubt Pessl is an intelligent person and on every page of Special Topics... she makes sure that you know it. Hammering the point home with obscure oh-so-clever reference after obscure oh-so-clever reference. It's very distracting and I found myself rolling my eyes every time she starts to show off. When she occasionally hits a stride of staight forward narrative her uncluttered prose shines through showing off her great writing skills and clever wit. And don't get me started on the visual aids! They do nothing to further the plot along and is a contrived look-at-me device to show off Pessl's somewhat mediorce artistic skills (yes, she does all the drawings herself). The visual aids could have been more affective if they were either drawn by someone else or if they were actual staged photographs like it was done in Tama Janowitz's A Cannibal In Manhattan.
Overall, once you are accustomed to Pessl's writing style it is a pleasant and entertaining read. However, the payoff is NOT worth the effort of trudging through 500+ pages. It's a pretty lackluster denouement. I thought about The Secret History the entire time I read it. So much so that I immediately picked up The Secret History after finishing this. Pessl has potential to be a great writer once she shrugs off her pretension and focuses on a tight narrative.
Book Review: Unfortunately, I hated it.
Summary: 1 Stars
*SPOILERS*
I finished this book about 20 minutes ago, and as much as I was trying to force myself to like it, I really didn't. In fact, now that I am done, I hated it. I read all the reviews and was so excited to read it. The beginning was interesting and I thought the references to articles and other books was clever at first, but after the first few chapters, it was so distracting that in my annoyance, I had stopped paying attention to the damn book. Luckily, there is so much pointless information that I didn't have to go back and read what I missed. This could have been a 150 page book, and that might have been stretching it. Was there even an editor? It isn't a charming quality to use 75 words when 5 will do. By the time I got to page 300, I realized that there wasn't one character that I liked or cared about. Are we supposed to feel connected to any of them, considering after 500+ pages I can't think of one redeeming quality that any of them possessed? Were we supposed to feel sorry for Hannah, or Blue, because god knows I didn't. How can I feel sorry for characters whom if I met in real life, I would have loathed for being snobbish, pretentious, selfish and down-right mean. Then the author decides to have the father abandon Blue, as if I couldn't have hated him anymore! And don't get me started on the utter ridiculousness of having the Bluebloods blame Blue for Hannah's death. Did they think a 16-year old girl who weighed maybe a hundred pounds could strangle a full-grown woman? I mean come on. The main thing that bothered me was that Ms. Pessl seems to think that she is smarter then her readers, which may be true, but it is also alienating. I don't want to feel talked down to and I certainly don't want to feel as though she is the Blueblood looking down on us common-folk, you know those silly people who bought her book.