Special Topics in Calamity Physics
by Marisha Pessl
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Book Reviews of Special Topics in Calamity Physics
Book Review: Wish I could give this brilliant book the 10 stars it deserves!!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Like the narrator, Blue van Meer, I don't want to spoil anything with too much information. Rather, I'll give readers of this review just enough information to (hopefully) spark their interest, then leave them to form their own conclusions. :)
Comparisons to "The Secret History" abound, and rightly so....when Blue moves to a new town, she becomes intrigued by and later a part of the "Bluebloods" a group of aristocratic, eccentric fellow students at her exclusive private high school, whose activities center around an elusive and enigmatic teacher. She, like the main character in Donna Tratt's novel, is never truly accepted as a full-fledged member of this group, whose activities, conversations and motives always remain out of reach. The final similarities are the multiple murders and figuring out not necessarily the "who," but the "why" behind them.
Despite the above-mentioned comparisons, this book is a true original. The writing style, replete with pop and literary references, laugh-out-loud witticisms, and a truly touching and sophisticated "voice" will no doubt leave you hungry for more. The characters are extremely well developed and the reader gets to know them in a way very rarely expereinced in modern novels. Marisha Pessl is truly a voice of her generation.
I am awed that this astoundingly brilliant and innovative novel was the first novel by a 27 year old...I would have an easier time believing it was a written by an author who has been published her entire life! It is quite simply a work of art, a new standard by which to judge all other novels, and an entertaining and intelligent gift to everyone who reads it. I can't recommend this book highly enough - like the ones on Blue's "required reading list" that should be reqiured for anyone who likes to read (and even those who don't)!
Book Review: Intelligent, satisfying exploration of teenage life
Summary: 4 Stars
In the subgenre of charismatic-students-get-in-over-their-heads, two novels tower above them all: Donna Tartt's wonderful literary Gothic "The Secret History," and Daniel Handler's diabolical "The Basic Eight." "Special Topics in Calamity Physics" (like the previous two, a first novel) doesn't quite measure up to Handler's pitch perfect, twisty black comedy, nor is it as frightening as Tartt's, but it's still a fine read. Still, I can't help wondering why Pessl's title got the praise it did without mention of "The Basic Eight," particularly given that they both use the same device at the end (a final exam), that Handler solves his mystery in far more satisfying and dramatic fashion, and that Handler includes a delicious twist that you simply don't see coming; he does all this in about 200 fewer pages than Pessl.
Other reviewers have already noted the book's biggest weakness: Pessl's desperate overuse of references to nonexistent texts (one could say that one of the unrequited love stories running through the book is that of Pessl's unrequited love for Nabokov). Pessl's constant reference to nonexistent titles proves a major distraction; for an example of how to use that technique much better, and subtler, readers should check out Max Brooks "The Zombie Survival Guide."
Although Pessl plays fair with the end (while the mystery isn't fully solved, she's making a larger point about how certain mysteries remain unknowable to the end), there's still something unsatisfying about the way the book ends up. One hopes for more.
Nonetheless, the book is a good evocation of the angst of being a lonely teenager; Pessl's created some wonderful three-dimensional characters and an elaborate, twisty plot. Still, it's "The Basic Eight" and "The Secret History" that I really recommend.
Book Review: A wonderful read.
Summary: 4 Stars
After reading several reviews of Special Topics in Calamity physics, I was hesitant to read the book, but I am very glad that I did. Although the other reviews are correct in saying that the beginning is rather slow, the book gains speed right around page 170. However, the information provided to you in these first 170 pages ends up being rather important by the end of the story. There are a lot of little things, mostly small bits of information about Hannah, but other things as well, that end up coming into play much later in to book, somewhere around page 400. I agree that parts of the text could have been cut out, but I fail to comprehend why one would want to do so. Marisha Pessl's writing technique kept me entertained throughout the 170 pages of seemingly useless information. I found myself captivated by her use of both citations and wonderfully detailed descriptions. Also, Pessl's twists in the story are far beyond what I expected. They kept me on the edge of my seat throughout the book. I was especially interested in Nigel, although I am not sure why. I don't identify with his character per se, but I wish she had developed his, and all of the Bluebloods characters a bit more. The only thing about this book that I didn't like was the lack of an ending. I understand that that was somewhat the point, to leave it open for interpretation. It was even mentioned earlier in the book how much Gareth Van Meer hated absolute endings because it left nothing up to the imagination. So although I think that this is a fitting ending, I, being one of the "Americans" that he speaks of, wish that the ending had been at least a bit more definite. All in all, I think that Special Topics in Calamity Physics is a very well written book. It is not, however, a "quick read" (Although it may be considered one for Blue.)Book Review: Unfortunate Ending
Summary: 3 Stars
The girl can write. Why she felt it necessary to create such an unhinged plot is a mystery. I found myself skimming the last hundred or so pages.
From the very beginning, I had problems accepting the fact that a group of "Bluebloods" (as Pessl refers to the group of friends who cluster around Ms. Schenider) would find a part-time teacher so fascinating that they would meet every Sunday for dinner at her house. Speaking from experience (I am a part-time teacher), students naturally gravitate to those in the faculty who have the most power. Which would NOT be the part-time teacher.
Second, the teacher herself is not as fascinating as Pessl would have the readers think. Or, at least, not so fascinating that the students would go to such great lengths to violate her privacy and snoop (going through her trash, for instance: I happen to KNOW private schools. The one my son attended had tuition of almost $18K a year. Believe me, NO student at a chi-chi private school would be caught dead going through a teacher's wastebasket. Especially not the wastebasket of a part-time teacher)
What kept me reading was her language. (I skipped over all the literary references. I also want to know why, of all the "classic" books that go into each chapter's headings, only a handful are women? It is strange. I believe I saw Agatha Christie mentioned. AGATHA CHRISTIE! Not that I dis-like Agatha Christie. But, if the author was going to include only a handful of women in her "Great Authors" compendium, then there really is no room for an Agatha Christie)
Pessl pulls off a neat trick: in this novel, it's the adults who are children, who do the most childish things, who unburden themselves to the endlessly patient ear of the narrator (a high school senior).
Book Review: I got it!
Summary: 5 Stars
Yes, I completely understand some of my fellow reviewers' distaste for this book - too long, too much of a "setup" in the first two thirds, too pedantric and too much self-righteous braininess in the first two thirds, too much of a crazy ride in the last third, to the point of the book actually being two books.
However, look at the large picture, the scope of the book as a whole. The sheer wordiness and references with subreferences is so excessive it makes fun of itself, while educating and entertaining. How cool is that? The last third of the book would be nothing but a flimsy thriller if not for the long setup - the setup makes the pageturning that I found myself engaging in the last 100 pages so much richer. Some of the two-dimensional character kids in the novel are designed to be two dimesional to make a point - their lives are meaningless, in contrast to other characters' multidimensional nature. Not every character needs to be this way to make a point, especially in the mostly throwaway culture we live in today.
In the end, after looking at others' reviews on this website (something I usually don't do), you either see this book as brilliant as a whole, or deeply flawed in its parts. Either, like a lot of great books, you get bogged down in long individual sentences or you press through to get to the heart of a book about a bright young lady with extremely advanced intellectual capacity but just budding in her social relations, especially with her father and her teacher. That's the difference between one and four or five stars. While I don't think that people will be reading this in thirty years (perhaps Pessl's later works?), it certainly deserved being in the list of top books of 2006.