Marisha Pessl’s debut novel was published amid a storm of hype – publishing bidding wars, support from Jonathan Franzen, that famous head shot and articles in The New York Times, and all before it hit the shelves. It is a heavy burden of expectation for any book, but Special Topics in Calamity Physics almost fulfils it. Almost.
The novel is the first-person narrative of Blue Van Meer, a precocious and bright teenager who since her lepidopterist mother’s death has travelled with her father Gareth, an academic on the move, taking up visiting professorships in schools around the country. Brilliant and arrogant as he is, he is devoted to Blue and her intellectual stimulation and they travel across the country Paper Moon style, discussing books, poetry, theatre and film which leaves Blue almost pathologically bookish.
It was always Dad and me, the way it was always George and Martha, Butch and Sundance, Fred and Ginger, Mary and Percy Bysshe.
For her final year of high school, they settle in a private bohemian college in North Carolina where
We have the highest number of graduates in the country who go on to be revolutionary performance artists
Here Blue encounters a group of elite students, the Bluebloods and their charismatic and mysterious Film Studies teacher Hannah Schneider with whom she is immediately captivated.
Most extraordinary though was the air of a Chateau Marmont bungalow about her, as sense of RKO, which I’d never before witnessed in a person
Blue is surprised when Hannah invites her to join their elite little group and begins to question Hannah’s interest in her, but a mysterious death and an even more mysterious suicide, means that this coming-of-age high school novel shifts gears and turns into a full on detective thriller.
If this sounds a bit like The Secret History, or The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, well, it is probably meant too as this is a novel about literary borrowing and literary conventions. The book is presented as a syllabus, with each chapter named after a great work of literature (Othello, Madame Bovary) and it finishes with a ‘final exam’. The narrative is peppered with literary quotes and references, many real, but some made up.
The doorbell rang. I was terrified and immediately imagined all kinds of wicked Bible salesmen and bloodthirsty misfits (see O’Connor, The Complete Stories, 1971)
These Tourette’s like bibliographical references are amusing at first, but have a tendency to bog down the story. As a means to show Blue’s Salingeresque bookish, self-aware nature and the influence of her father’s intellectualism on her life, they do serve a purpose, but at times they are shoe-horned in with a certain lack of subtlety.
Marisha Pessl
However, the source of a lot of the pleasure that is derived from Special Topics, is that very literary knowingness which brings the reader – feeding our pride in our own ability to recognise her references. The literary net spread wide across all the characters, from Blue’s dull potential suitor who is like ‘a 12-line poem of repetition and rhyme’ to the gas station attendant with a King Lear obsession.
In the writing itself, there is also much to justify the hype. Pessl’s prose is energetic and often dazzling, veering off in marvellous directions, sometimes sweeping the reader along and sometimes leaving you gasping in its wake. Undoubtedly, she has great descriptive flair. A pair of red-haired twins ‘resembled two oily portraits of King Henry VIII, each painted by a different artist’ while Blue’s headmaster
smiled encouragingly, but I doubt it meant much; he seemed to hand out smiles like a guy in a chicken costume distributing coupons for a free lunch
Others though, miss the mark. A character ‘bites his nails into thumbtacks’ which seems clever but doesn’t actually stand up to scrutiny and often the characterisation can feel like it lacks a depth despite all the surface charm.
As more and more alliteration, metaphor and imagery is piled on, this book can often be tiring to read, but it kicks into gear in the final third as it morphs into a real page-turner of a mystery when Blue turns detective to try to unravel the death of Hannah Schneider. The turn of events is unexpected but it is clear that everything up to this point has been a laying of ground work, a perfectly paced and smartly structured work of fiction, whose clues have been there all along if we had just paid attention. The brave ending, which is both resolved and open ended explores the isolation and pain of adolescence – that time when things we thought we knew and could take for granted are less solid than we believed.
Underneath the literary illusions and clever narrative structure, there is a really solid and substantial novel here. Your enjoyment of it will entirely depend on your reaction to the writing style. The book ends with a true or false final exam for the reader which suggests that everything we have read is open to interpretation, and that in life, the reader, like Blue, can never be sure of the real truth, because a definitive truth rarely exists.
And the idea that none of us can truly know anything at all – not the lives of our friends or family, not even ourselves – is a thought they’d rather be shot in the arm with their own semi-automatic rifle than face head on. Personally I think there is something terrific about not knowing, relinquishing man’s feeble attempt to control. When you throw up your hands, say ‘Who knows?’ you get on with the sheer gift of being alive’
This is probably the right approach to take with Special Topics in Calamity Physics, to just accept the sheer gift of it. While it can at times be too clever for its own good, it has at heart a love of fiction as a transformative power, a belief in knowledge and learning, and a massive amount of ambition.
Read on: Kindle
20 Books of Summer: 13/20
Number Read: 130
Number Remaining: 616
Excellent review, Cathy. I remember admiring this when it first came out but, interestingly, I didn’t read her second novel – ‘feeding our pride in our own ability to recognise her references’ is spot on!
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I actually preferred Night Film Susan, I liked this – it was smart and funny, but I thought at times she was trying a bit too hard.
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Perhaps I should give Night Season a try, then
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I liked it a lot.
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I’ve just realised it’s the same author. I’ve got Night Film on my 20 Books Of Summer list, but I don’t think I’ll get it read in time! I rather went off piste as regards my original list – you know how your moods for what you fancy change – but I did read other books (not counting blog tour ones!) Am I allowed to put them to my total??!
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Of course! Remember, my rules are incredibly flexible!!
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I do like clever books – I loved The Secret History for example – but it sounds like this one might misfire in places. But worth the effort I think, from what you say!
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I did enjoy it, even if I think it did over reach at times. But I admire Pessl’s ambition, it’s good to see.
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Hmm. I really preferred this one to Night Film. But i’m i sucker for puffing up my own ego with inside literary references.
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Oh I am too Tanya and I did enjoy this one. Pessl certainly aims high and that’s a great thing.
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You’re not alone in feeling that it wasn’t quite all that, but the quotes yu’ve included allow us to decide if we would draw our line in a different place. That’s very helpful. (I agree: the thumbnack nails a-l-m-o-s-t but not if you visualize them!) I actually picked this up second-hand years ago, but I haven’t gotten there yet; when I do, however, I think the overall bookishness of it will carry me through. That aspect of it has such tremendous appeal!
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It’s actually a really well constructed solid story underneath all the bells and whistles and that’s what I liked about it.
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I read this yonks ago – think I was fifteen?- and loved it, precisely for those literary references. I actually read it before reading The Secret History, and when I got to Tartt’s novel, the sense of deja vu was very strong indeed, in a good sort of way.
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I loved all the subtle references to other books, it was just the constant referencing that wore a little thin for me. It’s probably a book that would stand up to being reread as there was so much going on!
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I’m sure I would be more critical now; back-then-me loved the constant referencing because it made her feel all clever 🙂
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What an interesting premise; clever and unusual, too
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It sounds like the author is into showing off how smart and literary she is instead of giving us a good yarn. Which leads me to believe she didn’t have much of a yarn to give in the first place. When the author is more into gimmicks than they are into storytelling, I find that Professor Gaston Lachaille in “Gigi” was right.
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I haven’t read this one – I honestly DIDN’T even know about it! But I did read Night Film and I really liked that one. It was truly great. I will have to look this one up. Great review!
Rebecca @ The Portsmouth Review
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Thanks Rebecca!
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13 of 20 – very good!
I read Night Film last year for my book group and enjoyed it. It was inventive and strange and creepy. I tried reading this one when it came out back in the day and couldn’t get into it for some reason. I’m glad you found a lot to like about it.
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I did prefer Night Film but there is a lot to enjoy in this one too.
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Great review – I felt very much the same. There was some beautiful writing and descriptions, but she really lost her way every now and then. I also thought the ending went off the rails completely….!
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Exactly my thoughts!
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This is the first time I’ve ever heard anything about what this book actually is! I loved Night Film – it was unlike anything I’d ever read – but I didn’t know anything about Calamity. It sounds interesting! I like that I will be able to go into this with eyes open, knowing that it’s flawed but ultimately mostly worth it.
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If you took the part that bothered you–the cleverness of the quotes–and gave it some crack, it would be David Markson’s book This is Not a Novel, which is literally a book filled with quotes from other authors. I was quite annoyed with it, as the book was described as “a highly inventive work which drifts ‘genre-less, somewhere in between fiction, nonfiction, and psychological memoir. In the opening pages of the ‘novel,’ a narrator, called only ‘Writer,’ announces that he is tired of inventing characters, contemplating plot, setting, theme, and conflict. Yet the writer is determined to seduce the reader into turning pages-and to ‘get somewhere,’ nonetheless.”
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That sounds like it could be brilliant or maddening!
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Mostly maddening… Unless you’re willing to read the book like one of those “quotes from authors” type works and not an experimental novel.
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I haven’t read Night Film of Calamity, but I bought both on a whim when I was new to Booktube. They’re still sitting on my shelf. Sigh. Based on your awesome review, I’ll probably start with this book instead!
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They are both pretty enjoyable Evie!
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I loved this, and immediately thought of her as Tartt’s hipper, more extrovert, younger sister. Both fiercely intelligent. Pessl would probably talk you into the ground, Tartt would be watchful and enigmatic, and then come out with something you’d have to go away and think about for days
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Yes! That is such a perfect description for both of them!
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Definitely! In fact it was Lady Fancifull who pointed me towards Night Film, which I’ve had lying around the place (quite literally, in my house!) since it came out. I had no idea this book existed. These highly intelligent young authors are great for making lots of people feel inadequate!
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Exallent. ..
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