special topics in calamity physics by marisha pessl

Ultimately, though, this bizarre coming-of-age tale is every bit the calamity of its title. I did stay reasonably invested this time, although that may have been in an idle hope that the various pieces that weren’t quite clicking for me suddenly would. There’s some light ambiguity that I find refreshing, and certain comedic moments or droll asides that are genuinely entertaining. The teen girl’s first-person character voice is distinctive, and I like that she proactively investigates curiosities and eventually (maybe?) uncovers the truth. This novel escapes my lowest rating by the slimmest of margins. And while it doesn’t exactly end on a cliffhanger, there’s a distinct lack of resolution in the way everything finally draws to a close. This is a story that throws a convoluted conspiracy about a secret society of murderous radical political activists at readers in the last 15%, and builds to a sequence of twists that are simultaneously glaringly predictable from the clues Blue has spent the year ignoring and profoundly implausible in any meaningful sense. In this title, there is so much casual cruelty directed from and towards our impossibly well-read narrator - her new friends jeeringly call her things like Retch and Puke! - but her only interest beyond constantly name-dropping books in a variety of overwrought metaphors* is scratching at the mystery of their inappropriately close faculty advisor’s private life. That comparison is a disservice to Donna Tartt’s classic, however, whose characters may have been unlikable nihilists but whose general narrative at least aimed at interrogating and critiquing their empty hedonism. The protagonist is a transfer student who falls in with a mysterious exclusive clique, and who informs us on the first page of a death in that circle that won’t actually arrive until the midpoint of the text. In broad strokes, I guess you could call this a high school riff on The Secret History. I’ve returned to it now at a Patreon donor’s request, and unfortunately, I can say that this element only gets worse as the slow-rolling plot unfolds. They’re regularly sexist and racist, too! I actually tried reading this once before, five years ago, and put it down after the first 20% due to the intense emotional abuse the young heroine was receiving from all directions, but particularly from her distant academic father.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha PesslĮveryone in this 2006 debut novel is either deeply pretentious and misanthropic or else a fringe figure patronizingly pitied by those who are.

Special topics in calamity physics by marisha pessl