Special Topics Roundtable - Part One: In Which We Paint Some Broad Strokes to Get Started

I'm not going to beat around any bushes: I didn't like this book.  I felt it lacked soul. I didn't care what happened to the people in it. They experienced some horrific things, terribly horrific. Yet, I didn't care. That is a problem. One should care about characters - one should root for them. I rooted, instead, for it to be over. Not good. Not good at all. However...

I wanted to love this book. It contains flashes of brilliance, moments that made me think "Yes! Yes! This is how novels can be, funny, witty, clever, boisterous...all those things and serious too." That is the crux of the problem for me: Pessl's prose contains such promise (pardon the alliteration), such truly interesting stuff, that I wanted to make it work, to keep the dialogue going even when I knew the ship had run aground. As a reader, I was the jilted lover -- still trying because you believe that at some point, years from now, all will make sense and it will be worth the effort. That your pain will somehow be redeemed by your loyalty, your ability to fight for what you knew (but possibly couldn't know entirely) was good. Right. Important. I digress.

As regular readers of this blog know, I don't spend time focusing on books I don't like. What is the point? There is enough nastiness out there and we all know where to find it. Why add to the noise? Why expend energy on a book that didn't do it for you?  Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics is different. Why? Because while I didn't like it, while it failed me on many levels, I know that she's extremely talented and will write a great book soon. I don't know that it will be her next book, but it might be. Because of this -- because of those moments where I was sure I was going to fall in love with the book -- it seems an important exercise to at least examine where the book fell down for me. For others. It seems important to hear from others - what worked for them and what didn't.  In sum, while the book didn't do it for me, it was a very serious effort and I'm flat-out intrigued by what she'll do next. It might blow our minds.

While I will be posting about the book at greater length a bit later in our distinguished roundtable series (so distinguished is it, that it's the very first of its kind), I'd like to start off by painting some broad strokes and a few fine ones:

Blue's Father: He was the most fully-formed character for me, the only one I cared about. I suspect this is because he wore his affectations, his "aren't I brilliant" vibe, on his sleeve. He didn't hold the snobbery cards close to his vest. I can appreciate a man like that. Like him? Maybe not, but respect him? Certainly. He didn't pull any punches. He was who he said he was (even at the somewhat trick ending...he is true to what he always represented he was) -- although this is made somewhat problematic by the fact that we only know of him through Blue's perspective. Is she to be trusted? Not sure. Is she romanticizing her father and he's actually less of the man than she makes him out to be? Possibly.  Yet, his romantic entanglements were quite funny to me & well-written.

The protracted meeting of Hannah: It was obvious to me from the outset that Blue and Hannah would cross paths. I hate that it was that obvious, because where is the fun in that? I liked the idea of Hannah. Of what she might represent to Blue. But in the end, she seemed a hollow construct.  Not even a cleverly disguised red-herring. I hate when I know what is going to happen before it happens. It ruins the whole thing for me.

The Slippery Slope of Tricking the Reader: In rare cases, this can work. This "oops, I pulled one over on you" bit has mile-long legs when penned by some of the greats. Yet, it is a careful tightrope on which to balance and Pessl's big "reveal" at the end leaves me feeling less in awe of the trick played on me (which, when done well, is sublime) and more irritated that a trick has been played at all. That I might have even been, perhaps, the butt of the joke. Duping the reader is a tough business and Pessl doesn't pull it off.  Yet, one cannot criticize this reveal because it renders what came before it legitimate, all part of the big setup.  That is what seems to have frustrated many reviewers -- this sort of "yes I know some of the bits are questionable, but when I reveal the ending, you can forgive the false information I provided."  I dislike that kind of game at my expense.

Blue van Meer (because to skirt the issue would be to, well, skirt the issue): The precocious first-person narrator is a difficult one. Nabokov pulls it off because his precocious narrator is also sexual, almost animalistic. This moves the whole narration away from the "aren't I clever" and lodges it firmly in the camp of a story that needs to be told in first-person. Salinger's Holden Caulfield works because he pushes the reader away instead of inviting him in, which lends him credence. Earns him a bit of space in my book. Blue is neither of these things. While I love that she's an avid reader and quotes freely from both real and unreal sources, I feel like it's all a big celebration of her smartness. Her cleverness. Her "aren't I amusing-ness" -- which grates in terrible ways and leads immediately to the discussion of Pessl herself.

While I think it is unfair to comment on the writer and not the work (as I stated in my gearing up for this roundtable), it is fair to say that Pessl wrote the book (because she did.) In doing so, she has created a precocious character. We must assume that she wanted to create such a character or she would not have, she would have created something else altogether. This then leads us to the why? What is she trying to say with the too-smart-for-her-britches Blue?  It smacked a bit (for me, anyway) of the author demonstrating how smart and well-read she is -- which fell flat. Didn't work. Bothered me. It was intrusive. As if Blue were a thinly-veiled Pessl (which Pessl has denied in early interviews, yet given herself over more to in recent interviews) - which leaves us wondering why we need to be beat over the head with your smartness. With you jumping up and down behind the scenes, inviting us to tell you you're witty and clever.

Just as no reader likes to be the butt of a joke, no reader likes to be spoken down to. One could argue that I'm not well-read enough to appreciate such precociousness.  That might be true. Either way, Blue's "aren't I brilliant" narrative got in the way - for me - of the real story at hand.  A problem, as I was never able to fully get into the story, so distracted was I by Blue's narration. But she's young. All teenagers are precocious. Fine. I can accept that. I'd simply prefer not to live in that precocious teenager's head for 500 pages. It could also be argued that Blue is a product of her overly intellectual father & mother...fine. But again, for 500 pages? For 500 pages, I want my life to be changed, my perceptions forever altered, my world-view questioned, given new avenues to explore.

The Bluebloods and Blue's Evolution: Setting aside the too cutesy "blue"blood & "blue" bit, I found the Bluebloods to be quite funny and well-realized.  Yes, they were stereotypical in that way that all cliques have similar features, functions. Some of their antics and musings were a little over the top - but this is fiction. I rather enjoyed them and their Dead Poet's Society vibe, even if that vibe & the group's particular make-up felt cribbed from so many other novels and films that have gone before. What I didn't get, was Blue's oh-so-obvious transformation to become one of them. Again, the argument for why this works is that teenagers are so obvious. This is how they would behave. Hmmm...

What I Really Dug: I frequently write in asides, so I dug some of Blue's more playful - if affected - asides.  They showcase Pessl's playfulness (and in many cases I do read it as playfulness, although proper critics have alluded they find it mere snobbery) and her desire to have fun. What can be wrong with that? Case in point:

"It appeared, in spite of my concerted efforts to the contrary (I wore fuzzy sweaters in yellow and pink, fixed my hair into what I considered a very upbeat ponytail), I had started to twist into that very something I've been afraid of, ever since it all happened. I was becoming Wooden and Warped (mere rest stops on the highway to Hopping Mad), the kind of person who, in middle age, winced at children, or deliberately raced into a dense flock of pigeons minding their own business as they pecked at crumbs."

Funny no? I like it. There are dozens of passages like that scattered throughout the book and they are delicious.  So delicious, that I waded through the whole thing and wasn't entirely miffed that I ended up disliking the book because these gems were, well, gems. Another:

"I'd never been inside a household full of ! and even more !!! I wasn't even aware these nests of goodwill, these bubble baths of clasps and cuddles actually existed, except in one's head when one compared one's own fitful family to the seemingly blissful one across the street."

And this:

"He was handsome, sure, but as Dad once said, there were people who'd completely missed their decade, were born at the wrong time -- not in the intellectually gifted sense, but due to a certain look on their face more suitable to the Victorian Age than, say, the Me Decade. Well, this kid was some twenty years too late. He was the one with thick brown hair that flying-saucered over an eye, the one who inspired girls to make their own prom dress, the one from the country club. And maybe he had a secret diamond earring, maybe a sequin glove, maybe even he had a good song at the end with three helpings of keyboard synthesizer, but no one would know, because if you weren't born in your decade you never made it to the ending, you floated around in your middle, unresolved, in oblivion, confused and unrealized. (Pour some sugar on him and blame it on the rain.)"

This is good stuff. Not sure Blue would have said it, but I liked it. It made me laugh. I could roll with it...for awhile.

The playful wording, the witty asides, can, however, veer into the self-important. The writer writing for the sound of the language, not for the meaning, not for what it contributes to the story. It can also veer into the territory of ruining your suspended disbelief, stopping you mid-read, forcing you to think aloud, "While I like all this, would Blue really talk like this? How does she even know any of this?" Case in point:

"She had an elegant sort of romantic, bone-sculpted face, one that took well to both shadows and light, even at their extremes. And she was older than I'd realized, somewhere in her late thirties. Most extraordinary though was the air of a Chateau Marmont bungalow about her, a sense of RKO, which I'd never before witnessed in person, only while Dad and I watched Jezebel into the early hours of the morning. Yes, within her carriage and deliberate steps like a metronome (now retreating behind the display of potato chips) was a little bit of the Paramount lot, a little neat scotch and air kisses at Ciro's. I felt, when she opened her mount, she wouldn't utter the crumbly speech of modernity, but would use moist words like beau, top drawer and sound (only occasionally ring-a-ding-ding), and when she considered a person, took in him/her, she would place those nearly extinct personality traits-- Character, Reputation, Integrity and Class -- above all others."

I like this passage. I dig it. I'm not sure how one could observe in a quick moment at the grocery store that a face does well in the extremes of both shadow and light (here is where I'd suggest it simply sounded cool and so it was left in, despite the fact that it doesn't add any meaning), but I was willing to overlook it.  I like the Chateau Marmont bit. The neat scotch and air kisses at Ciro.  I even like the crumbly speech bit.  Yet, I don't buy that Blue would know or say any of this, no matter how world-wise, well-read, etc.  I'm a huge proponent of complicated, intelligently funny YA novels. I don't fall into the camp of those that believe teenagers aren't wildly sophisticated - I believe they're actually far more advanced in ways that adults are not.  But I don't have a teenager. I don't actively know any. So perhaps my reading here is off. Do you know any teenagers who would know this stuff?  Paris Hilton might have... 

Perhaps these leaps in belief, these let's suspend reality to be terribly witty and let witty win out passages, work well for readers (and there are many! they've even emailed me about it!) who wish to imagine that they were this brilliant when they were teens. Which makes the whole thing rather self-congratulatory on both the writer and the reader's part. The writer being oh-so-clever to have written it, the reader being oh-so-clever to have understood it.  Which has nothing to do with Blue in the end -- and that's the problem. This is where the whole thing falls down. The story is told from Blue's perspective. If we don't buy her, we can't buy any of it.  I wanted to. Oh, how I wanted to.

There's so much more to say. I've not even scratched the surface. I've got several passages that I'd like to include, discuss, sort out.  All in good time. This post kicks off the Special Topics in Calamity Physics Roundtable. Other contributors will weigh in later this week and next. As I said in a post last week, we look forward to your vigorous commenting. Did you like the book? Love it? If so, why? Help me see the light. Did you dislike it also but for entirely different reasons? Why? Do you think I'm nuts and you completely disagree with all that came before this sentence? Do tell...

Comments

[DJ Cayenne]

Wow. Our mileage varied considerably on this book. Where to begin? For one thing, I was much more sympathetic to Blue (Pessl?) than you seemed to be. I plan to write more about why Blue's narration worked for me in my post for the round table on Friday. I did not see the ending coming at all. But I never do. I'm so gullible.

Like you, I loved lots of the language in the book. Pessl has talent to burn. Though I am in the "pro" camp for the book overall, I had some quibbles as well. I thought that the middle of the book dragged and could have been tightened up. I'll have more on that later, too.

I'm looking forward to the discussion. Back to work for me...

[callie]

Yes - I suspected people have highly different opinions of the book for different reasons, yet no one seemed to be willing to discuss what those differences were, which is why I wanted to have a rountable discussion. It seems people still aren't interested in discussing it though, given the lack of comment activity here vs. traffic over the past day. I've had a record number of visitors to the site that viewed the post, but no comments! Even more fascinating!

Can't wait to get your thoughts on it all...

[Melanie]

I didn't finish the book. I could only take about 100 pages or so of Blue and all of those (asides). Like you, I wanted to like this book. I'm willing to give it another chance this summer when my reading load isn't as heavy.

[Edan]

Now I feel like I should comment, since I was one of the readers you mentioned, Callie, who read your thoughts without responding. I read only the first 50 pages of the book before stopping because I couldn't stand it: too clever for its own good, too unbelievable, oddly slow, etc., etc.--and I'd gone into it with high hopes, thinking, "This is the book for me!" Not so, not so. Right now I'm working on something with a teenaged narrator, so I'm particularly interested in questions of voice--how to reflect both immaturity and wisdom in a teenager's inner narration. I hope you reflect more on this in your coming posts.

[callie]

Melanie & Edan - Now I'm feeling sheepish...guilting readers into commenting!

No, seriously. It is rare that I read a book and don't like it but still want to discuss it and still want others to read it. I think there is much good in it...but it DOES take getting over the asides and all those capitalized items (I've got a whole post brewing about those capital letters...what is the story with that? It drove me nuts!) and all that cleverness...it could have worked with some tweaks. With some editing. Which begs the question...what was edited? What did it look like before it was published? Why wasn't more cut? Ever so curious...

[Jessica]

I made myself read the whole thing even though there were many times when i just wanted to hurl the book across the room.

I agree there are flashes of brilliance in the book, but on the whole i took nothing away from it.

One problem i had with this book was the tryhard-ness of it. Pessl tried way too hard to be clever and it just made me roll my eyes and cringe. It was way too showoff-y for my liking. It was merely cleverness for the sake of being clever and adding nothing.

Another problem for me were the characters. I either couldnt stand them or didnt care about them. Except the father. He was the only character who didnt irritate me.

I guess what bothers me about the book is that it could have been good. Pessl IS a good writer. No doubt about it. But this book was poorly executed. It needed to be edited more and cut back. No, hacked back. For a book of that size i would have thought i'd actually be left with something. That it would impact me in some way (isnt this literature's purpose?.) 5 months after reading it i can barely remember it.

It could have been amazing, but was a total flop (in my opinion.)

Daniel Handler's book The Basic Eight handled the whole precocious teen/wealthy clique/murder story far better and was actually entertaining and humorous (and a little disturbing.) It was also a fast, unputdownable read. And if i recall correctly (i may be wrong) also contained some sort of a test/exam thing at the end. I read it years ago and managed to take far more away from it than i was ever able to take from Special Topics.

[Jeff]

Callie, it seems like you and I basically agree on the book. (I'm working on a post about it right now, in fact, to make up for not being able to attend a book club meeting.) Parts of it I thought were hilarious, and used the tone just right for comic effect--and Gareth was the character I cared most about (although not the only one I cared about).

The "twist," though, I found basically unforgivable. I've been reading a lot of Gene Wolfe lately, so I'm familiar with stories that completely rewrite themselves in the last pages. But this one was poorly done: I didn't find any appropriate clues when I looked back, and even worse, I never located the story's need to unfold that way. It seemed (and still seems) gratuitous, and in a way that's awfully cruel to the characters and the readers, if they've come to care about any of the characters. I think Jessica's right, it badly needed some more vigorous editing.

[momo]

i enjoyed the book. i finished it this morning, so am only just now reading blogs about it. if we're mentioning novels to whom Pessl owes a debt,"Special Topics" bears more than a slight resemblance to the secret history (more high-brow, sure, but startlingly similar). the most glaring plot hole, for me, was that i never entirely believed that the Dad would completely abandon Blue. he might disappear, sure, but wouldn't that be another treasure hunt for the two of them? i just don't buy that he would flat-out vanish.