Just about this time last year, Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics made its way out into the reading world. While the book was reviewed favorably by many, there remains, in my view, a gap in the wider discussion about this book. There were the "this book is outstanding" reviews (always suspect when there are few dissenting voices; although I'm with The Times on this one) and then the gossipy guesses as to how much Marisha's looks played a factor in her success (just plain ugly and unfair). These two factors conspired together to obliterate all proper talk of the book itself. When it was on the NYT Top 10 0f 2006 list, the sea of voices again worried aloud -- not over the quality of the book (which begs discussion) but over her beauty and how that beauty has played into the book publishing world's desire to "market" a face, a name, a brand alongside (some would argue in lieu of) the book. (Here I would like to point out that it isn't Pessl's fault that she looks the way she does. She also, to my recollection, didn't invent the publishing machine as it is today.)
When I mention Pessl to various friends and colleagues, they react strongly. Viscerally. There is a dislike there that I don't quite understand. It seems personal. Which is not okay. Many, in fact, haven't even read her book. They just don't like her on spec. Might be her beauty. Might be the fact that her book is so successful. Might be the book deal itself and the subsequent film rights. Might be the fact that she has a hedge fund husband and an Italian espresso maker (which does sound quite nice.) Yet, none of that, in my view, has anything to do with the book.
I read it. Twice. There are bits I love, love, love. Yet, there are larger issues that left me wondering where the real meaning in all of it is. I hope, in the next few weeks, to spend some time talking about the merits/or no of her book, not of her jean selection or hair products. Not of the press she's received and even if she courts it. None of that should matter and it bothers me that it has. My plans to revisit this book may upset my friends and colleagues whom, I suspect, had hoped this book would quietly go away.
The paperback of Special Topics (I feel okay to refer to it in such abbreviated lingo because Marisha did so herself at the LA Times' First Fiction panel) is now out. I'd like to tip a toe in the waters of this book by first looking at her "best book" picks in an issue of The Week that I've saved for almost a year with the express intention of someday reproducing it here for your pleasure (or complete irritation):
- Blindness by Jose Saramago -- "This book is a parable, a thriller, a dissection of human nature, but whether he's detailing human kindness or cruelty, Saramago displays a compassion that is devastating."
- The Dead Fish Museum by Charles D'Ambrosio -- "D'Ambrosio displays a talent and versatility of language that is jaw-dropping. I"m crossing my fingers that he's working on an 800-page novel so I can spend weeks with his work, rather than a cherished afternoon."
- The Known World by Edward P. Jones -- "Biblical in scale but nimble in execution."
- The Virgin Suicides by Jeffery Eugenides -- "This book got under my skin when it first appeared in 1993, and it's stayed there."
- Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen -- "Part parody of Gothic fiction, part social satire, the book probes how the books we read shape our reality, help us fabricate illusions -- which isn't necessarily a bad thing, as Austen so delicately, and humorously, points out.
- The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen -- "This masterpiece -- about family, adulthood, suburbia, the American middle class -- is everything a great social novel should be: big, human, sincere, moving."
Update: Or is it simply impossible to separate the writer from the work?