What I Am Reading: "Special Topics in Calamity Physics" by Marisha Pessl
I decided to end the summer with this book, because I thought it was going to be like The Secret History, and I figured the school setting would be perfect for back-to-school season. It turned out to be only superficially like The Secret History, sharing its cloistered-but-decadent academic setting and its preoccupation with erudition; but it has a very different storyline and style of writing.
The book is written in the first person by Blue van Meer, daughter of Gareth van Meer. Gareth is an academic circulating between the land’s backwater colleges, spreading his arrogant and contemptuous poli sci gospel and incessantly drilling his daughter on readings of literature, social sciences, and the like. As a result, Blue constantly cites these (usually fictional) works in her narrative; for example, when describing a tense dinner party moment, she refers the reader to a work on the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. It was quirky and encompassed innumerable digressions and tonal shifts, and I loved it.
As Blue starts her senior year at a prep school in North Carolina, she is taken under the wing of a shabby-chic film teacher, Hannah Schneider, who administers a clique of fashionable students. Unlike in The Secret History, the students are not kindred intellectuals, but mostly just rich types engaged in typical teenage pursuits, including self-mythologizing. One is an incurable romantic, one is a haughty, insecure girl, and the other two don’t matter.
It takes a long time for Blue to be accepted by this group, but eventually she joins them in their attempt to unravel the mystery of Hannah, who has an uncertain backstory and engages in inexplicable comings and goings. These relationships unravel in the fallout from Hannah’s death during a hiking expedition, foreshadowed at the beginning of the novel but taking place over halfway through. Blue must solve the mystery of Hannah’s life and death herself, as well as a suspicious drowning that took place at Hannah’s house party in the first half of the book.
I was very pleased with myself for solving at least 1% of the mystery by noting an important recurring element when it was mentioned the third time or so. It turns out that she is a member of a radical ‘70s revolutionary group that is underground and quasi-mythical, and also includes Gareth. Blue only figures this out at the end of the novel, with the final reveal being Gareth’s sudden disappearance. This leaves Blue at loose ends as she graduates. Pessl includes a “final exam” as the last chapter, with T/F and multiple-choice answers relating to the backstory and themes of the book and characters.
I liked this novel, even though it was a bit pretentious. Unlike some novels that have a unique (or gimmicky?) writing style, it actually has a plot that is interesting in itself, outside of the way it was written. I would have liked it if it had only one or the other, but with the two combined, it is understandable how well-received the novel was. Anyway, Marisha Pessl is great, I still recommend Night Film to any horror fan, and now that it is September I will be back to reading about Fascism. Summer is over.