Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Donna Tartt's The Secret History this is not, but Special Topics marks an ambitious debut from Pessl. I loved the plot of this novel but felt it was severely compromised by the stylistic approach adopted by the author. Begin with the former, and the reader learns of the death of the narrator's (a senior school student) teacher on the opening pages. While some of the events subsequently narrated are necessary backstory and fall into the coming-of-age novel category, the metaphorical post-mortem was superb: murder or suicide, possible conspiracy theories, and a clever lack of full closure. Only here might a comparison with Tartt be valid. More broadly, the approach taken by Pessl is quite explicitly (and sometimes unpleasantly) postmodern. The novel reads like a dissertation, each chapter comprising a ‘novel’ from a ‘required reading list’ and closing with a multiple-choice set of exam questions. Pessl, I guess, is trying to undermine conventions/pretensions of the literary establishment and question the validity of texts/truth when trying to find ‘answers’. The whole effort, however, seems laboured. Further, Pessl's similes had to be among the worst I've seen anywhere. I wanted to like this more, but seven out of ten seems fair.

By Marisha Pessl