Special Topics in Calamity Physics - Marisha Pessl
TERRIBLE. The concept is clever, instead of numbering or titling the chapters, the table of contents is a 'required reading' and chapters are titled after famous works of literature, the contents of the title having a slight bearing on the actions within (only vague, ineffectual thematic correspondence). The first hundred pages are really good, the last hundred pages are really good. The three hundred pages in between could have about 280 of them tossed out with no loss whatsoever. And I don't say that lightly. There is great potential in this story.
Blue Van Meer, 17, and her itinerant professor father, Gareth Van Meer, have moved from minor college town to minor college town since the tragic automobile wreck that killed Natasha Van Meer when Blue was just five. Now it's Blue's senior year of high school and as a treat to her, Gareth is going to stay in one town for an entire year, the first time he's ever done that. Gareth has insisted Blue has had an erudite, useless and completely comprehensive education in everything but life. Hannah Schneider, a teacher at Blue's elite private school, notices this even before school begins and attempts to induct Blue into an elite band of school royalty that she has adopted as her special project for the last four years. Utterly under her influence, the 'bluebloods' resent Blue's presence but grudgingly allow her to join in with them because Hannah wants them too. They introduce Blue to the sad bits of the world they know and soon Blue is in thick as they try to unravel the mystery of Hannah.
Because in the first page of the book Blue tells us she's writing the story to explain the murder of Hannah Schneider. Unfortunately, Pessl becomes enamored with the virulent bluebloods and spends two hundred and fifty pages with them (and Blue) as they bash anyone and anything not inside their infinitely high ivory tower of perfect culture and elite holier than thou arrogance. Within the center 300 pages when most of this takes place are fifty pages of interesting material, there is an interesting habit of Hannah's that is revealed, and someone dies at a party Hannah throws that the bluebloods were not supposed to be at. Seriously, the rest is entirely worthless and should have been told in four or five pages of text much in the way that the beginning and end of the book are narrated. It's the slow as molasses stew of melodrama that has no melo and precious little drama as these annoying characters are vicious and utterly inhuman towards each other. But our author thinks they are just wonderfully fascinating. Unfortunately they aren't. The bluebloods have utterly no depth whatsoever, and the sad attempts to give them character and identity are nothing more than cardboard approximations of what makes a person tic. Even important characters like Hannah, Gareth and the narrator Blue suffer from this problem to a lesser degree. There isn't a complete character in the entire novel, as though the author is aware of some of the tropes of the mystery genre but has never actually read a mystery and believes, falsely, that if 'mysterious' things are happening, no human in the story needs to have life or be interesting.
Erudite with a fascinating concept and a solid story for about 1/3 of the length, I cannot with any heart recommend this book to anyone. See the movie, though one will not be made, or listen to an ultra-abriged (six hours would be good) audiobook, this is a first effort that systematically details about every weakness of writing a modern author should be embarassed to display. I'm not talking about technical problems of bad sentances (see Tolkien, Children of Hurin) but of bad writing: an inability to grasp theme, storytelling, suspense, character, relationships, individuality, identity, rising action, denoument, villains, red herrings, grey characters etc. Marisha Pessl does not adequetely manage any of the above, much less manage them together in a cohesive work. She does manage a nice exposition, but, quite simply, this book is bad.
The New York Times said it was one of the ten best books of 2006. Posts: 128 | Registered: Aug 2006
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quote:technical problems of bad sentances (see Tolkien, Children of Hurin)
Aw, I loved that book. Much more enjoyable in its finished form than the bits and pieces spread out over four different compilations and texts.
Makes me sad that there isn't a more complete version of the Lay of Beren and Luthien, and the Fall of Gondolin.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I am determinedly plowing through a book I don't like at all. It seems to me that all the interest comes only from the allusions to better stories, and this makes me wish I were reading those better stories. It's been spoken of so highly and I know people love it, and so I plow on, but I'm just marking time at this point.
I like the occasional interludes.
The book? *puts up riot shield* Neil Gaiman's American Gods
My stars, I can't wait for this to be over.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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I loved American Gods. Funnily enough, though, my feelings aren't hurt that katharina doesn't like it.
*checks*
Nope.
The most recent book that I've hated hated hated hated hated and finished anyway was Labyrinth by Kate Moss (no, not the model) which I was reading for a book club. Urgh, that book suuuuuuucked. My students had lots of suggestions to help me finish it, including eating a bowl of ice cream every time I finished a chapter. Posts: 834 | Registered: Jun 2005
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*confused* Was that a comment about me? Or about your passion for the book? It kind of comes off as a negative comment about me - was that on purpose? That's not cool. ----
I'm a little relieved I am not the only one who doesn't like it. I generally love the reccomendations I get from Hatrack, so the failure of this one was disturbing me.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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Sorry, no!!!!! I was trying to comment on the silliness of getting upset when someone doesn't like a book that you like. It seems to happen a lot. (I'm glad you asked instead of just letting a misinterpretion stand.)
Posts: 834 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Tarrsk: I liked "American Gods," but "Anansi Boys" was much better.
I feel exactly the opposite. I love American Gods beyond belief, but felt Anansi Boys was alright.
Sorry to hear you're not digging AG, kat. I wish I could articulate why I love it so much right now, but it'll have to wait - I have yet another paper to get done for this afternoon. Posts: 3932 | Registered: Sep 1999
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Oh, gosh - that makes much more sense. Thanks for explaining and being patient with my erroneous conclusion. Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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When I re-read what I'd written, I could definitely see that it could be read as a snarky comment.
___
I agree with Carrie about Anansi Boys. Well, it was better than all right, and light years better than Neverwhere, but disappointing after AG.
Posts: 834 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I wasn't a huge fan of American Gods, either, although I enjoyed it in places.
I find myself agreeing with you more often than not, Tom, but this startled me. American Gods is one of my favourite books ever.
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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I preferred Anansi Boys enormously. Most of the parts of American Gods that I found most intriguing were things I'd actually seen done better in other books, with the exception of the House at the Rock.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Liz B: I agree with Carrie about Anansi Boys. Well, it was better than all right, and light years better than Neverwhere, but disappointing after AG.
I haven't read Anansi Boys yet but, while I enjoyed American Gods, I think Neverwhere was light years better than it.
Stardust, Coraline, and Sandman are my favorite works by Gaiman. His short stories are also usually quite enjoyable.
Posts: 1336 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I preferred Anansi Boys enormously. Most of the parts of American Gods that I found most intriguing were things I'd actually seen done better in other books, with the exception of the House at the Rock.
Well, that stinks. I read Anansi Boys about six months ago and just recently bought American Gods. It's 3rd in my 'to be read' queue.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I love American Gods, I think it's Gaiman's best work, but I think Anansi Boys is just alright.
quote: technical problems of bad sentances (see Tolkien, Children of Hurin)
Aw, I loved that book
The latter half of Children of Hurin was perfection. I was twitching to restrain myself from parsing his sentances in the first half. Clauses randomly running into each other and a general lack of punctuation made it a chore to get through the first half. Plus I didn't really like the old testament style of the writing in the first half, which also had a sort of bemused tone to it.
The story picked up when Turin's sister and the dragon got into the story. Other than that, mostly the story was, "Turin is overwrought at the elves! Zounds!"
Posts: 128 | Registered: Aug 2006
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I must be immune or something to Tolkien's writing flaws, I've never had problems with them. The archaic style is readily obvious, but other than that, I thought it was all perfectly good. But then, I've read 90% of the story before in other incarnations so not much about it was particularly new.
It's an 80 year old story that his son was loathe to edit too much, I don't fault either of them if some people find it a bit awkward.
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I also loved American Gods and felt that Anansi Boys was good, but not as good as AG. I think I found the main character less likable and interesting, so while the story was good, I didn't care as much what happened to him overall.
I recently picked up a used copy of Fragile Things, which had some amazing stories. I was a little disappointed that I'd read many of the stories before, but they were well worth a re-read, and the new ones were awesome. I guess it's partly my own fault for going to such lengths to buy any book or magazine with a Gaiman story.
I suppose one of the reasons I was disappointed with Anansi Boys was that I was so looking forward to another Gaiman book, and wasn't as thrilled with the story as I had hoped I would be.
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One thing that bothers me about American Gods is that no one stays dead. I've now counted at least three people who die wrenching deaths and then show up again in the next chapter. Since the story is basically our main character meeting and then losing people, it completely disconnects me from the story. There's no peril and thence no investment in the characters.
I think that's part of why I like the little bios of gods interludes. At least in those the pathos is earned.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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I adored both American Gods and Anansi Boys.
I canNOT keep reading a book I don't like. I gave Robert Jordan thirty and three pages for anything to happen; it didn't, and thus The Wheel of Time closed forever.
Hated those thirty-three pages.
I hear that the the audio book version of Special Topics is good, though Posts: 3936 | Registered: Jul 2000
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The only novel I read recently and really liked was The Curious Incident of the Upside-Down Dog. First-person from an autistic or Aspberger's boy. Check it out.
Posts: 544 | Registered: Mar 2007
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I enjoyed American Gods, though it doesn't bother me that others didn't. If everyone liked the same things, it would be a horribly dull world. *grin*
I think what did it for me was the House on the Rock. I went there with CT just after finishing the book, and he did NOT lie. That place was the closest I've ever been to an acid trip. We finally had to ask how to get out of it, because CT was getting a headache and I was nauseated. I thought I was going to be ill.
But chicken salad sandwich in the snack bar was one of the best I've ever eaten. Go figure. I should link to some of the pictures...
I'm with porce on Robert Jordan. I read the same 30 pages several times and I can't remember a single thing happening. I do recall someone was named "Rand", or some other monetary unit sounding name.
I just started to read Sutree by Cormac McCarthy-- one of my husband's all time favorites. I first gave it a go years ago, and didn't like it much-- put it down after the opening two-page tragic chorus thing. Now, those same two pages gave me gooseflesh, they were so cool.
I think whether or not I like something at any given time may have more to do with my circumstances and attitude at the time than anything.
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I started reading American Gods but stopped because I was kind of bored. I read Neverwhere which I thought was only ok.
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I stopped reading that first Robert Jordan book when I realized that I was hoping that the main character would get killed. That was probably about 250-300 pages in. I have never been so delighted to abandon a book...that was probably 5 years ago and it STILL makes me happy.
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I think American Gods and Stephen King's Dark Tower series are two of the biggest missed opportunities in genre fiction that strives to be a "great American novel" (or in other words, say something important, interesting and relevant about American society).
Posts: 3423 | Registered: Aug 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Qaz: The only novel I read recently and really liked was The Curious Incident of the Upside-Down Dog. First-person from an autistic or Aspberger's boy. Check it out.
Do you mean The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time?
Anyway, I liked it too.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Olivet: I think what did it for me was the House on the Rock. I went there with CT just after finishing the book, and he did NOT lie. That place was the closest I've ever been to an acid trip. We finally had to ask how to get out of it, because CT was getting a headache and I was nauseated. I thought I was going to be ill.
Oh, heavens! It went on for hours and hours and hours, and we still were nowhere near the end. I get jittery flashbacks just remembering.
quote:I'm with porce on Robert Jordan. I read the same 30 pages several times and I can't remember a single thing happening. I do recall someone was named "Rand", or some other monetary unit sounding name.
*grin
That's me, too. I couldn't tell if I'd picked up the same book, or a later or earlier one, and the only thing that seemed to change was the height and depth of the decolletage and hemlines. Those were detailed with a certain precision.
[Edited to add: And each male character seemed to spend most of his time reflecting on how much braver, wiser, smarter, and more manly his friends were than he was. Perhaps this is what young men really think about? I found it distracting, as I felt compelled to thumb back and make sure that I was remembering the same mental conversation going on for a previous character. This was actually what tired me out enough to lay the book(s) to rest, somewhere around the second or third one. I wanted to give it a chance, as I found the first one to be a decent plane book, but I eventually had no more chances in me left to give.]
quote: I think whether or not I like something at any given time may have more to do with my circumstances and attitude at the time than anything.
You speak for me as well here, too.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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I don't even remember fashion details, since I tend to skim description unless it... well, interests me, I guess. I know, I know. I'm bad.
Hee! I think I had a House on the Rock nightmare last night. The naked unicorn-headed woman with the violin on that one carusel? STILL freaks me, and that wasn't even the worst of it.
kojabu- I couldn't finish Neverwhere. It may be too early to say, but I think Mr. Gaiman may be one of those rare mature writers who still gets better the more he publishes. I think a lot seem to plateau, but I certainly haven't read everyone.
Posts: 9293 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I liked Anansi Boys ; I liked American Gods even more; I liked Neverwhere and Stardust even more than that. I also enjoyed Good Omens though I haven't liked any other Pratchert so far.
I am allowing myself bits of Fragile Things on a "make it last" basis.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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