Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl **

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl is a magic show. The story is surrounded by entertaining misdirection in the form of long sentences, popular culture, literature references (real and imaginary), metaphorical descriptions, parenthetical digressions, and excessive cleverness – not much physics. The show is so much fun that you might forget to solve the mystery, or even that there is a mystery. The story is about Blue van Meer’s senior year at St. Galway School, where she has just arrived. Thanks to her itinerant professor father, Blue has lived in “thirty-nine towns in thirty-three states, … and … attended approximately twenty-four elementary, middle and high schools.” On page 6, her favorite teacher Hannah Schneider dies. Blue and five students (playfully called Bluebloods) also forget to solve this mystery 500 pages later. I preferred 'The Lady, or the Tiger?' by Frank R. Stanton from 1882.

In the Choose Your Own Adventure tradition, the book asks questions like: Who is Hannah Schneider, How did she die, and Why did Blue’s father leave her? Each question offers alternatives, but that is the end of the book. In 'The Lady, or the Tiger tradition, the author doesn’t have an answer. I found this rather unsatisfying.

 Examples of the writing style…

At one point Blue imagines different Hannahs. There was Haight-Ashbury Hannah (old records of Carole King, Bob Dylan, a bong, tai chi books, a faded ticket to some peace rally at Golden Gate Park on June 3, 1980), Stripper Hannah (I didn’t feel comfortable going through that box, but Milton exhumed bras, bikinis, a zebra-striped slip, a few more complicated items requiring directions for assembly), also Hand Grenade Hannah (combat boots, more knives), also Hannah, Missing Person Possessed (the same folder full of Xeroxed newspaper articles Nigel had found, though he’d lied about there being “fifty pages at least” there were only nine). My favorite, however, was Madonna Hannah who material-girled out of a sagging cardboard box.

Blue’s thoughts on being called a terrible kisser. It was one of the biggest scandals of Life, to learn the cruelest thing someone could say to you was that you were a terrible kisser. One would think it’d be worse to be a Traitor, Hypocrite, Bitch, Whore or any other foul person, worse even to be a Way-out-there, a Welcome Mat, a Was-Girl, a Weasel. I suspect one would even fare better with “bad in bed,” because everyone has an off day, a day when his/her mind hitchhikes on each and every thought that cruises by, and even champion racehorses such as Couldn’t Be Happier, who won both the Derby and the Preakness in 1971, could suddenly come in dead last, as he did at the Belmont Stakes. But to be a terrible kisser—to be tuna—was the worst of all, because it meant you were without passion, and to be without passion, well, you might as well be dead.

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