I borrowed Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics: A Novel, from the library and then left it around the house for nearly two weeks without opening it.
For reasons I don't recall or never knew I expected not to like it or at least not to like it well enough to want to read it all. I planned to give it the Nancy Pearl 50-page treatment (as well as John Sutherland's Page 69 Test), report briefly in my blog, and send it back to the library at which it is due on Tuesday.
I don't remember why, but I had written off this much-hyped book as a little too clever, a bit superficial, lacking in depth. I was even starting to write the blog comments in my head: "Although the book has been much admired . . ." and "Despite it's cleverness and fetching title . . ."
Big mistake.
My 50-page test has turned into 94 pages and my enthusiasm is not yet flagging. I say "not yet" because I remain sceptical that this book can be what it so far appears to be, i.e., clever, brilliant, allusive, significant, delightful. (We can talk about this again when I get to page 514 and I'll apologize if necessary.)
The chapter titles are the names of works from the canon: "Othello," Moby-Dick, One Hundred Years of Solitude. And sure enough, in Chapter 4 (The House of the Seven Gables) the narrator and her father, who travel about the country almost constantly, move into a large, gabled house.
In Chapter 5 (The Woman in White) they meet a mysterious woman, though in this case she's wearing black. In Chapter 7 (Les Liaisons Dangereuses) someone is tricked by flowery letters and Mme de Merteuil and Valmont are mentioned. Do the chapter titles mean more than this? Perhaps, but I don't think I'm going to spend 2007 looking up all the references and drawing flow charts. Maybe things will become clear at the end.
Why the title? Who knows?
The clever wise-cracking narrator is characterized by nothing so much as her eridition. She quotes constantly (a few times per page) from often obscure reference books. However, by page 94 she has shown little real understanding of life, the books she can quote so glibly, or her own goals and motivations. And I have a bad feeling about the fellow-students she hangs out with and the teacher who is a kind of mentor to them.
I recommend that you borrow this book from the library. Don't buy it yet. Do the Rule of 50 Reading and the Page 69 Test. But do them as soon as you get the book home. Don't wait until day 11 of the 14-day borrowing period to look at it. You may be sorry if you do.