Book Review: Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Special Topics in Calamity Physics
by Marisha Pessl
This is my favorite of the year, and will probably make the list of of my favorite books ever. I’m not sure I can do it justice in reviewing it, but I hope I can do a bit better than Publishers Weekly, whom I’m going to quote entirely just to get the plot synopsis out of the way:

Pessl’s stunning debut is an elaborate construction modeled after the syllabus of a college literature course — 36 chapters are named after everything from Othello to Paradise Lost to The Big Sleep — that culminates with a final exam. It comes as no surprise, then, that teen narrator Blue Van Meer, the daughter of an itinerant academic, has an impressive vocabulary and a knack for esoteric citation that makes Salinger’s Seymour Glass look like a dunce. Following the mysterious death of her butterfly-obsessed mother, Blue and her father, Gareth, embark, in another nod to Nabokov, on a tour of picturesque college towns, never staying anyplace longer than a semester. This doesn’t bode well for Blue’s social life, but when the Van Meers settle in Stockton, N.C., for the entirety of Blue’s senior year, she befriends—sort of—a group of eccentric geniuses (referred to by their classmates as the Bluebloods) and their ringleader, film studies teacher Hannah Schneider. As Blue becomes enmeshed with Hannah and the Bluebloods, the novel becomes a murder mystery so intricately plotted that, after absorbing the late-chapter revelations, readers will be tempted to start again at the beginning in order to watch the tiny clues fall into place. Like its intriguing main characters, this novel is many things at once—it’s a campy, knowing take on the themes that made The Secret History and Prep such massive bestsellers, a wry sendup of most of the Western canon and, most importantly, a sincere and uniquely twisted look at love, coming of age and identity.

I’m surprised that PW could write such a lengthy paragraph about the novel that didn’t do more than show glimpses of the main character, Blue Van Meer, who is the heart and soul of the book. It is tempting to focus on Pessl’s structure and literary allusions — but the cleverness of those devices is secondary to her skill at constructing the character of Blue, who is almost prescient in her intelligence and at the same time as naive as any teenager, without a trace of contradiction between the two. In fact, the “knack for esoteric citation” is Blue’s wry comic punctation throughout the narrative, and does as much for character development as it does for illuminating the plot.
And then there’s Blue’s father, Gareth, who plays almost as large a role in the book as Blue. We see him completely through his daughter’s eyes, and this is clearly a girl who loves and is completely influenced by her father, although she’s not blind to his foibles and follies, and not shy about asserting her own agenda, even though he’s used to getting his way. Gareth Van Meer is a scholar and an intellectual elitist, and though he’s obviously highly intelligent, he’s not quite as smart as he thinks he is, which is charming with a bit of schadenfreudey-whimsy thrown in.
The murder mystery itself is neatly wrapped up at the end of the novel — but there are enough threads to weave a sequel into the story, and I certainly hope that happens; I hope we haven’t heard the last of Blue Van Meer.

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International Literacy Day!

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Hey, it’s International Literacy Day, according to a UN resolution. I know we don’t take those very seriously here in Amurika, but literacy is important! You too could grow up to get in a readin’ contest with Karl Rove.

My Pet Goat
FAHRENHEIT 24
Is Our Children Learning?

But in all seriousness:

International Literacy Day takes place on September 8 every year to raise awareness and concern for literacy problems that exist within our own local communities as well as globally. International Literacy Day was founded by proclamation of The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, in 1966 “to remind the public of the importance of literacy as a matter of dignity and human rights.” International Literacy Day brings ownership of the challenges of illiteracy back home to local communities where literacy begins, one person at a time.

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Books to Read Before You Die

The British librarian’s organization — “Museum, Libraries and Archives Council” — has put together a List of Books to Read Before You Die.

I have a pretty good start on the list. Of the ones I haven’t read yet, I have four on my bookshelves at home, so I’ll probably get to them someday.

  1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  2. The Bible
  3. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien
  4. 1984 by George Orwell
  5. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
  6. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
  7. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
  8. All Quite on the Western Front by E M Remarque
  9. His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman
  10. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
  11. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
  12. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
  13. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
  14. Tess of the D’urbevilles by Thomas Hardy
  15. Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne
  16. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
  17. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
  18. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
  19. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
  20. The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
  21. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
  22. The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
  23. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
  24. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
  25. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
  26. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
  27. Middlemarch by George Eliot
  28. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
  29. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
  30. A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzenhitsyn
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Stakeout on Millennium Drive

I hate throwing in the towel on books. I feel guilty if I can’t get through one, and I will struggle to the end of even the most difficult stuff. And I wanted to like Stakeout on Millennium Drive; I really did. It is, after all, a book set in Indianapolis, by a native writer, Ian Woollen. We just don’t have enough of those, so I was hoping to write a glowing review of a “must read” book. He even sent the book to IndyScribe so we could review it. It’s a murder mystery, and I love those.

The premise of the story is that a police officer shooting has occurred on “Millennium Drive” (a fictional street the approximate location of which I wasn’t able to determine) witnessed by a reporter named Kurt Blackwood on a ride-along with said policeman, Louis Garcia. Blackwood is a bit of a crackpot and writes for a fictional alternative local paper — the “Whipping Post” — where he writes a tinfoil-hat column called “Naptown Nuggets” (that name alone made me want to reject the book). Officer Garcia gets shot and killed by a woman as he tries to knock on her door to break up a domestic dispute between her and her husband. Despite the testimony of the reporter, the inquiry into the shooting determines the husband fired the gun, and that the incident was an accident, so the case is closed.

But Blackwood, who hears the voice of the slain policemen in his head, believes that the real facts of the shooting were covered up because there was some connection between the quarreling couple responsible for the shooting and the Mayor of Indianapolis, a fictional character that seems to be modeled on former mayor Steve Goldsmith (references to privitization and corruption abound). So Blackwood begins a stakeout of the street to gather more information, and at the same time begins writing reports on his progress in the form of long, rambling, disjointed letters to the Assistant Deputy Mayor of Indy (Randall Fleck), whom Blackwood conveniently has dug up some dirt on. The novel is composed almost entirely of these letters, with some short snippets of narration about Fleck’s reaction (or non-reaction) to these epistles.

You can see my problem, can’t you? If you were given a bunch of nutty ramblings about something you didn’t have a reason to care about, would you sit and read them? Even if they were conveniently bound in book form?

Woollen inserts a lot of interesting Indianapolis history into Blackwood’s ramblings through the character’s backstory; his family were long-time residents and had connections to early local architecture and culture movements. But I was bothered by the character expressing scathing feelings about the city. Everyone’s entitled to his own opinion, of course, but I wondered why an author would bother to set a book in a city that they appear to strongly dislike.

And as the letters to Fleck progress, Blackwood seems to lose track of his goal of ferretting out the truth as he interacts with the “colorful” characters of Millennium Drive, who hang out at his van and talk to him, and later invite him into their homes, instead of calling the police as anyone with an ounce of sense would do. He even becomes friends with the woman who shot officer Garcia and contemplates attempting to sleep with her. The point at which Blackwood begins a discourse on his sexual proclivities was one of my stopping points. I tried to power through it, but I got as far as the street’s pro-wrestler native american attempting a spirit-cleansing to exorcise the spirit of Officer Garcia from Blackwood’s head before I had to stop.

There was every reason for me to enjoy this book, but I couldn’t wait to put it down whenever I had it in my hands, and I dreaded picking up again. I even began cheating on it with other books on my to-read list. If you want to tackle the book, let me know how it wraps up. I wouldn’t mind knowing how it ends, but I just can’t devote the time to get there myself.

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Weekend Update 2006-02-20

What I accomplished this weekend:

  1. Comment Code – I worked on the comment code on my site to accomplish:
    • Cleaner xhtml and css. This was hard, but I got it working well.
    • Displaying the number next to the comment. This wasn’t hard.
    • Displaying comments from me in a different color than others. This seemed to be fraught with errors, for some reason, but I eventually worked it out.

    The comments aren’t perfect yet; I want a more subtle look and feel. But getting the above out of the way was a huge step in that direction.

  2. Close examination of my error logs. I scoured through them to see where I had broken links within my own pages to correct them, and what pages that other people were linking to that had moved. Then I set up a huge redirect file to point other’s links in the right direction. I also redirected sections of my site that have moved into my content management system. All of this will hopefully clean up my error logs a lot, and, with any luck, increase my page ranks within Google.
  3. Moved more of my static pages into my content management system so I can update and control them more easily. There’s still a lot to do in that area, but I’m working on it.
  4. Wrote two book reviews that had been lingering around waiting for attention. I’m slowly but surely making my way through my reading list for 2006.
  5. Watched a lot of the Olympics with Stephanie. We are sad about Johnny getting 5th (not 4th, actually) place. This week is women’s figure skating, and I’ll be cheering Kimmie Meisner and Emily Hughes. They’re both too young to really do well, but both of them are great sports. I’m not a huge fan of Sasha Cohen.
  6. Went on a huge stocking-up trip to Cost Co. I could now survive a ten-day blizzard, no problem.
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Literary Terms I Like

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I started making this list several years ago, when I was reading Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia straight through. I believe I got to the letter H before I got too busy and abandoned the project. That’s fantastic reference book, though.

Accismus
Irony involving insincere modesty

Aesthetic distance
A term that describes the ability to objectify experience in art and present it as independent from its maker.

Argus-eyed
Jealously watchful

Beatrice
Dante’s symbol of Spiritual inspiration

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Superhero Reading List

To my Amazon Wish List, I just added:
How To Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion
by Daniel H. Wilson
The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead
by Max Brooks
Real Ultimate Power: The Official Ninja Book
by Robert Hamburger
The Government Manual for New Superheroes
by Jacob Sager Weinstein
The Action Hero’s Handbook
by David Borgenicht
The Action Heroine’s Handbook
by Jennifer Worick
How to Be a Superhero
by Barry Neville
The Batman Handbook: The Ultimate Training Manual
by Chuck Dixon
How to Be a Villain
by Neil Zawacki
How to Rule the World: A Handbook for the Aspiring Dictator
by Andre de Guillaume
The Science of Supervillains
by Lois H. Gresh
So, I should be in good shape. yep.

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100 Best First Lines from Novels

According to the American Book Review:
1. Call me Ishmael. —Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851)
2. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. —Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813)
3. A screaming comes across the sky. —Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow (1973)
4. Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. —Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967; trans. Gregory Rabassa)
5. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. —Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955)

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Best Lesbian Erotica 2006 (Best Lesbian Erotica Series)

Best Lesbian Erotica 2006 (Best Lesbian Erotica Series)
by Tristan Taormino, Eileen Myles

This was better than most lesbian erotica books I’ve read, I have to say. I’m normally not a huge fan of the genre because it’s often so badly written that I can’t suspend my disbelief long enough to go for the ride. (So to speak.) I just get irritated by what I’m reading. Most of these stories were better written, or at least well edited enough not to tick me off before I could grok what the story was.

That said, there’s a huge issue of personal taste involved when it comes to the stories in this book, and to the genre in general. I’m really not wired to find the idea of sadomasochism/bondage/dominance appealing or intriguing. I’m not offended or grossed out or against it in any fashion. I fully support other people’s decisions to consensually tie each other up if they want to. But it’s not interesting to me, and I’d say roughly half these stories included it in some fashion or another. After awhile, I just skipped over them. I wish the genre were broken down further so that I could opt out of that particular flavor of short story.

I also have to admit that I’m not all that interested in the idea of gender role-playing or exploring masculine identities, or at least not to the extent that the stories in this book do. I know that these are ideas that the lesbian community is exploring and examining, especially as more transgender people start to recognize who they are and how they fit into society in general and the lesbian community in particular. But it’s also outside of my set of interests, and probably another way that I would break down the genre into categories so that I could opt out of skimming then skipping things that don’t interest me.

2019 update: Hellllooooo denial. I think there is some element of other people’s coming out process as trans masculine that is really put me off the idea of transitioning though. There was a lot of he-man macho posturing among trans men coming out that was uncomfortable and smacked of abuse.

Continue ReadingBest Lesbian Erotica 2006 (Best Lesbian Erotica Series)