So what is “Calamity Physics”? Can you help me please, perhaps with your own examples, real or imagined…? I’ve been finding piles of this book (click for larger view) in a number of places…such as in the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on the weekend. Either way, it is a great title, “Special Topics in Calamity Physics”, Marisha Pessl. Have you read it? I have not, but it does look like fun. Tell us more, if you’ve read it (no spoilers). I’ve noticed that it has received a lot of impressive reviews and breathless blurbs.
You can get a lot of entertainment by just visiting the book’s website. It has an excellent interactive graphic which will keep you engaged for many happy minutes!
I still want to know what Calamity Physics is, though. Any thoughts?
-cvj
I haven’t read the book, and I’m not a physicist, but I am a mathematician. The closest field of study that I know of off-hand is catastrophe theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catastrophe_theory
I read it. Loved it! It was a creative almost text book style of writting. You’re all mad you didn’t think of it first.
Recently read this on vacation.
The ending was *so* contrived….after 500 pages I was expecting more, and felt disappointed.
All style, no substance… as if Ms. Pessl is shouting “Look at all the books I have read!!! I am so intellectual!”
Read or re-read “Lolita” instead.
Okay, I read it. It was…eh. A good plane read.
The calamity physics reference crops up in reference to a potential title for a book about this underground resistance who were known to kill people in ‘innocuous’ ways. So it sort of refers to assassination.
Her name is Blue (how could you forget?).
My conclusion when the murder mystery thing really got going: it’s the twenty-first century American version of Foucault’s Pendulum. When coming from me, that’s a compliment. 🙂
I read it at the beginning of the year. It has nothing to do with Physics, calamitous or otherwise. It’s a murder mystery/suspense type of thing. The young lady who narrates the novel hangs with an eccentric crowd while her itinerant professor father settles down for her final year of High School. Her teacher is mysteriously killed, and she decides to solve the mystery herself.
that’s as much as I can say without giving away more of the plot. It is convoluted, crowded, and thoroughly engrossing. I agree with the above poster who couldn’t put it down. It’s literary crack, i’m telling you.
Many (real and imaginary) references pepper the pages, as the daughter of a college professor, she (sorry, forgot her name) annotates everything.
Absolutely run out and get this, you won’t regret it!
The book is now in my hands due to Waterstone’s 3 for 2. A review will be forthcoming either very quickly or very slowly depending on my exams-fragile state of mind.
Here’s my reading of the book’s title. It’s meant to be figurative and suggests a kind of seminar or directed study, i.e., a high-level exploration of the subject at hand. The term “calamity physics” was invented precisely because the author didn’t want an association with any real areas of physical inquiry such as chaos theory. And “calamity” has a kind of exotic and colorful appeal, as in “Calamity Jane.”
I’ve been thinking of reading the book myself for some time. What I take to be a good account of it was published in this Sunday Book Review criitique in the NY Times last year.
I bought it about a week ago, started reading it, could hardly stop, then gave it to a friend as a birhtday present and (as soon the shops opened again) bought myself a new copy. Hype or not, I like it. 🙂
There’s not much physics in it, at least not in the first part (and I don’t expect it to change). Lots of references to (world) literature and pop culture.
My guess is that ‘calamity physics’ is something like ‘theory of calamities’. The Dutch translation is called “Calamiteitenleer voor gevorderden”, or Calamity-theory (?) for advanced (students).
Strangely enough, the Dutch edition has a very different cover, pink with flowers and curly letters (see http://www.marishapessl.nl/).
I was going to read this after exams. From what I can tell, it’s yet another overhyped first novel with a massive marketing machine behind it so the publishers make back their dime…but I was thinking of giving it go anyway. It seemingly has more to do than english/american lit than physics.
I haven’t even seen it over here, so I moseyed over to amazon.com to see what it’s about. Conclusion: it sounds rather interesting, but I don’t know if it has a thing to do with physics. 🙂
When I get home and books become affordable again (printed matter is rediculously expensive, like anything imported) I shall look it up.