Calamity Update
I'm still reading. It's slow going, as I haven't really gotten any more interested in the story or the characters. As a commenter noted before, the reference-heaviness does lighten up a bit, which I'm grateful for. However, it just made me focus on the other problems in this book.
First, there's the fact that Pessl just can't write a straightforward sentence. Everything needs three adjectives and two metaphors and at least one simile. Also, she tends to overuse the same comparisons, maybe because she found a twist of words that was very clever and fell in love with them. Here's the one that sticks out for me: Blue and posse crash the costume party at Hannah's, and there's a man there (who later becomes important) who she describes as having a "stomach that looked like a great big bag of loot." But earlier, when they're staking out Hannah at the truck stop, she describes a trucker as "loot-stomached" (without the explanation she gives later). I don't get the impression that Pessl did this purposefully to draw a comparison between the trucker and the man at the party. I think she used the phrase twice because she thought it was so neat.
Secondly (and similarly) she tends to reuse references. On the Road. Breakfast at Tiffany's. Nietzsche. Maybe she's trying to make the point that most of us (those of us who think ourselves quite literary and brilliant at age 17) watch the same half dozen movies and read the same ten books and recycle those same thoughts for 3 or 4 years before our horizons expand. But really, I think it's a bit of laziness. She wants to keep up the reference schtick, but she doesn't have any more books to quote.
I'm still working on this, like I said, but my thought so far is that the book would be 100% better if it were 50% as long, removing the half that is the same worn-out metaphors, "that's quite a stretch" descriptors, and repetitive references (actually, all references). It seems like padding for (to borrow a description that the author uses at least once in the book) an essay that's not meeting the page requirements. Or, perhaps more accurately, she's a young author who knew she couldn't sell a book without a hook. Fair enough. Maybe she's a smart businesswoman. But that doesn't make this a good book.
First, there's the fact that Pessl just can't write a straightforward sentence. Everything needs three adjectives and two metaphors and at least one simile. Also, she tends to overuse the same comparisons, maybe because she found a twist of words that was very clever and fell in love with them. Here's the one that sticks out for me: Blue and posse crash the costume party at Hannah's, and there's a man there (who later becomes important) who she describes as having a "stomach that looked like a great big bag of loot." But earlier, when they're staking out Hannah at the truck stop, she describes a trucker as "loot-stomached" (without the explanation she gives later). I don't get the impression that Pessl did this purposefully to draw a comparison between the trucker and the man at the party. I think she used the phrase twice because she thought it was so neat.
Secondly (and similarly) she tends to reuse references. On the Road. Breakfast at Tiffany's. Nietzsche. Maybe she's trying to make the point that most of us (those of us who think ourselves quite literary and brilliant at age 17) watch the same half dozen movies and read the same ten books and recycle those same thoughts for 3 or 4 years before our horizons expand. But really, I think it's a bit of laziness. She wants to keep up the reference schtick, but she doesn't have any more books to quote.
I'm still working on this, like I said, but my thought so far is that the book would be 100% better if it were 50% as long, removing the half that is the same worn-out metaphors, "that's quite a stretch" descriptors, and repetitive references (actually, all references). It seems like padding for (to borrow a description that the author uses at least once in the book) an essay that's not meeting the page requirements. Or, perhaps more accurately, she's a young author who knew she couldn't sell a book without a hook. Fair enough. Maybe she's a smart businesswoman. But that doesn't make this a good book.
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