We Report, You Decide

Syntax of Things roving correspondent George Kaplan made the trek to Durham's Regulator Bookshop to see Marisha Pessl in person.  He filed this report:

So I went to the first ever (as I understand it) Marisha Pessl bookstore appearance last night. Mostly full house. My impressions, all superficial, but it is called an "author appearance" and I have few book-related opinions at this point.

Yes, she's blinding, maybe more so than the author photo - in person, small part Molly Parker and bigger part 70s Marisa Berenson but 27 and friendly and maybe giggly-nervous.  Tight low-rise jeans and small blouse showing some distracting (for me) all-star waist skin, plus a spectacular array of ice on her ring finger that does nothing to dispel any Barnard stereotypes.  There's definitely an air of life-in-rarefied-air, like I've sensed with Susan Minot or Joyce Maynard in person, but I get the idea this woman pumps her own gas.  She may not be the girl-next-door, but she's far from the Galaxy Craze freakshow. Women who I'd normally expect to hate someone like her out of the gate seem to like her regardless.

She reads like an actor (as one would expect), maybe with a hint of poetry-voice.  She says she wrote two bad novels in college before this one. Spoke with some phrases that make my eyes roll (even when idols resort to them), like "I had a hard time leaving my characters behind" and writes the overly cute (to me) third-person author bio, but it sounds more like hype-related disorientation and maybe a lack of jading and I expect it to sputter as she deals with 3 years of publishing-related bullshit and passes age 30.

I liked what she read and I like her drawings. I'll try and read Special Topics in Calamity Physics after I finish, coincidentally, Austerlitz.  She mentioned the drawings came late in the process and were done in, I believe, 2 weeks or less.  As the book apparently references so many visual aids, the agent or editor thought it prudent to actually include some.  Apparently, however, it's provoking a little head-scratching in regards to the audio version.

I remember one simile/metaphor, although I don't have the passage handy--something about a woman moving/walking RKO-like.  My first thought was "cool!".  Second thought was "maybe that's a little pop-y and could end up being dated."  Third thought was "How dated can an RKO reference be if I understand it in 2006?"

I wish her well--I think she appreciates the apparently not-undeserving lottery she's won.  I'd hope to be able to handle a first/early appearance so well.

Plus, I, as George Kaplan, like that she has a cat named Hitchcock (and one named Fellini).

Word on the street is that she/Calamity are the NYBTR cover this weekend. You heard it here. If it's not, that's what you get for reading blogs.

See also:
+ Jessa Crispin: It's Not About Marisha Pessl's Looks and Money—is it?

+ NYT review of Special Topics in Calamity Physics {Note to self: Read reviews before posting a link to them; see Mark's and Ed's reaction to this one.  Yesh.}

Comments

[Peter S.]

In the spirit of fairness, I should probably hold off on commenting about Marisha Pessl's work until actually reading the entire book. That being said, I found her reading last night at Skylight to be somewhat disappointing.

As an aspiring twentysomething novelist, I had every reason to be excited for a glimpse at the newly crowned wunderkind. Beyond that, as an avid consumer of literary fiction, I really hoped to be awed by her talents. (What's better, after all, than adding a new author to the rolodex?) Unfortunately, this wasn't the case.

To begin with, the sections from which Pessl read were freighted with similes to the point of distraction. Some, of course, were clever and well-placed, but the majority seemed superfluous and detracted from the overall descriptive flow. Additionally, and I know this is perhaps unfair--and I really do hate to make a tired structuralist critique--the notable similarities to Donna Tartt's "The Secret History," if only from a superficial armature standpoint, were a bit off-putting for me.

Lastly--and, again, I don't mean to pick nits--during the Q&A Pessl made several borderline embarrassing grammar mistakes; e.g., failing to distinguish between subject and object ("She returned the draft to my mother and I"), mis-using the subjunctive, etc. Admittedly, anyone can get nervous during a Q&A, and I'm not trying to suggest that Marisha Pessl doesn't know basic grammar. Nonetheless, it seems somewhat inconsistent for the author of a "pitch-perfect," sprawling pomo tome to be making simple grammar errors. One questions, for instance, whether a Moody, DFW, or JCO would fall prey to said pitfalls.

Again, to be fair, one can't really blame Pessl for a case of nerves (if that is, in fact, what it was) during her first reading tour. But she didn't really help her case any when she later admitted that, as an undergrad at Barnard, she simply "made up" footnotes for academic papers b/c she was "too lazy" to actually do the required research. That is, in the wake of such recent literary hoaxes as JT Leroy, James Frey, and Kavvya Viswanathan, a rising-star young author would be well-advised to avoid elucidating instances in which (s)he cut corners.

Again, I can't stress enough that I'm not putting Pessl in the fraud category; rather, I intend only to point ways in which she might lend herself more literary credibility, which is sure to be a concern going forward, given that she's already suffering something of a minor (if ineluctable) backlash against her "glamorous young author" status. In a nutshell, I guess I'd suggest that her handlers advise her to skip a few sessions of cardio and instead cozy up with Strunk & White.

That is, the best way, perhaps, to stifle the criticism that Pessl is primarily being championed b/c she's such an obviously saleable commodity (and no, she's not as hot in person) would be to have her give truly erudite interveiews and readings. Last night, at least, she failed to deliver.

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