Introduction
Part 1
Chapter #1: OTHELLO, William Shakespeare
Chapter #2: A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN, James Joyce
Chapter #3: WUTHERING HEIGHTS, Emily Brontë
Chapter #4: THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES, Nathaniel Hawthorne
Chapter #5: THE WOMAN IN WHITE, Wilkie Collins
Chapter #6: BRAVE NEW WORLD, Aldous Huxley
Chapter #7: LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
Chapter #8: MADAME BOVARY, Gustave Flaubert
Chapter #9: PYGMALION, George Bernard Shaw
Chapter #10: THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT STYLES, Agatha Christie
Part 2
Chapter #11: MOBY-DICK, Herman Melville
Chapter #12: A MOVEABLE FEAST, Ernest Hemingway
Chapter #13: WOMEN IN LOVE, D. H. Lawrence
Chapter #14: "THE HOUSEBREAKER OF SHADY HILL," John Cheever
Chapter #15: SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH, Tennessee Williams
Chapter #16: LAUGHTER IN THE DARK, Vladimir Nabokov
Chapter #17: THE SLEEPING BEAUTY AND OTHER FAIRY TALES, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
Chapter #18: A ROOM WITH A VIEW, E. M. Forster
Part 3
Chapter #19: HOWL AND OTHER POEMS, Allen Ginsberg
Chapter #20: THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, William Shakespeare
Chapter #21: DELIVERANCE, James Dickey
Chapter #22: HEART OF DARKNESS, Joseph Conrad
Chapter #23: ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, Ken Kesey
Chapter #24: ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE, Gabriel García Márquez
Chapter #25: BLEAK HOUSE, Charles Dickens
Chapter #26: THE BIG SLEEP, Raymond Chandler
Chapter #27: JUSTINE, Marquis de Sade
Chapter #28: QUER PASTICCIACCIO BRUTTO DE VIA MERULANA, Carlo Emilio Gadda
Chapter #29: THINGS FALL APART, Chinua Achebe
Chapter #30: THE NOCTURNAL CONSPIRACY, Smoke Wyannoch Harvey
Chapter #31: CHE GUEVARA TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE, Ernesto Guevara de la Serna
Chapter #32: "GOOD COUNTRY PEOPLE," Flannery O'Connor
Chapter #33: THE TRIAL, Franz Kafka
Chapter #34: PARADISE LOST, John Milton
Chapter #35: THE SECRET GARDEN, Frances Hodgson Burnett
Chapter #36: METAMORPHOSES, Ovid
Final Exam
Acknowledgments
SPECIAL TOPICS IN CALAMITY PHYSICS
a novel...
Blue van Meer: a brainy, deadpan, and preternaturally erudite girl who, after traveling from one remote academic outpost to another with her professor father (see "Gareth van Meer"), has a head crammed full of literary, philosophical, and scientific knowledge. (She is also a film buff and can recite pi out to sixty-five decimal places.) When she is sixteen, due to certain nuclear events, her previously dull life is forever transformed.
The Flying Demoiselle: an archaic means of hanging someone, popular in the American South between 1829-1860. It is also, in all likelihood, how Hannah Schneider died.
Gareth Van Meer: a handsome yet maddening man prone to aphorisms, meteoric affairs, (see "June bugs"), and high-end bourbon.
June bugs: single women aged 35-45 who, for reasons unclear to Blue, cling to her father like lint balls to wool pants.
Lion sex: something that happens in Room 222 of the Dynasty Motel.
Valerio: a clue.
MARISHA PESSI
grew up in Asheville, North Carolina, and now lives in New York City. This is her first novel.
Jacket design: Paul Buckley Back jacket photograph © Adalberto Rios Szalay/ Sexto Sol/Getty Images
VIKING
A member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 375 Hudson Street, New York. N.Y. 10014 www.penguin.com
I Printed in U.S.A.
VIKING
VIKING Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R oRL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pry Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pry) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R oRL, England
First published in 2006 by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
10 9 8 7
Copyright © Marisha Pessl, 2006 All rights reserved
Illustrations by the author
Publisher's Note This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA Pessl, Marisha. Special topics in calamity physics / Marisha Pessl.
p. cm. ISBN 0670-03777-X
1. Young women—Fiction. I. Title. PS3616.E825S67 2006 813'.6—dc22 2005058474
Printed in the United States of America Set in Electra LH with Omatic Designed by Daniel Lagin
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright