BREAKING: Marisha Pessl Not Hot
Betrayed! Today's Times has a story on just how hot Marisha Pessl is ... which they chose to illustrate with a photo that is NOT HOT AT ALL. It's the most egregious display of two-face we've ever witnessed. See for yourselves:
vs. 
Deceiver! Janus of the ingenue-lit set! Now we will have to judge your novel on its merits!
Special Topics in Calamity Physics," by Marisha Pessl [Amazon]
[UPDATE 3:37 p.m.: Gawker, you have things backward!]
5 Comments | 
| 
Print This Post
Read more: Hotness, marisha pessl
Email – 
Search
About
Follow us on Twitter
Report a bug
Archives
RSS Feed
August 21st, 2006 at 1:24 pm
she didn’t go to an ivy anyway. she’s a northwestern transfer to barnard. how declassee.
August 21st, 2006 at 3:48 pm
if you’re attractive enough, these editors will overlook the premise of the ivy league blog entirely. i look forward to the inevitable Jenn Sterger post.
August 31st, 2006 at 4:37 pm
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.
May 8th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
장된 페이지’는 웹을 검색한 당시의 문서 상태를 보여 드립니다. 있습니다. 하이라이트 색깔표시 없이
May 8th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
Hhgghhg kdfgdg sdgfgt sd gdsgdgsdg gd sdgdgsdg