Marisha Pessl loves alliteration

Marisha Pessl, literary hotshit of the moment (not according to the Dig) for her debut novel Special Topics in Calamity Physics, wrote an Op-Ed in today’s NYTimes that argues in favor of embracing the nefarious freshman 15. Pack it on, she says, because there’s plenty of time for rules and restraint after you graduate. College is all about excess and salads will make you sulky. It’s not a bad message. But she sure loves her literary devices, particularly alliteration. Here’s the piece, in an alliterative nutshell:

Pessl references cravings for “pizza, pasta, Twinkies and Tab” and suggests that the problem with “collegiate calorie counting” when studying “Kierkegaard or Conrad” after snacking on “seitan and soy chips” is “stomachs seasick, sometimes outright ill.” It’s not the time for dieting because college is “four fleeting years of free-spirited indulgence,” in which you might meet a French girl and “soon you’re specializing in Sartre.” It’s a time to be “a fool, fall flat, find out you . . . never really had a clue” and if you “gain a little gut studying Goethe,” don’t lose sleep, and eat cake while you can, because after you graduate, those study sessions with “beer, Byron, and buffalo wings” will feel like a sweet dream. In the words of Sharon, she's hot & high-rollin.