_The Stones of Summer_

[Otto]

I'm stuck on p. 67.

Did you read the amazon customer-reviews? There are a lot, either enthusiastic or condemning. In fact I've seldom read such controversial reader reviews.

"Into the gobbledeegook go slipper the whipper and the trimtrammaduhdeedo, believing the glubbledubble spewed forth by a madman. What do you think, am I a genius or what? Just send me thirty bucks and I'll send you the next 670 pages. 
Here are three words for Dow Mossman that he should have tried to make sense of: Ther-a-py. The guy may have had potential at one point, but he ended up a nut. And this book proves it. And also, since he was such a worshiper of Aristotle's, he should have watched out for the philosopher's famous warning: "No great soul is exempt from a mixture of madness." True enough, but it is the conquest of that madness, not the surrender to it, which makes a great soul remain so. Mossman, in pitiful fashion, lost the battle, descending from a promising wordsmith to a full-blown babbling idiot. It's a shame, really." 

"The Stones of Summer went down like a blood transfusion; hot! hot! hot! I laughed to see that some of the reviews were porking Mossman with the name of Proust: ironically, that's just what the Dawes' childhood friends would have said, little chuckleheads--- and they'd be wrong and Dawes loves 'em for trying. No, I saw every writer in this Writer: Mossman is Virginia Woolf, Miguel Angel Asturias, James Joyce, Cervantes, Mark Twain, Keri Hume (for me). This is great Midwestern literature. I feel I've been gifted with the reprint of this book, and I hope it never goes out of print again. Through the vehicles of wit, poetry, and brainstuff, the novel becomes in the end, a soul on paper. It is a must-read for all writers and serious readers. I'm buying a copy my struggling artist friends and for my grandpa, let's see if he can take the kick!"

Otto

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Tim Strzechowski 
  To: Pynchon-L 
  Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2004 5:21 AM
  Subject: NP: _The Stones of Summer_


  I'm currently reading this Dow Mossman novel at the behest of a colleague who saw _Stone Reader_ and became engrossed in the story behind the novel.

  Any of you ever read it?  I'm about a third of the way through it, and at this point would be interested in your opinions of the damn thing.

  Thanks,

  Tim

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