During the past week of class, we have watched a film called the Stone Reader. Throughout this film, the director, Mark Moskowitz is desperately seeking the allusive author, Dow Mossman. Mossman wrote one of Mark's favorite books, The Stones of Summer, and then failed to produce another book. Moskowitz is incredibly interested to find out why such an amazing writer would write a book that received great reviews and then not publish anything else. Moskowitz has very little information to go on and spends two years meeting with people who have been associated with Dow and his book in their pasts. It was very interesting to hear what each of these people had to say about not only Dow, but other authors who have written books and then not produced any other work. Many people in the film claim that it is such an exhausting process that many writers simply wear themselves out and will not think of ever attempting it again. Dow's previous roommate said that sometimes he would watch Dow sit and work on his novel for 20 hours straight. I think it is rather ironic that just as these authors became obsessed with their precious novels, Moskowitz becomes upset with finding Mossman and asking his what happened. Along his journey to Mossman, Moskowitz meets with some pretty amazing people in the literary community. Just to name a few: Robert Gottlieb, the editor of Catch-22, Frank Conroy, and Leslie Fiedler. It was really neat to hear a lot of these people talk about writing and literature with such passion. I could tell it was something that all of them really enjoyed and never planned on giving up. I also liked the suspense the movie created. Maybe it was due to the fact that we viewed the movie over a three day time period, but after every class (especially Wednesday), I could not wait to find out what was going to happen next in Moskowitz journey. I found myself completely caught up in finding Dow Mossman. The movie also made interested in reading The Stones of Summer. However, if many of these men in the movie who read daily could not make it through the novel, I wonder if I would even last a couple of chapters. I found it funny that the place where Moskowitz finally finds Mossman, its the very same place where his life began, his childhood home. Although this has almost nothing to do with the movie, I was also a fan of the scenery in the film. I was so envious in the scenes where he was in Maine because it looked so beautiful, and I have always wanted to go there. Overall the film was very interesting and a lot better than I had initially expected. However, I now have a very daunting impression of pursuing writing as a career.
I have thoroughly enjoyed taking English 215 this year with Mr. Kudera. The range of material we read and analyzed was very diverse, and I feel like I have gotten a lot out of this class. Surprisingly, there was not one novel that I did not like at all. They were all entertaining in there own ways. It was very interesting to compare my high school English classed to a college English course. So many topics that seem to be "taboo" in high school were openly discussed in this class. I really appreciated this because it has always bothered me how entire aspects of literature I read in high school were overlooked simply because they were deemed "inappropriate." Saints at the River by Ron Rash was probably my favorite. I liked how Maggie, the main character, had studied at Clemson University, and that the the story took place so close to where we are. I grew up in a small town, so I could really relate to Maggie's experience when she returns home. My least favorite piece of literature that we read would probably have to be Glenngary, Glen Ross by David Mamet. I cannot really put my finger on what exactly I did not like about it, but it reminded me a lot of Death of a Salesman which I read in high school and was not a huge fan of. Aside from that, I really enjoyed pretty much everything that we read. Mr. Kudera was an excellent teacher who was very knowledgeable about all of the literature we read and the authors. I don't think I would have ever read some of the novels or short stories that we were assigned in this class on my own, so for that reason I am also glad that I took this course. I would recommend it to anyone who is interesting in reading some great books and having insightful discussions about them. It has been a very positive experience a much need break from my typical math and science courses!
MEGHAN MCDONOUGH
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