love this book. Have been re-reading it every few years since 1983.Just to be clear, it is set in the late 1950's so it does not invoke the 1960s as claimed ! It may take a bit of getting into, as we move from Gnossos' thoughts to live action, but yes a wild array of characters and perfectly evoked settings, humour & Gnossos' search for truth or is it immunity or is it just kicks ? Sex, drugs, gambling, love, adventure mysticism and story-telling.
The wolf or the monkey demon? you choose.

A late 1950's/early 1960's diary of the self-searching that abounded during that period. A refreshing re-read as against all the hoopla today about succeeding and winning that detours us from more elemental and perhaps satisfying pursuits.

“I like that part”
“It’s pretty groovy.”

Gnossos serves as an enthralling north star for this groovy novel—a fella I adored at times, and deeply despised at others. I loved how many of the sincere and intimate moments of the book were scarce and only afforded a few lines. Overall, I was just majorly onboard with Fariña’s voice and all of the phrases and descriptions he wielded throughout. Complete chapters are hit or miss, but Gnossos is a cool cat so it’s mostly a good time.

1st from fariña for me...paperback...the intro from pynchon...1966...

a dedication: this one is for mimi

this follows:
"i must soon quit the scene..."
benjamin franklin
in a letter to george washington
march 5, 1780

a contents pages...21 chapters...begins:

book the first
to athene then.

young gnossos pappadopoulis, furry pooh bear, keeper of the flame, voyaged back from the asphalt seas of the great wasted land: oh highways u.s. 40 and unyielding 66, i am home to the glacier-gnawed gorges, the fingers of lakes, the golden girls of westchester and shaker heights. see me loud with lies, big boots stomping, mind awash with schemes.

you bet...onward & upward

time & place...scene settings
*a current 1958 calendar...in gnossos "paps" pappadopoulis's rucksack
*and...either late december, possibly january, the start of another whatever, semester/quarter, neither word used
*chapter 5, march came fumbling in like a wizard of oz lion
*a date...in the letter/paps...to the sun: april, 1958
*another date, late in the story: may 13, 1958, close to the end
*athene...which may or may not be metaphorical...a well-hilled land, or perhaps the campus itself
*academae avenue
*the greyhound bus station
*#109, the pad where paps & hardy fitzgore will stay
*a purple passion party where paps & heff stole the d-phi car the previous christmas, used to kidnap mary, the baby jesus, and sebastian
*harpy creek...their destination...the bridge
*guido's grill...where the kidnapped shepherd on tabletop
*the plato pit
*louie's...they're tearing it down to build
*larghetto lodge
*student laundries
*mentor university, founded 1894...perhaps the non-metaphorical name?
*jove dormitory
*the law school w/its university gothic
*the new engineering building
*one of the varnished picnic tables in the plato pit next to the jukebox
*blue-tinted campus...illuminated tall clock tower
*labyrinth avenue
*a charcoal-gray aston martin
*the d.u. driveway...a fraternity
*a bathroom, a bedroom, a closet
*the secure entrance to a photography shop
*dryad road
*newman club...the monsignor extends an invite to paps
*anagram hall
*polygon hall
*office of the dean, anagram hall
*the painter, calvin's, black saab
*new mexico...where paps had been
*arapho motor inn (new mexico/desert)
*the boyscout camp...paps/past year...hid out
*calvin's somber clapboard boarding house
*one of the shedding australian umbrella trees
*the greco-turkish supply company in the negro section downtown
*hector ramrod hall...scene of the nativity kidnapping
*minotaur hall
*another bathroom
*quonset astronomy lab
*gambling hall of a las vegas hotel (no name, alas)
*the edge of a salt flat where a nuclear explosion is witnessed
*david grun's farm
*the high-ceilinged living-room of the old house
*the greenhouse...at the farm
*the town of dryad
*the party barn, next to the dairy queen
*the black elks downtown
*circe iii, is the girls' dormitory
*courtyard
*the san francisco coexistence bagel shop
*maeander lake/hydroelectric dam
*a bus
*downtown in kresges'
*the dairy queen just opened today
*the bathroom of #109 (see quote)
*ovid hall...to be torn down, "the testicular aesthetic extension of the tall clock tower..."
*fitzgore's impala comvertible
*coprolite hall
*another bathroom
*the surgical silence of the infirmary john
*washington, d.c.
*a gas station booth
*the gas station on the perimeter of the city (d.c.)
*the washington monument
**richmond, viginia
*mother flecther's kountry kitchen
*emporia, virginia
*a safeway parking lot
*a yellow lincoln
*the shores of the muddy santee river
*charleston...fort sumter
*savannah
*a motel w/beds that vibrated
*woodbine, georgia
*jacksonville, florida...st augustine...titusville, ft. pierce, lake worth, fort lauderdale, miami
*p & o pier
*the s.s. florida
*the small ballroom amidships
*shell-pocked morro castle in havana harbor, cuba
*calle o'reilly
*hotel casa hilda
*a balcony of same
*hotel nacional
*residential section of vedado
*a decrepit pock-marked bar
*varadero beach
*a plane
*the dorchester in london
*the clearing under the trees

characters
*gnossos "paps" pappadopoulis, our hero, returned to schooling from a year away, a hunting trip, immunity has been granted to me, for i do not lose my cool...he claims to be "ian evergood" before pamela who is british, murderess of cypriot peasants. called "nooses" by john mayke, called "mr pappadopolum" by rajamuttu, "mr pappadoo" by the switchbrd operator
pamela watson-may, british chic, answers the door at #109, no eyebrows, in the school of architecture, she is subletting...she is also a hieress to $80 billon (in gold)...oil money
*the landlord who lives in the country
*george & irma rajamuttus, neighbors, from benares, george is hotel administration, factotum studies, master bartending
*hardy fitzgore, carrot-red hair & freckled nose, smaller than gnossos...to share #109 w/paps. he is in a fraternity, too. "gorzy" "gore"
*fat fred...one of the black elks, downtown
*the golden girls, shopping for dainties in lairville
*the great white pattern maker lying in his prosperous bed
*heffalump "heff", a quadroon, thin 1/4-spade body, called "horralump" by paps...real name is abraham jackson white
*some nympho in circe iii who's screwing everybody since heff left her
*a girl in green knee-socks, some kind of genius in government
*jack, a girl, joan-of-arc hair-do
*susan b. pankhurst, vice-president for student affairs
*memphis slim...known by paps
*two co-eds buying corn muffins
*the woman at the cash register, w/a potato for a face, complexion like wheatena
*bright-eyed rushees
*two freshmen football heroes w/android heads
*house officers in harris tweeds
*john mayke...at d.u. fraternity
*al strozier, ohio, same
*mike peel, chicago, same
*rushees, brothers...president of the house
*byron agneau, a stranger w/horn rims, lit major, minor theatre arts
*the monkey-demon
*harold wong, the chinese dwarf, coxy of the olympic crew
*pam's fiance, simon
*a peculiar figure danced out of the shadows, death, a bald teenager
*monsignor putti...administers extreme unction to paps
*proctor slug
*some spic in a cowboy suit and
*a guy from the mentor daily sun
*g. alonso oeuf, ten years on the academic scene
*aquavitus...heff's buddy, i think...possibly giacomo?
*dean magnolia, molder of men, offices in anagram hall, mentor university
calvin blacknesse, to him alone could the wanderer speak secrets, the 1st to mention the cat apart from aquavitus
*david grun, w/the two dots over the u...has a greenhouse, musician, 40-yr-old, has a 6th daughter
*robin, all named after birds...robin is the baby
*catbird, (david's wife...i think) tern, sparrow, kiwi, bobwhite, other daughters, later, we get towhee, & yeah, catbird is the mother
*beth...calvin's woman
*louie motherball...some sort of indian holy guy or something...drugs, or not...taking the indians for all they have, $ and so forth...new mexico/paps/past
*sydney greenstreet...
*some starving pueblo chic...new mexico/paps/past year
*shifts of indians fell by in flannel blankets, same
*pachucos/same
*this one particular boy scout/same
*the fuzz...the sheriff/new mexico/same
*some chic from radcliffe, kind of a muse, picked me up on her way to vegas
*beth, wife of calvin blacknesse
*kim, their daughter, 11, 12 yrs old
*apricot, their cat
*students were meanwhile packed together in polyethylene booths
*coeds in mohair sat nibbling
juan carlos rosenbloom, from maracaibo...was at the roulette wheel prior...w/paps, others...chemical engineer
*drew youngblood
*a waitress
*guido...of guido's grill
judy lumpers, a gov't major
*jimmy brown, the newsboy
*bathing coeds in harpy creek gorge
*heap...oswald mojo's sidekick...a teenager w/a shaved skull...late in the story, there is an alastair p. heap of cambridge massachusetts...i assume the very same
*oswald mojo, mover & shaker
*werner lingham, in st. louis
*alexander jelly, venice west
richard pussy, las vegas...all movers & shakers i believe
*that negro girl in north beach
*girl on the tabletop at duke
*a musician acquaintance in nashville...of oswald's...makes mixture sixty-nine, some sort of potent pot
*a volkswagon bus full of zombis...oswald's players
*twelve blooming engineers w/brushcuts
*all-night people, las vegas
*the weary group at the blackjack board
*early cleanup men
*drunken movie star
*oklahoma oil-cowboy...all at las vegas
*harriet, the 1st strawberry blonde
*sylvia, the 2nd strawberry blonde, vegas for both
*drowsing waiter at the bar, same
*a hairy little man squatted on a silk pillow (party barn)
*twin vampires w/egyptian eye makeup, same
*couples dancing on the bare floor, same
*proust, the spider monkey, same
*"ravi shankar"...paps to one of the vamps
*an anonymous couple
*fat fred faun...mentioned earlier, too...one of the black elks
*spider washington...same
*southside, the hat check girl, (black elk or something)
*kristen mccleod...the girl w/the green socks...also "piglet" by paps, from chevy chase, her father in washington, an adviser to the president, too, called christmas cloud, she is a phi beta kappa
*a blonde deke in a white seersucker suit
*the elks and their women
*the driver leaned on his horn
*stoned locomotive...hairy man...musician
*(sophocles)...i dunno
*a lumpy apparition in a silk dressing gown...mojo i believe
*students hovered w/may flies
*a driver...bus...possibly marjorie daw
*a covey of coeds
*a teenaged salesgirl w/jean harlow hair
*the manager, an old bone of a man in wire glasses
*a friend w/mon (kristen's)
*the girl w/a forgotten name on the coast
*faceless figures in the backseats of cars
*parents dozing in adjacent rooms
*the coed who went into a nunnery
*the sign-in girl at circe iii, the girls' dorm
*summery coeds under sycamores
*president carbon (mentor university)
*a red-haired nurse in spike heels, nurse fang
*ian, prostrate surgeon, possibly canadian
*the architectural advisory committee
*crowds of curious students
*half a dozen zombi attendants
*a few people cheered
*two of proctor's slugs
*motorcycle campus police
*the terrified switchboard operator
*a team of attendants
*the weasel of a lab assistant
*two renegade officers from the woman's undergraduate judiciary brd
*one of the debutantes in a denim skirt
*the other, also in a denim skirt
*winnie the pooh characters...piglet...rastus? the old brown workhorse, "stood by himself"
*a police sergeant
*the figure in the painting...head cut off...by the figure
*kristen's father
*the president of the u.s.
*crowds of tourists
*a deputy sheriff
*the waiter, a blond weight-lifter type
*the incoming drivers
*a teenager w/a long grocery list
*(roman perez de ayala...poet)
*ankleless woman in pink straw hats
*off-duty busboys
*the men in dr. scholl's sandals
*a four-piece band
*passengers in paper hats
*a figure like a zeppelin
*the waddling couples
*the whispering tourists
*the violinist
*a waiter
*two cubans w/zapata mustaches
*a number of tourists
*men & boys who'd swum out to dive for american coins
*a maraca band in festooned shirtsleeves
*a taxi driver
*swarms of undersized children
*batista
*buddha...listed earlier, too...a 7' negro w/an opal in his forehead, "motherball" on the back of his robe
*helmeted soldiers
*a priest
*the silver dollar kids
*a girl in a red dress
*an emaciated chinese-cuban woman w/a mustache, mrs. louie motherball
*1st mrs. motherball, maude
*(vachel lindsey...general william booth...?)
*the cuban & the indian
*old fishermen, couples, cabana boys, batista army sergeants, bearded law students, superman, croupiers, every genus of lewd stateside pedestrian
*the squadron of gnomes
*a congo band
*a hostess on a plane
*the milling crowd
*a figure...madmen...7,000 people...reporters
*a galloping cluster of students
*hosts of anarchists everywhere, itching to blow things up etc
*g kenneth mccleod, kristen's old man
*eisenhower
*the sergeants two



a quote or two
be careful. you are what you eat.

the voice of the turtle is in the air? [paps is in love.]

floating in the water was the largest turd he had ever seen in his life.

and...paps quotes michaelangelo...dear to me is sleep...while evil and shame endure...he

we mistake induction for generation.

vicarious sampling is all that remains; the sour evening game of the academies.

you are in a position to alter their inability to think collectively....oeuf, in his private infirmary room, to paps

evil needn't be conjured to manifest. it often functions on its own...thus spoke blacknesse to paps

the idea is to make noise.

god, they say, is love. and some one's got to pass the word.

notes to myself on the narration...breadcrumbs, more or less
okay, remember like how like in Out of Sight from leonard, he has the girl have that imaginary conversation w/her old man?...and how in jones's From Here to Eternity milt had that conversation with himself?...

...and seems like there's others, but i'll have to go and search those out again...alas...(okay okay, i remembered, sheesh, in Look Homeward, Angel from wolfe, eugene has that other twist, the reading/imagination twist)...somewhat like here, in this one, there's this switcheroo, the fabled story within-the-story, paps and the girl w/the green socks, kristen by name...

close your eyes...see...could be he's only trying to get in her pants. cause, seems like, earlier in the story, was it gorzy who spoke about the wolf story? but like around page 150 give or take, paps tells her, close your eyes. here the narrative has that change-up, a slow-floater, paps, the tale-teller, about the wolf, pooh leading piglet through the hundred acre wood, and all like that. so yeah anyway...like before, but w/a twist.

book the second...begins w/chap 11 of 21

some words/slang of the time...
dig/for understand...man, imagine Bartleby, the Scrivener, america's 1st existential man calming saying...or, in this case, energetically exclaiming, i would prefer not to... man.

ummm...bread/money...fuzz/the police...baby/a guy speaking to the female of the species...let's split...cats...one groovy late in the story...pad for a place to lay one's head...gimme some skin

update, finished, 9 jan 13, wednesday afternoon, 3:29 p.m. e.s.t.

there's a lot of meat & potatoes to this story, a kind of chronicle of the times, interesting for what it does hold within the telling, the time of the telling (1958), and even more so, for when it was published...what was it? 1966?

the story records so much of what was still to come...the turbulent 60s had not yet reached their peak...the march on the pentagon, all that jazz. but the story is loaded w/details that show us what we're doing today even--a map w/red and blue flags and the various hues between. will we ever lose the maps? the flags and pennants?

too...a review or two spoke of misogyny, and at least one, hallelujah and amen, provided a reason for that critique--paps rape of pam that was not a rape, not the way the telling presented it. but too...the telling showed the female of the time...call it awakening to where things stood. paps, "his stomach still churned at the meaning of kristen's all-night absence from the dorm..."

much of that--there did not exist--or, there did not exist as it does today--co-ed dorms. the crusade to change that is a bit-player in this story, but it does illuminate for the uninitiated, perhaps, that free love thingy of the 60s that came to be, a kind of reaction, an unintended consequence to the prohibition of co-ed living.

so the girls had to be back in their rooms by such-and-such a time. there's a ref to some absurd form of chastity belt...or something. heh! and then there's jack, the girl w/the joan-of-arc haircut, whose hand caresses judy lumpers thigh, who eyes judy's...knockers...a word not used in the story (i don't recall exactly how often or in what manner they are described)..but she eyes them as the men do. and perhaps that is some sort of failing, or could be argued so, on farina's part. worried about size and all when the poor down-trodden lesbians just wanna have fun...or something.

but i'd hazard that if there is any misogyny in the telling, there is enough evidence of other things to argue the other point. i think the focus of those who point to misogyny in the text expose their own fashionable-ideology...win the kewpie doll and give me the word for hatred of men without having to google it.

it's like those who count the n-word in huck finn...neglecting the manner in which the po' white folk mistreat hogs. pennants. post them and rally around them. oh la.

there's so much to enjoy about this one...the energy...okay, sure, at times the telling is sophomoric--the turd floating in the toilet bowl--but these are college kids we're talking here. we expect them to act differently?

so yeah...there's some themes...motifs if you want...running through this one...the idea of exemption--bartleby, i would prefer not to...man. having the benefit of hindsight...in the end, that rallying cry about peace love and free drugs has resulted in what?

...a b-52 drop of toasters and ronco peelers? from wherever, man...we noticed it first from japan...now it's what, china?
7,000 ways to send a text message? fifty ways to leave your lover.

A third read of this for an essay that I was writing cemented it as one of my favourite novels. The writing is incredible - poetic, hilarious and poignant. It feels like the bridge between the beats and postmodernism, with its loving but critical approach to the former opening the door to the latter. The writing of Gnossos is genius, despite all the horrible things he does that make us want to turn against him, he's charismatic enough to keep us hooked and interested in his fate (don't listen to the reviews on here that say the book's uncritical of the character, it very clearly is critical, and especially don't listen to the ones that can't separate the views of the character and the author at all, for obvious reasons). A great book that I'm gonna keep trying to get more people to read to the point of annoyance.

One of the most fun books I've read in a long while. Part blueprint for Animal House/part homage to Farina's famous buddy, Thomas Pynchon. It's a shame this was his only book.

Wild prose man, I dug it. A psychedelic odyssey. The journey to stay exempt and immune from life. I think this is harder than it sounds vis-a-vis Gnossos Pappodopoulis. Chaotic, then at times serene like the sound of running water. Couldn't help but think of Ignatius P. Reilly all the while I was reading.

A gang of barely-defined magic hipsters engage in a miasmatic sequence of random encounters with one-dimensional antagonists while possibly suggesting that repeated sexual assaults are a perfectly acceptable way of keeping troublesome and high-spirited women in line. Redeemable only for providing a vague blueprint upon which Pynchon would spend the next seven years furiously improving and offering hope to struggling authors of every ilk that if this got published, they surely must have a shot as well.

a precursor to electic kool-aid acid test, more beat than hippie, a good read

I read this book at the recommendation of my father-a child of the 60's. At times crass and somewhat difficult to follow, Farina tells the story of Gnossos and friends at the start of the new culture that invaded college life in the 1960's. While not the deepest book I have ever read, it is one of the funniest, although I can see why it might not be appealing to everyone.

Smirky superior hectoring hipster cultivates cringemaking condescension, bullying braggadocio and sexual sneering in wearisome war on straight society. I really would have liked our protohippy hero Gnossos Pappadopoulis to die of a drug overdose around page seven but he didn’t. Could be Gnossos is actually Holden Caulfield on acid. That would account for my immediate and total hatred of him.

"Look, man," he said finally, pointing the forefinger of each hand at the noses of the men opposite, " I cool it here, dig? You never knew anybody so cool. I'm Emir Feisal in Constantinople in 1916, dig, thats how how cool I am. This whole scene," with a gesture to include the Lairville complex as wellk as the university itself, "I keep it at thirty-seven degrees Fahrenheit. Average."