The Writing of Stones

“Have been obsessed with this book + Caillois' rock collection since reading Marina Warner's essay in Cabinet, Spring 2008: "[Caillois] called stones l’orée du songe—the shore of dreaming—and he amassed a wonderful collection, which he left to the Museum of National History in Paris where you can go and look at them; he also wrote two luminous books about stones. These are not about precious stones such as diamonds and rubies but about dendrites, agates, Chinese scholars’ stones—pebbles and rocks that look like nothing much at first but can open up wonders under contemplation. Pierres (Stones) from 1966 is a Valéry-like prose poem, intense and rhapsodical. They lead him to understanding the physical makeup of the world, its 'algebra, vertigo, and order.' He exults in their inscrutability and their lack of affect, their silence, their sheer stoniness. When Caillois reads 'the writing of stones,' when he pores over the whorls and swirls in an agate, he ponders the revelation of cosmic time they grant him." From an essay by Genie Long for Options: "Between 1952 and his untimely death in 1978, [Caillois] amassed an impressive collection of specimens, which he whimsically liked to call 'crossroads objects' or 'fairy objects'. Arguably the most engrossing were the 'picture stones' — gems that, when sliced into, reveal landscapes and geometric formations that, in his words, bear 'an unexpected, improbable and yet natural resemblance which causes fascination.'" From the book: PDF of the book here and also on the Internet Archive.”