December 2019: Gertrude Stein
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1sweetiegherkin
“Whenever you get there, there is no there there.”
When we get to December, we'll be reading works by Gertrude Stein.
For what it's worth, Stein has three items on the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die List:
Three Lives
The Making of Americans
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
I will try my best to read one of those in December!
When we get to December, we'll be reading works by Gertrude Stein.
For what it's worth, Stein has three items on the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die List:
Three Lives
The Making of Americans
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
I will try my best to read one of those in December!
2sweetiegherkin
Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was an undergrad, I took a class that focused on female playwrights. We read Gertrude Stein in that class, specifically her play Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights, which I remember as being absurd, but in the best way.
Yale Drama School apparently has an entire staged production of Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights filmed and available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IVHVUl6lKc
Yale Drama School apparently has an entire staged production of Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights filmed and available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IVHVUl6lKc
3sweetiegherkin
Ummm, The Making of Americans is more than 900 pages long. I might start with one of the other two! :D
4sweetiegherkin
FYI, there is a biographical book called Gertrude Stein Has Arrived that just published recently. Might be of interest if anyone gets really into Stein after our readings this month :)
5sweetiegherkin
So I ended up reading The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. The "shtick" (if you will) with this book is that it's supposed to be an autobiography told in the perspective of Toklas, who was Gertrude Stein's longtime romantic partner. Of course, it's actually Stein writing it, pretending to be Alice. In fact, at the very end of the book (the closing paragraphs), this is addressed:
"For some time now many people, and publishers, have been asking Gertrude Stein to write her autobiography and she has always replied, not possibly.
She began to tease me and say that I should write my autobiography. Just think, she would say, what a lot of money you would make. She then began to invent titles for my autobiography. My Life With the Great, Wives of Geniuses I Have Sat With, My Twenty-five Years With Gertrude Stein.
Then she began to get serious and say, but really seriously you ought to write your autobiography. Finally I promised that if during the summer I could find time I would write my autobiography.
When Ford Madox Ford was editing the Transatlantic Review he once said to Gertrude Stein, I am a pretty good writer and a pretty good editor and a pretty good business man but I find it difficult to be all three at once.
I am a pretty good housekeeper and a pretty good gardener and a pretty good needlewoman and a pretty good secretary and a pretty good vet for dogs and I have to do them all at once and I found it difficult to add being a pretty good author.
About six weeks ago Gertrude Stein said, it does not look to me as if you were ever going to write that autobiography. You know what I am going to do. I am going to write it for you. I am going to write it as simply as Defoe did the autobiography of Robinson Crusoe. And she has and this is it."
Of course, the book really isn't a biography of Toklas at all, but a cloaked way of Stein writing an autobiography. It may start with Toklas arriving in Paris and meeting Stein, but then it veers into Stein's place of birth, early schooling, etc. etc.
Although I was somewhat familiar with Stein's unusual style from having read Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights, I had to re-acquaint myself with it in the early parts of this book. She does not use quotation marks or italics, is limited with her commas, and is fickle with her use of capitalization for proper nouns. Again, Stein addresses that in her own words: "Haweis had been fascinated with what he had read in manuscript of The Making of Americans. He did however plead for commas. Gertrude Stein said commas were unnecessary, the sense should be intrinsic and not have to be explained by commas and otherwise commas were only a sign that one should pause and take breathe but one should know of oneself when one wanted to pause and take breath. However, as she liked Haweis very much and he had given her a delightful painting for a fan, she gave him two commas. It must however be added that on rereading the manuscript she took the commas out."
Also, because she is supposed to be writing as Toklas, she constantly refers to herself as "Gertrude Stein." While other people are sometimes referred to by first name only or last name only, she is always both, every time. I don't know why, but I actually grew to find that slightly irritating. Another benefit of pretending to be writing from her partner's perspective is that Stein can refer to herself as a "genius" (one of only three ever met by Toklas) without sounding too self-praising (although of course, that is precisely what she is doing).
Over the course of her life, Stein ran in many literary and artistic circles. After a while, this book just starts to feel like excessive name dropping, as she lists the famous people she dined with, hosted at her home, stayed at their home, etc., regardless of how integral these people were in her life. However, I was intrigued enough to look up several of the artist renderings of Stein that she mentioned in the book:
- https://www.metmuseum.org/en/art/collection/search/488221 (Pablo Picasso -- I was already familiar with this one but looked it up again to refresh my memory)
- https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/man-ray-gertrude-stein-p13133 (Man Ray)
- https://www.moma.org/collection/works/80799 (Jacques Lipchitz)
She also writes about their experiences during World War I, most particularly driving supplies all about France for a relief effort. However, her writing about the war years make it sounds more like an inconvenience than a tragedy.
In the end, I'm glad to have read this book because it is considered a classic (and it checks off another box on the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die list). But it took a while to get into and then soon became redundantly dull. So I probably wouldn't recommend it, except to a few who are really interested in modernist language, determined to read all 1001 Books, or big fans of Gertrude Stein's "genius."
"For some time now many people, and publishers, have been asking Gertrude Stein to write her autobiography and she has always replied, not possibly.
She began to tease me and say that I should write my autobiography. Just think, she would say, what a lot of money you would make. She then began to invent titles for my autobiography. My Life With the Great, Wives of Geniuses I Have Sat With, My Twenty-five Years With Gertrude Stein.
Then she began to get serious and say, but really seriously you ought to write your autobiography. Finally I promised that if during the summer I could find time I would write my autobiography.
When Ford Madox Ford was editing the Transatlantic Review he once said to Gertrude Stein, I am a pretty good writer and a pretty good editor and a pretty good business man but I find it difficult to be all three at once.
I am a pretty good housekeeper and a pretty good gardener and a pretty good needlewoman and a pretty good secretary and a pretty good vet for dogs and I have to do them all at once and I found it difficult to add being a pretty good author.
About six weeks ago Gertrude Stein said, it does not look to me as if you were ever going to write that autobiography. You know what I am going to do. I am going to write it for you. I am going to write it as simply as Defoe did the autobiography of Robinson Crusoe. And she has and this is it."
Of course, the book really isn't a biography of Toklas at all, but a cloaked way of Stein writing an autobiography. It may start with Toklas arriving in Paris and meeting Stein, but then it veers into Stein's place of birth, early schooling, etc. etc.
Although I was somewhat familiar with Stein's unusual style from having read Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights, I had to re-acquaint myself with it in the early parts of this book. She does not use quotation marks or italics, is limited with her commas, and is fickle with her use of capitalization for proper nouns. Again, Stein addresses that in her own words: "Haweis had been fascinated with what he had read in manuscript of The Making of Americans. He did however plead for commas. Gertrude Stein said commas were unnecessary, the sense should be intrinsic and not have to be explained by commas and otherwise commas were only a sign that one should pause and take breathe but one should know of oneself when one wanted to pause and take breath. However, as she liked Haweis very much and he had given her a delightful painting for a fan, she gave him two commas. It must however be added that on rereading the manuscript she took the commas out."
Also, because she is supposed to be writing as Toklas, she constantly refers to herself as "Gertrude Stein." While other people are sometimes referred to by first name only or last name only, she is always both, every time. I don't know why, but I actually grew to find that slightly irritating. Another benefit of pretending to be writing from her partner's perspective is that Stein can refer to herself as a "genius" (one of only three ever met by Toklas) without sounding too self-praising (although of course, that is precisely what she is doing).
Over the course of her life, Stein ran in many literary and artistic circles. After a while, this book just starts to feel like excessive name dropping, as she lists the famous people she dined with, hosted at her home, stayed at their home, etc., regardless of how integral these people were in her life. However, I was intrigued enough to look up several of the artist renderings of Stein that she mentioned in the book:
- https://www.metmuseum.org/en/art/collection/search/488221 (Pablo Picasso -- I was already familiar with this one but looked it up again to refresh my memory)
- https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/man-ray-gertrude-stein-p13133 (Man Ray)
- https://www.moma.org/collection/works/80799 (Jacques Lipchitz)
She also writes about their experiences during World War I, most particularly driving supplies all about France for a relief effort. However, her writing about the war years make it sounds more like an inconvenience than a tragedy.
In the end, I'm glad to have read this book because it is considered a classic (and it checks off another box on the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die list). But it took a while to get into and then soon became redundantly dull. So I probably wouldn't recommend it, except to a few who are really interested in modernist language, determined to read all 1001 Books, or big fans of Gertrude Stein's "genius."
6sweetiegherkin
How is everyone else doing with Stein this month?
7sparemethecensor
The month got away from me, but I am planning to read Stein over the holidays (after Erdrich and another book I also picked up at the library after a lengthy hold, Bad Blood. I really appreciated your thorough review, Sweetiegherkin, because The Autobiography of Alice Toklas is what I planned to read. Now I'm debating which one to get. Hmm.
8sweetiegherkin
>7 sparemethecensor: Perhaps you might like it more than I did. Every book its reader.
9sparemethecensor
>8 sweetiegherkin: I finished it tonight. I could not agree more with your review.
While this is a historically important read, it is not a particularly enjoyable one. It was vital in the history of women writers and of course lesbian relationships. Unfortunately while I liked some of the anecdotes, I did find the stories to drag on over time as they seemed rather repetitive. The minimal-punctuation writing style didn't bother me in and of itself, but I did find something off putting about the way that Stein has written a hagiography of herself while pretending not to. It didn't always bother me, not every single chapter, but some descriptions of her genius are just cringe worthy. And taken at face value, coming from Alice, not encouraging about their relationship.
While this is a historically important read, it is not a particularly enjoyable one. It was vital in the history of women writers and of course lesbian relationships. Unfortunately while I liked some of the anecdotes, I did find the stories to drag on over time as they seemed rather repetitive. The minimal-punctuation writing style didn't bother me in and of itself, but I did find something off putting about the way that Stein has written a hagiography of herself while pretending not to. It didn't always bother me, not every single chapter, but some descriptions of her genius are just cringe worthy. And taken at face value, coming from Alice, not encouraging about their relationship.
10sweetiegherkin
>9 sparemethecensor: And taken at face value, coming from Alice, not encouraging about their relationship.
Yes, I also felt this at times, but tried not to judge too much based on this because it's more artifice than reality. Still, I definitely got the impression that Stein thought highly of herself!
Yes, I also felt this at times, but tried not to judge too much based on this because it's more artifice than reality. Still, I definitely got the impression that Stein thought highly of herself!
11sweetiegherkin
>9 sparemethecensor: And taken at face value, coming from Alice, not encouraging about their relationship.
Yes, I also felt this at times, but tried not to judge too much based on this because it's more artifice than reality. Still, I definitely got the impression that Stein thought highly of herself!
Yes, I also felt this at times, but tried not to judge too much based on this because it's more artifice than reality. Still, I definitely got the impression that Stein thought highly of herself!
