frumiousb

Sentences and paragraphs. Sentences are not emotional but paragraphs are. I can say that as often as I like and it always remains as it is, something that is.

I said I found this out first in listening to Basket my dog drinking. And anybody listening to any dog's drinking will see what I mean.
pg. 223

This book is an old friend. As a student, I wrote my thesis on Stein, and spent many hours examining these texts for insight into her writing. Lectures in America is among the most lucid of her prose work; perhaps I should say it is among the most easily accessible of her books in general.

I never owned the book, however, which meant I was delighted when I found this Virago Press edition. Prefaced by Wendy Steiner, it was very fine to have a chance to revisit the work. I remembered it very well indeed. Familiarity meant instead of struggling with her unique style, I was able to dive right in to the sections which I had neglected in college. For instance, I spent a lot more time with her section on "Pictures" than I had in the past.

Lectures in America is a body of essays written for her lecture tour of the states following the unexpected success in 1933 of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. The tour attracted large and enthusiastic audiences, and Random House brought this book out, hoping to ride the wave. Alas, the Lectures did not sell well, and slipped into being the property of academics and the odd Stein fan in the wild.

The book consists of the following sections:

• What Is English Literature
  
• Pictures
  
• Plays
  
• The Gradual Making of the Making of Americans
  
• Portraits and Repetition
  
• Poetry and Grammar

( more )

Very fine is my valentine.
Very fine and very mine.
Very mine is my valentine very mine and very fine.
Very fine is my valentine and mine, very fine very mine and mine is my valentine.

She was not so young any more. It almost happened that she would be not sad not tired not depressed but just not so young any more.
pg. 61

I first read Ida in college, when I had just started on what would be my life-long love affair with Gertrude Stein. While I've reread other works, I haven't revisited this one since then.

I always find it quite difficult to review Stein. I love her work, but as much for the poetry in it as for anything else. I find myself continually surprised and delighted by her wordplay and I have a hard time understanding why it seems to be pretty generally thought that she was difficult on purpose. As always, I don't find the text particularly difficult and I found myself coming away with a smile on my face from the fun and wordplay-- sensual love of the text. I'm willing to concede that maybe I'm just not genius enough to appreciate the really inaccessible bits, but then I don't really miss them.

Ida is an ordinary woman, with parts of her life extraordinary-- much like the lives of everybody. She has a twin (real or imaginary), dogs, husbands, ideas. And what happens is what happens to us all-- she lives her life.

I'd recommend it, but then I know that I really love Stein's work.

( quotations )

edited by Donald Gallup

“You have something to say all right, Gertie, tho I don't agree with much of it.”
pg. 46 (from Emma Lootz Erving)

( for years I've wanted a cat named basket but haven't quite dared )

Good morning, everyone. I have every intention of a having a pleasant day today, and have just emerged from a long hot bath in which I have been happily reading The Flowers of Friendship: Letters Written to Gertrude Stein, edited by Donald Gallup.



The book was published in 1953, and while I am enjoying it there are some mightily odd edits.

First of all, Gallup cuts the letters to Stein liberally. It's a personal thing for me, but I prefer the complete thing (unless parts are cut to protect privacy). I find the ...'s scattered throughout the text quite distracting. Also, unless I'm really mistaken, the selection and cuts in the section about Stein's early life seem to imply that Stein was romantically involved with Leo Solomons (a classmate with whom she researched automatic writing). The way that the letters are arranged and given which passages are highlighted leads to the possible reading that she was even considering marrying him before his untimely death.

I find this...unlikely. I have to rather wonder whether this tone wasn't left in to soften Stein for the reader in 1953.

In any case, I'm now up to letters sent her in the early 1920s. Lots of Hemingway in this period. I'm looking forward to reading it throughout the day.

*****

This has been an extremely out-of-sorts week, in which I have behaved like someone dropped on her head. Suddenly scheduled and then canceled trips. Canceled trips suddenly rescheduled. I'm behind on work, spaced social appointments, and generally was not At My Best. Too little time for either reading or relaxing.

I did manage three reviews this week-- an odd assortment:

Leadership and the One Minute Manager, Ken Blanchard
Volk's Shadow, Brent Ghelfi
Maigret's Boyhood Friend, George Simenon

*****

Hope that you all enjoy your Sunday!