Dear Gertrude Stein,

Cafe Society
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I’m posting this in Cafe Society because of the literary element and because, even though it is sort of a parodic rant, I’m willing to hear another take on the text if one is given. This is just a letter I wrote today after finishing up Three Lives in my Modernism class. If I’ve posted this in the wrong place, please, would a moderator move it? (and I apologize)

Dear Gertrude Stein,

Writing something for your salon is all good and well and proper, always. However, when writing for public exhibition, one would do well to have some consideration for your audience. If your sole intended audience is said salon, then it is best to keep the work confined to that circumstance. You, however, let yourself get carried away by the patrons who thought you brilliant and you, dear lady, gave Three Lives over for print. A greater literary injustice has yet to occur. Madame, if I may, I will say, always, that you are good and honest and courageous, and that, I’m sure, in your eager little mind you found much to occupy your thoughts with a lot of talk of the mirror of art and literature and other such things. But dear lady, I must confess, some things simply aren’t done because they are very bad ideas. To wit, cubist literature.

And so you stalk me this senior year of mine, Gertrude, and I shall never forgive you for it. I shall never regain the long hours I laboured over the same 15 sentences repeated and restructured for 100 pages. And I shall never, Gertrude, never shall I forgive the good idea of stories of the lower classes being wasted on such primitive and experimental form. I shall never forgive you for giving us the structure and the formula without a whispered hint of substance. That, Gertrude, that was just a rotten trick. But you have the last laugh, of course. This poppycock is now forever in the realm of classic literature, indeed, and many 's the scholar that was stupid enough to pour over those 15 sentences 15 X 15 times in order to get that graduate degree.

But I, dear, good and gentle woman, I am not afraid to say that you were a good woman with a good mind who made unfortunate choices in publishing. Never would I say, Gertrude, I would never say that you aren’t one that is good with a quip, a good one-liner. And indeed I would always say that you are fantastic with the quip and that your summation skills are good and well. But as I lay there on the grass this afternoon, the green glow that lifted from the wet grass in the warming afternoon clinging to me in every way, I realized that it isn’t that “I don’t get ‘it’” as we like to say, rather it is that “it” is very bad. Very bad indeed. And so I told Dr. Zorn this afternoon, what I thought, dear Gertrude. And I shall never forgive you if I lose my A over it.

Regards,
Anna Belle

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Ha HA! Someone else got suckered into reading Stein for school!

Is Three Lives more or less intelligible than Stanzas in Meditation? I had to read that for a poetry class a long time ago. It reads like an AIMbot with ADD and only pronouns in its vocabulary wrote it. If anyone can translate, I’ll be really impressed.

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I read some Stein; he work is more interesting to talk about than to read. (“The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas,” OTOH, is a pretty good read.)

I got my professor all pissed off at me when I commented that one particular Stein piece was totally meaningless, but because of the structure was forcing the reader to come up with meaning for it (sort of like “Jaberwocky”). It was next to impossible to figure out the meaning of any of the sentences, or indeed, what the words in them were intended to mean, or sometimes whether they were supposed to be nouns or verbs. I found that interesting (though unreadable), but my professor insisted that there was something there, sort of like explaining what was in the inkblot.

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Thank you Daowajan & RealityChuck for empathizing. I have no idea about your question, Daowajan, because I’ve not read Stanzas in Meditation, and I am not about to read it for comparative value. No, I think Stein and I shall part ways after this class. I feel your pain, however. :wink:

Stein herself is much more interesting to talk about than Three Lives was to read. The European artisitic community that she was associated with is fascinating, and many have produced important works The air of experimentation that characterized the time is responsible for a lot of that. However, that group and time gets on my nerves too, for the over all rejectionist attitude. They dismissed so much (especially of the past) simply because it bored them.

Hehe. No doubt. Poor modernist scholars. My poor lit prof is offering this class for the first time since coming to the school about four years ago, and Modernism is a special love of hers–I think it figured considerably in her own academic pursuits. Anyway, she’s a very good professor and she wouldn’t dream of telling us how we should take something or whether or not we have to like it, but I think it disappoints her that we are ALL relieved to be done with Stein.