Gertrude Stein

So, I finished The Geographical History of America this time last week, and have been thinking bout Stein in a multitude of ways. I'm starting to realize why she is so difficult to analyze critically, Her work of reshaping convention associated with writing, her use of syntax, language and making sense out of nonsense, or possible new sense out of sense out of nonsense, is on of the least practical methods of proving a point that I have encountered in my adult life. I say my adult life because of course, the twelve year old version of myself would have absorbed the book for all of it's repetative looping of ideas and staggering of punctuation and thought "I get it! She's saying a thing is a thing and it's not a thing and all things and nothing because she said so!" Obviously twelve year old me was less surly when it comes to explicit literary form.

I do not enjoy Gertrude Stein's style. The reason I do not enjoy it is almost exactly for the same reason I do not enjoy a Jackson Pollock painting; It's predictable, overrated, does not resonate, is thought to be "transmutable" by new generations, and is really the hyper-developed work of an egotist. Anything that is prescribed as genius to me always needs some strong reconsideration.

That being said, I do appreciate Gertrude Stein for her ideas, this extreme form of exploration to stay in the present and not become part of the creative writing paramount, where she can stand alone as a form of discourse that may be encountered poetically, philosophically, or humorously. Very Hipster. But the the reality of it is, or perhaps I should say my reality of it is, is that I can think about a children's show like "Adventure Time" in the same way, and gain about the same amount of clarity or connection to purpose derived through content and probably feel the same amount of scathing.  Lemongrabs.

I enjoy the rhythm of her work, the musical quality is so strong that you could probably make pop songs out of it. She has a spice to her writing that makes language disappear and reappear not unlike a magicians gorgeous assistant.

While my (limited) interaction with Stein was useful, I do not believe it really hit as hard as I would have hoped, but then again, maybe that is the point, her pages poured through my head like milk in an hourglass. Everything was interpretable which wastes energy and feels like the the interpretability is even interpretable which just translates into a migraine headache.