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Selected writings of Gertrude Stein
"This collection, a retrospective exhibit of the work of a woman who created a unique place for herself in the world of letters, contains a sample of practically every period and every manner in Gertrude Stein's career. It includes The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas in its entirety; selected passages from The Making of Americans; "Melanctha"from Three Lives; portraits of the painters Cezanne, Matisse, and Picasso; Tender Buttons; the opera Four Saints in Three Acts; and poem, plays, lectures, articles, sketches, and a generous portion of her famous book on the Occupation of France, Wars I Have Seen.
706 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1962
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About the author
Gertrude Stein
407 books1,186 followersGertrude Stein was an American writer who spent most of her life in France, and who became a catalyst in the development of modern art and literature. Her life was marked by two primary relationships, the first with her brother Leo Stein, from 1874-1914, and the second with Alice B. Toklas, from 1907 until Stein's death in 1946. Stein shared her salon at 27 rue de Fleurus, Paris, first with Leo and then with Alice. Throughout her lifetime, Stein cultivated significant tertiary relationships with well-known members of the avant garde artistic and literary world of her time.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
March 18, 2010
From now on, anyone who dismisses Gertrude Stein as a charlatan will have to answer to me and my tiny fists of impotent fury.
March 18, 2025
An overview of the work of Gertrude Stein, that includes the entirety of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, her most famous (and most accessible) work.
There are extracts from other books, as well as many short pieces. This is a great book to have on hand and dip into whenever the feeling strikes you.
Has anyone ever read The Making of Americans? The extract here will help you decide.
I'm giving this volume 5 stars, because why not? I can and I will and I do. Thank you.
There are extracts from other books, as well as many short pieces. This is a great book to have on hand and dip into whenever the feeling strikes you.
Has anyone ever read The Making of Americans? The extract here will help you decide.
I'm giving this volume 5 stars, because why not? I can and I will and I do. Thank you.
December 8, 2022
NIHILISM, GERTRUDE STEIN, AND MYSELF
Two world wars were fought during the first half of the 20th century, making that quindecade unique, so far, in history. Gertrude Stein, an American writer, was born in 1874 and buried in 1946; she wrote in a time like no other time and like no other in that time.
A prevailing attitude at the time among writers, artists, and thinkers was one of a nihilistic bent. "Conditions in the social organization" during that time were "so bad" that they believed "that traditional values and beliefs [were] unfounded and that existence [was] senseless and useless." They embraced "a doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth and especially of moral truths." They felt that "destruction [was] desirable for its own sake independent of any constructive program or possibility" (Webster's, p 798). This flavor is evident in Gertrude Stein's writings.
Let it stand that an attitude of nihilism is rarely stated outright by an author, but is implied in the tone of the work. Melanctha, a licentious mulatto woman in Stein's Three Lives, leads a life so pointless that she "was always being left when she was not leaving others" (Stein, p. 342). The story details the involvements she has with two women -- Jane and Rose -- and two men -- Jeff and Jem. Melanctha leaves Jane; Jeff leaves Melanctha; Rose leaves Melanctha; Jem leaves Melanctha. The three who leave her do so when they realize the futility of their attempts to open Melanctha's eyes to the futility of her own attempts to be happy. The one exception is Jane, the woman who, by her own hand or otherwise (Stein does not say), brings Melanctha to her long-searched-for sexual awakening. Melanctha eventually leaves the alcoholic Jane in pursuit of a stronger interest -- men -- after she has gotten all that she can get from Jane, namely, knowledge of what Melanctha wants and how to get it. What Melanctha wants is gratification. After "wandering widely" (p. 357), always in search of "new ways to get excited" (p. 345) and "new ways to be in trouble" (p. 346), Melanctha meets Jeff, a doctor whom Melanctha's dying mother is in the care of. Jeff knows of Melanctha through Jane, and he does not care for what he knows of her. But after spending considerable time with Melanctha while attending to her mother in her home, an affinity develops, helped along by Melanctha, and subsequently a romantic relationship. Melanctha causes Jeff to feel things he never knew he could have a desire to feel. At the end of a seemingly long, destructive love-hate affair in which Jeff unsuccessfully tries to point out to Melanctha the shortcomings of her casual attitude toward sex, he leaves, although on pleasant terms, wiser and more understanding of human nature. Melanctha, on the other hand, remains unchanged. She again begins to "wander widely," and in her exploits she meets Jem. She now also turns to Rose, who knows nothing of Melanctha's doings with Jane or Jeff.Theirs is a non-sexual friendship, although sex is a thing they have in common. Rose too is promiscuous, but she justifies her actions by saying that she never involves herself with a man unless she is engaged to him. Rose constantly chastises and criticizes Melanctha for her indiscretions, but likes her anyway, mostly owing to Melanctha's devotion to Rose in the hopes that she will save Melanctha from despair. This Rose cannot do, and when she marries a man who does not care for her association with Melanctha, she eventually tells Melanctha
Melanctha's death came very slowly to her, and I postulate that she died of AIDS, which some would have to be the punishment for sinful living. Stein states that, some time after Jem left her, Melanctha
I don't bring this up in order to criticize promiscuousness. I use it to refer metaphorically to a person or society that engages in immoral conduct, be it sluttishness or war, and the possible results of that conduct. Therefore it is very important that Melanctha died in this way. A society that insists on engaging in war will eventually kill itself. A person living in such a society, unlike Melanctha's friends, cannot simply walk away from it. Society is everywhere, especially when it utilizes warheads. Short of suicide, world-wide revolution, or adopting society's attitudes and values, the unwilling and impotent few are left only with the choice of giving up on the present and the future, and doing what one can with what one has, no matter how ineffectual; loosely defined as nihilism.
I would say that Melanctha's friends gave up on her in much the same way that Stein and her contemporaries gave up on society, and for much the same reasons. Their attempts to change Melanctha/society were fruitless, so the only intelligent thing to do was to abandon Melanctha/society to her/its own consequences.
In Tender Buttons, Gertrude goes beyond plot, beyond description, and straight to the heart of the meaninglessness of endeavor. In doing so, she even more clearly rebels against the absurdity of conventional reality by abandoning syntax almost altogether. Now she is actively destroying the attempt to communicate anything but the absurdity of communication. She is simply passing time, while pretending to describe objects, food, and rooms; these are things familiar to us all so the reasons to describe them are few.
I read large sections of Tender Buttons into a tape recorder, then listened to them. I listened to them while reading to myself along with the tape, and I listened to them while not reading along. The effect was intoxicating. I think this is the desired effect. In reading the following paragraph from Tender Buttons, I would suggest that the reader's head may begin to swim, or possibly hurt. Such is intoxication.
Gertrude Stein made numerous attempts to explain what she was about. One such attempt was first made in the form of a lecture and was later published as an essay entitled "Composition as Explanation." It opens with the observation there there "is singularly nothing that makes a difference a difference in beginning and in the middle and in ending ..." (Stein, p. 513). In the essay she repeatedly states that the "only thing that is different fron one time to another is what is seen and what is seen depends upon how everybody is doing everything" (pp. 513, 516, 520). She speaks of war, the arts, and the futility of out attempts at description, which is largely due to the fact that "naturally one does not know how it happened until it is well over beginning happening" (pp. 514, 517). She tells of her effort to create "a continuous present" (p. 518) in her writing, and of how she became troubled and lost when she reread what she had written. Many people have written many books with explaining Gertrude Stein in mind, but she herself does it best in this essay, which explains a lot but leaves a lot unexplained. It closes with the statement, "[n]ow that is all" (p. 523).
Many artists and writers during Gertrude Stein's time spent a good deal of time stoned, drunk or otherwise oblivious to the outrageous actions of a world gone mad. It is difficult to say whether their doings were a contribution or a reaction to this madness. Either way, not much was changed. The world still revolves in much the same circles. Some of us still only observe, cross our eyes in amazement and disbelief, then find some way to pass the time we spend here. Some of us are not even aware that most of what goes on in the world around us goes on, being too wrapped up in our own pointless existence to notice problems or solutions. Some of us attempt to change the world, only to find that somewhere along the road we have begun to perpetuate the very things we had set out to stop. Some of us laugh a lot. I can imagine Gertrude Stein laughing.
If you want explanations, if you want to understand, read read and reread Selected Writings by Gertrude Stein. Explanations and understandings, I would guess, will become increasingly unnecessary.
----------------
WORKS CITED
Stein, Gertrude. "Composition as Explanation." Selected Writings. Ed. Carl Van Vechten. 1st ed. New York: Random House Vintage Books, 1972.
Stein, Gertrude. "Melanctha: Each One As She May." Selected Writings. Ed. Carl Van Vechten. 1st ed. New York: Random House Vintage Books, 1972.
Stein, Gertrude. Tender Buttons. Selected Writings. Ed. Carl Van Vechten. 1st ed. New York: Random House Vintage Books, 1972.
Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary. Ed. Frederick C. Mish, et al. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, 1987.
I express my gratitude to my English 225 instructor Barbara Bolz for this; I had never read or had an interest in reading Gertrude Stein until Barbara suggested her to me.
Two world wars were fought during the first half of the 20th century, making that quindecade unique, so far, in history. Gertrude Stein, an American writer, was born in 1874 and buried in 1946; she wrote in a time like no other time and like no other in that time.
A prevailing attitude at the time among writers, artists, and thinkers was one of a nihilistic bent. "Conditions in the social organization" during that time were "so bad" that they believed "that traditional values and beliefs [were] unfounded and that existence [was] senseless and useless." They embraced "a doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth and especially of moral truths." They felt that "destruction [was] desirable for its own sake independent of any constructive program or possibility" (Webster's, p 798). This flavor is evident in Gertrude Stein's writings.
Let it stand that an attitude of nihilism is rarely stated outright by an author, but is implied in the tone of the work. Melanctha, a licentious mulatto woman in Stein's Three Lives, leads a life so pointless that she "was always being left when she was not leaving others" (Stein, p. 342). The story details the involvements she has with two women -- Jane and Rose -- and two men -- Jeff and Jem. Melanctha leaves Jane; Jeff leaves Melanctha; Rose leaves Melanctha; Jem leaves Melanctha. The three who leave her do so when they realize the futility of their attempts to open Melanctha's eyes to the futility of her own attempts to be happy. The one exception is Jane, the woman who, by her own hand or otherwise (Stein does not say), brings Melanctha to her long-searched-for sexual awakening. Melanctha eventually leaves the alcoholic Jane in pursuit of a stronger interest -- men -- after she has gotten all that she can get from Jane, namely, knowledge of what Melanctha wants and how to get it. What Melanctha wants is gratification. After "wandering widely" (p. 357), always in search of "new ways to get excited" (p. 345) and "new ways to be in trouble" (p. 346), Melanctha meets Jeff, a doctor whom Melanctha's dying mother is in the care of. Jeff knows of Melanctha through Jane, and he does not care for what he knows of her. But after spending considerable time with Melanctha while attending to her mother in her home, an affinity develops, helped along by Melanctha, and subsequently a romantic relationship. Melanctha causes Jeff to feel things he never knew he could have a desire to feel. At the end of a seemingly long, destructive love-hate affair in which Jeff unsuccessfully tries to point out to Melanctha the shortcomings of her casual attitude toward sex, he leaves, although on pleasant terms, wiser and more understanding of human nature. Melanctha, on the other hand, remains unchanged. She again begins to "wander widely," and in her exploits she meets Jem. She now also turns to Rose, who knows nothing of Melanctha's doings with Jane or Jeff.Theirs is a non-sexual friendship, although sex is a thing they have in common. Rose too is promiscuous, but she justifies her actions by saying that she never involves herself with a man unless she is engaged to him. Rose constantly chastises and criticizes Melanctha for her indiscretions, but likes her anyway, mostly owing to Melanctha's devotion to Rose in the hopes that she will save Melanctha from despair. This Rose cannot do, and when she marries a man who does not care for her association with Melanctha, she eventually tells Melanctha
"... it don't never do no good to tell nobody how to act right; they certainly never can learn when they ain't got no sense right to know it, and you never have no sense right Melanctha ... I don't never want any more to see you come here ... you don't never know the right way, any kind of decent girl has to be acting ... we don't never any more want you to be setting your foot in my house here ... just go along now, Melanctha Herbert, you hear me, and I don't never wish no harm to come to you" (Stein, p. 455).Rose shuts the door on Melanctha, and Melanctha is crushed. She goes to Jem, the man she met after Jeff had left her, only to hear him say, "'I just don't give a damn now for you any more ...'" (p. 456). Melanctha eventually starts to live somewhat of a regular life, with a job and a home, until she dies.
Melanctha's death came very slowly to her, and I postulate that she died of AIDS, which some would have to be the punishment for sinful living. Stein states that, some time after Jem left her, Melanctha
got a bad fever and went into the hospital where they took good care of her and cured her.Consumption is defined as "a progressive wasting away of the body esp. from pulmonary tuberculosis" (Webster's, p. 282). Even if it is assumed that Melanctha died of tuberculosis, that disease has been listed as an ARC, or AIDS-related condition, meaning that it can result from the immune system breakdown brought on by AIDS. In any case, AIDS is most definitely marked by "a progressive wasting away of the body." That AIDS was not referred to as such until after 1977 is irrelevant. It is this writer's opinion the the condition can be caused by a profuse mixing of different body chemistries within a single body, thus taxing the immune system to the point of exhaustion. Promiscuity provides such an opportunity for the mixing of body chemistries, and the present day has no copyright on promiscuity.
... Then Melanctha got very sick again, she began to cough and sweat and be ... weak ...
Melanctha went back to the hospital, and there the Doctor told her she had the consumption, and before long she would surely die. They sent her where she could be taken care of, a home for poor consumptives, and there Melanctha stayed until she died (Stein, p. 457).
I don't bring this up in order to criticize promiscuousness. I use it to refer metaphorically to a person or society that engages in immoral conduct, be it sluttishness or war, and the possible results of that conduct. Therefore it is very important that Melanctha died in this way. A society that insists on engaging in war will eventually kill itself. A person living in such a society, unlike Melanctha's friends, cannot simply walk away from it. Society is everywhere, especially when it utilizes warheads. Short of suicide, world-wide revolution, or adopting society's attitudes and values, the unwilling and impotent few are left only with the choice of giving up on the present and the future, and doing what one can with what one has, no matter how ineffectual; loosely defined as nihilism.
I would say that Melanctha's friends gave up on her in much the same way that Stein and her contemporaries gave up on society, and for much the same reasons. Their attempts to change Melanctha/society were fruitless, so the only intelligent thing to do was to abandon Melanctha/society to her/its own consequences.
In Tender Buttons, Gertrude goes beyond plot, beyond description, and straight to the heart of the meaninglessness of endeavor. In doing so, she even more clearly rebels against the absurdity of conventional reality by abandoning syntax almost altogether. Now she is actively destroying the attempt to communicate anything but the absurdity of communication. She is simply passing time, while pretending to describe objects, food, and rooms; these are things familiar to us all so the reasons to describe them are few.
I read large sections of Tender Buttons into a tape recorder, then listened to them. I listened to them while reading to myself along with the tape, and I listened to them while not reading along. The effect was intoxicating. I think this is the desired effect. In reading the following paragraph from Tender Buttons, I would suggest that the reader's head may begin to swim, or possibly hurt. Such is intoxication.
It happened in a way that the time was perfect and there was the growth of a whole divided time so that where formerly there was no mistake there was no mistake now. For instance before when there was a separation there was a waiting, now when there is separation there is the division between intending and departing. This made no more mixture than there would be if there had been no change (Stein, p. 500).Sometimes what is being said seems to make sense, but for the most part taken as a whole it does not. If Gertrude is describing anything, she is describing life during her lifetime. Human life is precious but expendable. People are to be protected but exploited. Wars are fought so that we may have peace. I am hitting myself on the head with a hammer because it feels so good when I stop.
Gertrude Stein made numerous attempts to explain what she was about. One such attempt was first made in the form of a lecture and was later published as an essay entitled "Composition as Explanation." It opens with the observation there there "is singularly nothing that makes a difference a difference in beginning and in the middle and in ending ..." (Stein, p. 513). In the essay she repeatedly states that the "only thing that is different fron one time to another is what is seen and what is seen depends upon how everybody is doing everything" (pp. 513, 516, 520). She speaks of war, the arts, and the futility of out attempts at description, which is largely due to the fact that "naturally one does not know how it happened until it is well over beginning happening" (pp. 514, 517). She tells of her effort to create "a continuous present" (p. 518) in her writing, and of how she became troubled and lost when she reread what she had written. Many people have written many books with explaining Gertrude Stein in mind, but she herself does it best in this essay, which explains a lot but leaves a lot unexplained. It closes with the statement, "[n]ow that is all" (p. 523).
Many artists and writers during Gertrude Stein's time spent a good deal of time stoned, drunk or otherwise oblivious to the outrageous actions of a world gone mad. It is difficult to say whether their doings were a contribution or a reaction to this madness. Either way, not much was changed. The world still revolves in much the same circles. Some of us still only observe, cross our eyes in amazement and disbelief, then find some way to pass the time we spend here. Some of us are not even aware that most of what goes on in the world around us goes on, being too wrapped up in our own pointless existence to notice problems or solutions. Some of us attempt to change the world, only to find that somewhere along the road we have begun to perpetuate the very things we had set out to stop. Some of us laugh a lot. I can imagine Gertrude Stein laughing.
If you want explanations, if you want to understand, read read and reread Selected Writings by Gertrude Stein. Explanations and understandings, I would guess, will become increasingly unnecessary.
----------------
WORKS CITED
Stein, Gertrude. "Composition as Explanation." Selected Writings. Ed. Carl Van Vechten. 1st ed. New York: Random House Vintage Books, 1972.
Stein, Gertrude. "Melanctha: Each One As She May." Selected Writings. Ed. Carl Van Vechten. 1st ed. New York: Random House Vintage Books, 1972.
Stein, Gertrude. Tender Buttons. Selected Writings. Ed. Carl Van Vechten. 1st ed. New York: Random House Vintage Books, 1972.
Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary. Ed. Frederick C. Mish, et al. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, 1987.
I express my gratitude to my English 225 instructor Barbara Bolz for this; I had never read or had an interest in reading Gertrude Stein until Barbara suggested her to me.
October 19, 2009
I read Melanchta, and mostly skimmed the other items in the collection. Gertrude Stein has a very unique style, and I think that I loved it and was fatigued by it at the same time. Something in her style of prose is akin to poetry, very dense and purposeful; every sentence is beautiful and every repetition is powerful. Yet, the last 30 pages or so were a little hard to get through, as the repetitiveness was starting to wear me down. I'm glad I read Melanchta and I definitely enjoyed it, but I can't say that I was not looking forward to start a new book.
March 7, 2016
The perfect sampler of Miss Stein's most accessible work, including the effervescent, eminently readable “Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas” in its entirety. All the Stein you will ever need, unless you fall under her spell. Unless you fall under her spell all the Stein you will ever need. All the Stein fall under her spell unless you will ever need. Unless you will ever need under her spell fall the Stein. The Stein under her spell will ever need unless you fall. Peaches.
February 6, 2013
Required reading for post 1800 Lit Hist Class (UofU) Love Stein! Her ability for word play is intoxicating and addictive. I love the concept of her lit paired with cubism and the idea that the more you look at something, the more you'll find and understand.
March 12, 2008
One of the greatest literary smart-asses of all time. Brilliant. Who needs nouns anyway?
May 28, 2008
really great overview of Stein.
June 29, 2009
"Nothing has happened today except kindness."
May 3, 2023
NOTE: Read for Uni, did not read every piece included
PIECES READ:
- A Message from Gertrude Stein
- The Gradual Making of the Making of Americans
- The Making of Americans (Selected Passages)
- Three Portraits of Painters:
- CEZANNE
- MATISSE
- PICASSO
- Tender Buttons
- Composition as Explanation
- Two Poems:
- SUSIE ASADO
- PRECIOSILLA
- Two Plays:
- LADIES' VOICES
- WHAT HAPPENED
- Miss Furr and Miss Skeene
- Four Saints in Three Acts
PIECES READ:
- A Message from Gertrude Stein
- The Gradual Making of the Making of Americans
- The Making of Americans (Selected Passages)
- Three Portraits of Painters:
- CEZANNE
- MATISSE
- PICASSO
- Tender Buttons
- Composition as Explanation
- Two Poems:
- SUSIE ASADO
- PRECIOSILLA
- Two Plays:
- LADIES' VOICES
- WHAT HAPPENED
- Miss Furr and Miss Skeene
- Four Saints in Three Acts
September 1, 2007
The 1 star rating is not directed toward Stein, but toward myself. I read this during my sophomore year in college, and felt wholly under prepared for what I found. She is cryptic and profound, and I was absolutely not ready for it.
August 19, 2007
"Composition as Explanation" is an essay I keep returning to.
September 14, 2007
she has this rhythm and style that is hypnotic, it's stuck in your head for about an hour after you finish reading her...very similar to Robert Sylvester Kelly's "trapped in the closet"
November 24, 2008
This was the companion book in the class I took on reading and writing from Gertrude's work. I'm fascinated by her changing styles over time and how she played with language.
Read
March 30, 2009Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein by Gertrude Stein (1990)
January 15, 2011
Don't be impressed; I didn't really read the whole book this fast. THis was a re-read and I only read the parts I wanted to re-read.
November 11, 2010
I found her an interesting and creative as I had heard she was.
April 30, 2017
BORING. Can't stop thinking if Gertrude Stein had a blog and posted excerpts from this book on a weekly basis it would be a good hit. I'm just saying.
August 13, 2012
I find Stein's writing difficult but ultimately worth the effort. This collection varies from very short pieces(less than a page) to novella length (The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas).
November 8, 2013
I did not read all the writing, just the Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. Not my favorite. But, I'm intrigued to read more about Gertrude Stein, just not more by Gertrude Stein.
June 16, 2007
A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.
Read
November 28, 2013I finally finished this after more than two years!
July 19, 2012
excellent! insider life of artists/writers visiting dignitaries/publishers
September 10, 2018
Having heard of Gertrude Stein, I became very interested about her. She occupies this interesting place in history where she was at the right place at the right time when it comes to art and literature.
I was familiar with her for who she knew, rather then what she wrote.
So, I picked up this book at a library sale to fix that.
That was a mistake.
The memoir part was brilliant and made me even more impressed with how she fit into history and the influence she had.
But, her own writing...yikes!
There is some interesting stuff here, both in the stories she tells and how she tries to play with/deconstruct language and be experimental.
It's just that with nearly every piece in this book, you get the idea of what she's trying to do, but the thing goes on for another fifty pages and then you understand why her own writing is so little known.
There is a fine line between being experimental and cranking out pretentious BS and, sad to say, Miss Stein pole vaults over that line.
Repeating everything a dozen times to prove a point doesn't educate or entertain or even really explain what your point is, it just makes people think you got paid by the word and had a really inattentive editor.
I still am really interested with Gertrude Stein the person, but Gertrude Stein the author is one of my least favorite people.
I was familiar with her for who she knew, rather then what she wrote.
So, I picked up this book at a library sale to fix that.
That was a mistake.
The memoir part was brilliant and made me even more impressed with how she fit into history and the influence she had.
But, her own writing...yikes!
There is some interesting stuff here, both in the stories she tells and how she tries to play with/deconstruct language and be experimental.
It's just that with nearly every piece in this book, you get the idea of what she's trying to do, but the thing goes on for another fifty pages and then you understand why her own writing is so little known.
There is a fine line between being experimental and cranking out pretentious BS and, sad to say, Miss Stein pole vaults over that line.
Repeating everything a dozen times to prove a point doesn't educate or entertain or even really explain what your point is, it just makes people think you got paid by the word and had a really inattentive editor.
I still am really interested with Gertrude Stein the person, but Gertrude Stein the author is one of my least favorite people.
March 2, 2023
No, I did not read this entire collection - I would have gone insane. After 300 pages, I cannot go on with Miss Stein. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas was interesting, engaging, modernist and, honestly, relaxing. However, I am lost by these Portraits, these Two Poems, Two Plays and Composition as Explanation; Tender Buttons was a fruitless affair cut very short. Finding myself with no desire to continue, I think it would be best if I part with Stein now. I guess it is time for Ulysses...
July 8, 2021
A compelling and eloquent compilation of some of Stein's best work in fiction (short stories), criticism, drama, poetry, autobiography and criticism as edited and selected by Carl Van Vechten with great discernment.
September 24, 2019
Didn’t read all of it, just passages for a Modernism class! I do like the vagueness in Matisse and Picasso!
June 19, 2022
It was painful to force my way through this dribble. Yeah, I know she's supposed to be a classic.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews