Well Trained Mind Readers discussion

Are we starting this one now?

I knew nothing about Gertrude Stein, so I had to look her up. Hmmm ....... I assume this book is popular because it gives a personal look into the post-impressionist art period?

Cleo,
I'm not going to start this until January b/c I am struggling getting through my last four books for the year. If you want to start it, go on. I'll catch up.
Ruth

Okay, let's make Jan 1st the official start date. I think Misty is still with us, and hopefully Lisa will come back when she settles in after her move. I've invited another member, Sandy, from one of my other GR groups, so hopefully she'll be joining us too!

That's great, Sandy. Perhaps your enthusiasm can cover for mine too, because, honestly, I'm approaching this one skeptically.

Uh, I'm not finding this one particularly riveting. Some clipped and not very insightful information on certain "important" artists, but otherwise I'm not impressed. I can see that it's probably going to border on pretentious. Nevertheless, it's a pretty easy read as it rambles, but moves quickly.

Again, I need to remember to check here b/c it does not notify me when our group has a message from someone. So I'll check this little "notify me" box, and I'll try to keep checking every so often. I totally missed your message on Gandhi. Sorry.

Thanks for keeping this group updated, Cleo!

Anyway, I do look forward to see how this ends, but like I said before, it does not feel important to me.

I check here now and then because my notification feed only goes so far and the posting here is so infrequent, I'm bound to miss something.

You're welcome! I really love to get some other people reading who will post on our reads, even infrequently, but so far that hasn't happened.

I began to enjoy this book much more during the war. The war made her observations meaningful, yet before that they were rather boring. I imagine they might have been fun reading for her friends who knew the people she was talking about those but to the average person, and with her lack of anything really insightful, it's snooze-ville. ;-)

Thanks for letting us know, Sandy. After feeling like the first part took forever to move through, it picked up in the middle and then seemed to go quickly to the end. I was kind of getting used to her at the end of the book. In spite of my three star rating, it wasn't all that bad, if you don't expect something deep and insightful.

It's actually very unusual that I finished this so quickly. Ruth is usually the galloping reader and I'm dragging over the finish line right at the end ..... ;-)

I'm done. Whew.

Is that all you have to say?! :-D

Cleo, I don't know what to say. First I thought, "What am I supposed to say about this book? I wouldn't convince anyone else to read it." Then I thought, "What was the purpose of reading this one?" I'm still thinking about it.

Some of my raw thoughts are that I've never heard of either of these women, or Stein's works. I don't understand why she is such a master of writing, if this bio is any indication of how she writes. My copy rarely used capitalization for proper nouns, there were run-on sentences everywhere, and I wanted to insert commas here and there. She wrote the way people hold conversation. It wasn't a great life story either that made an impression on me.

The only intrigue comes from their connections with authors, artists, and musicians of the time.

So there, I said something.

Ruth, I know exactly what you mean. On one level it was a run-on commentary of pretentious observations and name dropping. I did, however, enjoy her descriptions during the war and after that I was used to it, so it wasn't hard to read to the end. There is nothing deep about it.

Sandy, I don't think Susan Wise Bauer choses the books primarily based on popularity or readability. My impression based on the structure of chronological order is that she's trying to give you an understanding of the development of thought, ideas and behaviours throughout time. As you read through these biographies, you can completely see the moving away from religious ideals and a deeper meaning to life, to a more self-centered idea of how life unfolds, or should unfold. Picking up in the middle, you won't notice it, but for me, who started at the beginning, the change in thought is quite startling. Gertrude Stein, her thoughts, perceptions and behaviours, portrays a large movement of this time period, so because of this, it would be an important read. That's the larger picture. Now, the book itself is weak, as I think both Ruth and I will agree, but that it doesn't mean it doesn't have value. I would say that it's worth reading, just don't expect a gripping narrative. Now how to convince other's to read it, as Ruth said, that's difficult. :-Z

Cleo,

Yep! It was a super easy read. I think I appreciated understanding the emotions of the time during the War. But I thought it was most fascinating how the authors, artists, and musicians had their little social circle, and how they formed their relationships with each other and shared their opinions of each other's works. It was interesting.

Sandy,

Cleo is right. There is an obvious change in focus in biographical works, away from spiritually-centered to self-centered. And, whew! Gertrude Stein is subtly arrogant in her own right.

The book is not terrible, or I would have found myself skipping sections throughout - which I did not.

Cleo wrote: "I check here now and then because my notification feed only goes so far and the posting here is so infrequent, I'm bound to miss something.

You're welcome! I really love to get some other people ..."

Are you hinting at me ;) I've been terrible about keeping up with any of these reads, but I do still peek at what you guys post. Note that the project is almost over and I managed only to complete The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration by Mary Rowlandson.

Maybe I'll get around to reading Mein Kampf this year, it is the 70 year anniversary from when it was banned in Germany. They have now lifted the ban.

If I start The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandra I Solzhenitsyn now I might have the full unabridged version done by the time the group gets to it.

If nothing else I will join for All Rivers Run to the Sea.

I wasn't hinting at you ...... I actually find that you don't miss much and even though you may not have finished the project, you're very good at participating with comments, so in a way, you've participated too. I was thinking of posts that I'd missed, even in DWS, and felt rather badly about. There were a couple of new members lately who had responded to something I'd posted and I didn't see their responses until much later.

I've started The Gulag, but am going slowly. That was my plan .... to start now and hopefully have it finished by the time it's scheduled to be finished.

I'm not looking forward to the bios after Lewis because I might actually have to buy them, and they're not something I really want. I'm not sure how to get around that.

I know you don't have the best library system, but maybe they are available?

None of them are available. I've just put ILLs on them, but they could take anywhere from 2 - 6 months to arrive. THEN, I only have them for one week and they'll all come all at once, even if I tried to space out the ordering. It's a terrible system!

True about never knowing how long it will take for an ILL to come in. I've never had only a week I've it comes in, but it does vary from 3 weeks to the 3 months.

I thought maybe being more recent you'd have some luck.

Need to get you a baby kindle from here that is tied to my account, I can get an e-book from the library of three of them after Lewis.

That would make me feel a little better, Sandy, if I was rural but I basically live in the third largest city in Canada (yet in the suburbs). Our library is one of 26 and rarely do any of them have what I want. Because of budget cuts, they say they don't have the money to make it better, but their common sense in making their systems is completely lacking. For example, if I bought the 6 books they're missing for this biography challenge and donated them to the library, the library wouldn't accept them. Why? Because they're not already in the system. Isn't that unbelievably ridiculous?! I could try the university near me, but I think I'll have a problem because most of the remaining books are U.S. books. I'll make an attempt though.

A Bookworm Reading (Plethora) wrote: "True about never knowing how long it will take for an ILL to come in. I've never had only a week I've it comes in, but it does vary from 3 weeks to the 3 months.

I thought maybe being more recent ..."

Well, that makes me feel better than it can take you 3 months too.

That's another thing ..... I can't get any e-books from my library because they don't support Kindle. :-Z

The Kindle I have now is U.S. based but I guess you have to set up the account at the beginning? Ah, it's all so complicated, but thanks for the offer. I'll see how the ILL goes and I may just have to read them quickly as they come in.

I also was trying to say, but I see autocorrect didn't make it very clear....I have anywhere from 3 weeks to 3 months to read them. I never know what I'm going to have until I get the book.

Yes, it would be easiest to have a second kindle that was setup on my account. Otherwise you have to register and deregister your current one, which doesn't make sense. Although I have an older Kindle Touch floating around I could probably convert to such use.