After Erica’s short lecture on Stein’s novel, I found it much more enjoyable to read these next few chapters. As I had mainly been focusing on the events and people being described, I was able to readjust my thinking and concentrate on the irregularities, or differences in her work compared to others. It was with this idea in mind that I came upon the paragraph talking about the normal and the abnormal. The narrator (Do we call her Alice because it is her voice or Gertrude Stein because it is really her words?) claims “She always says she dislikes the abnormal, it is so obvious. She says the normal is so much more simply complicated and interesting” (83). I found this puzzling because it has become my impression that Gertrude Stein does not do what is normal, especially when it comes to what society expects of her. Stein’s experience with education provides excellent examples of going against the grain. Page 79 discusses an examination where Stein simply wrote that she did not feel like taking an exam that day. (Wouldn’t it be nice to get the same results as she did? J ) Stein did not graduate from medical school because she was bored and did not want to continue taking classes. From these examples, I would conclude that Gertrude Stein does not like what is normal and does what she can to break away from it. I don’t believe these two ideas can co-exist. Does anyone have any ideas on that?
We talked in class about the use of names, how Gertrude Stein is always written as “Gertrude Stein” but everyone else is referred to by one name. A number of people are mentioned who have praised Stein‘s work and every now and then there is a person who does not like her work. I am curious about the differences between these two types of people. I got the sense that the people who praised her work were named and given personalities to back up the name while those who disliked her work might have been given a name but the effect is that the latter group of people are less “real” to the reader and hence a less reliable source.
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I want to comment on the first paragraph about "normal" versus "abnormal." This sentence caught my eye as well, so I'm glad someone brought it up. I believe what you really need to think about in order to make sense of this statement is what is considered "normal." Maybe to Stein (or whoever we are considering the narrator), normal is equivalent to natural. Her writing doesn't follow societal guidelines and thereby is in its more natural form. She didn't finish medical school because she didn't want to-simple as that. Had she finished it because everyone else did, she would be following some standard life path and not what was most true to her self.
After thinking about this in class, I've come up with my own theory as to what Stein means when she prefers the normal to the abnormal. From my point of view actions such as choosing not to pass a medical exam and "discovering" cubism aren't "normal" endeavors. As opposed to declaring certain, singular aspects of life as normal or abnormal, I feel like "normal" is the way Stein approaches life. To Stein she never seeks to discover what seems to be "hip" or the "in" thing; instead, she only seems to seek what interests her letting life unfold on its own.
Much like Vu, I also believe that Stein's opinion of normal has less to do with what society views as the norm, and more to do with what she herself feels is normal. In our discussion yesterday, we compared normal with abnormal with natural. I think that, while most of us would consider normal to be what the majority of people do, Stein considers normal to be what comes naturally to her. Most authors use punctuation and certain sentence structures because they have been taught to do so. It adds clarity to their work. But, if a person with no formal writing education was asked to write a book, perhaps it would turn out something like what Stein has written. She writes sentences as they come naturally to her, in her eyes this is normal.
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