So what do we get from the book? What she wants us to know. I came away with a new appreciation for sentence structure. I can now read a sentence as a sentence, and not words strung together. I am also struck by the Marxist idea of commodity and how it relates to her sentences. It seems as though words are a commodity, but sentences are something that we should relate back to the author. As i was re-reading certain sections I came to realize that there was in fact labor behind this book, that this did not just fall from the sky written the way it was. Like an oil painting, you can see the processes that went into the production.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
What did we come away with?
While picking up our new book for this class I am still puzzled with Gertrude Stein and our class discussion yesterday. What did she purposely leave from the book, and why? When I look back on this book I am left with small anecdotes of her day to day life and an overall feeling of puzzlement over autobiography as a genre.
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5 comments:
I too am a bit uncertain of Stein's motives for writing and omitting what she did. She used countless, short accounts and narratives rather than the large, influential events typically used in an autobiography. Somehow, while poking fun at the traditional autobiography, she managed to let the reader know exactly what she wanted and no more. Why couldn't she have opened up just a bit more?
In regards to her viewing sentences as more than just words, or commodities, I found one quote at the end of the last chapter that seemed to take that concept a step further. When describing the way Basket, the poodle, laps his water, the narrator writes, "She says that listening to the rhythm of his water drinking made her recognize the difference between sentences and paragraphs, that paragraphs are emotional and that sentences are not" (p.248). Why does she make the jump from sentences to paragraphs being the "bigger picture?"
Looking at a way to make sense of Stein's organization, she has said time and time again that she loves sentences. For her, words seem to just be a means to the end. It's a way to create a sentence that causes one to slow down and think, and I think Casey addresses this appreciation for her sentences quite nicely.
I'm really glad that Alex brought up this quote, as I had been intrigued by it as well reading the story. I can see where Alex is questioning, as I believe it is really all about the sentences as well. However, it's possible that Stein is using paragraphs as a way to showcase the impacts of her sentences. Her paragraphs are often rambling masses, and one has to sift through to find the real gem, or the one sentence that is worthwhile. It is this sentence (or couple of sentences) that usually gives the paragraph its character, emotion, and value.
I was thinking about Alex's question: "Why couldn't she have opened up just a bit more?" I feel that she did open a lot. Had she said more about her life, it wouldn't have necessarily helped us understand her better. I think that the fact that she skipped a huge part of her life speaks much more about her character than the events she never mentioned would have. Presenting the "spicy" part of her life would have made her a hypocrite because she claims that it's the everyday things that are most amazing, not the extraordinary ones.
For me, Stein seemed to constantly raise questions as to how we should perceive our own lives. When she chronicles the most mundane events of her life, from that, she wants us to question the idea that our lives are simply a collection of a few "big" moments. When Stein writes in a disjointed stream of consciousness style, she seeks to question the linear view with which people frame our own lives. Stein's ability to define new, avant-garde movement raises questions concerning what is normal versus what is abnormal. With Stein, her greatest asset seems to be the questions she asks not the answers she provides.
Gertrude Stein always 'believed that what she wrote was right' (234). In writing this autobiography she is trying to prove a point; she shows us that she does have an appreciation for writing, but that at the same time she has her own distinct style that no one can take away from her. She regards herself as a true artist who does not need criticsm only appreciation. It is obvious that Gertrude Stein mocks the ideals, principles, and rules of an autobiography, but then again she is modernism; Gertrude Stein is 'change'.
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