Gertrude Stein = Brilliant Out of her Mind
As an undergrad I studied with a pretty good modernism guy; and don’t get me wrong, I didn’t take a lot a lot of his classes, but quite a few. And we talked. Now don’t get me wrong, there was another modernism person, but we didn’t get along so well. I remember hearing Gertrude Stein come up a few times in conversation with her, but not so much with him. And among the many things we’ve disagreed about, which disagreements lead to cavils and civil spats, the one I’d bring up now most forcefully is why didn’t he make me read some Gertrude Stein. I mean, he was all into that jazz nonsensical fascist E. P., but why not G. S.? She’s flipping brilliant.
For one, she gets Derrida. She gets Wittgenstein. She’s all about difference and differance. She’s all about syntax. How about this:
Clarity is of no importance because nobody listens and nobody knows what you mean no matter what you mean, nor how clearly you mean what you mean. But if you have vitality enough of knowing enough of what you mean, somebody and sometime and sometimes a great many will have to realise that you know what you mean and so they will agree that you mean what you know, what you know you mean, which is as near as anybody can come to understanding any one.
ell now? As if the form of language could mean anything. She’s all austere syntax couching zen roubles. She’s off her head she’s so into it. Clarity is of no importance—“But if you have vitality” then some one person or some many people will understand you or come as close to understanding as some one person or some many people can come. Doesn’t that just about capture it? What would clarity be other than, what, the most perfectly executed syntax? Technical writing accompanied by schematics? A diagram of a machine isn’t the machine just as an idle machine isn’t a machine so much as a paper weight.
I think very well of Susan but I do not know her name
I think very well of Ellen but which is not the same
I think very well of Paul I tell him not to do so
I think very well of Francis Charles but do I do so
I think very well of Thomas but I do not not do so
I think very well of not very well of William
I think very well of any very well of him
I think very well of him.
It is remarkable how quickly they learn
But if they learn and it is very remarkable how quickly they learn
it makes not only but by and by
And they may not only be not here
But no there
Which after all makes no difference
After all this does not make any does not make any difference
I add added it to it.
I could rather be rather be here.
You can see in this passage (Stanza II, Part III) some of the paranoia of the salon, which you could also see in the above passage. The hangups on agreement and understanding that always arise in groups. Subjective constitution being what it is, I can hardly see how Gertrude Stein’s writing would ever stay in print. Thank JHVH for the Library of America. (Antic-dote: I used JHVH as a name in celebrity one time—what fun!) But, ye Gods, man! “I add added it to it. / I could rather be rather be here” is just a brilliant couplet. It takes my breath away and makes me want to write again predominantly in the first person plural. It conveys-by-showing-qua-doing-which-is-writing the sucking sense of emptiness given by repetition. And it shows an understanding of repetition as the source of—what’d’ya call it?—meaning. Studied more than read? Something like that… Is that a line from Nabokov or from the Nabokov imitator in Copeland’s Gum Thief? Or something else all together now. I bet G. S. is studied more than read, and referenced more than studied. That’s a shame.
Gertrude Stein = Certifiable Genius (in relatively small doses)
