Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Gertrude Stein and Gossip
I notice that Gertrude Stein steers away from her story once in a while to spend time talking about the gossip or scandals among her friends. In chapter 5, I particularly enjoyed the stories about Manolo and Uhde. On page 97, Manolo earns money off a business of bringing chairs to people in a church, but the chairs are actually owned by someone else. He then escapes his military service in Spain to go to Paris. On page 98, Uhde and his ex-wife is such a strange couple, because both of them did not marry out of love for each other. He wanted to "respectabilise himself" while his wife wanted to get her inheritance. I found it strange how things this dramatic could have happened back then. Anyhow, I enjoy the gossip and scandals because it takes a break from Stein and her being such a "genius," which just annoys me so much. But on another note, I think Stein chose to include so many stories about the personal lives of her group of friends because she was not so famous when she wrote this book, and the inside stories of her friends, who were famous, may have kept the attention of the reader.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I enjoyed your post and you make an important point. A lot of this book thus far concerns Stein and her friends and the gossip amongst their circle. However, if you take a look at her life, what more does she have? Yes, she is writing, buying art, and encountering many famous important people of that time period, but she doesn't seem to have much else. I also think that their is more to her gossip. Maybe the characters that she has come across have shaped her a certain way, or maybe she is just being sarcastic and somewhat poking fun at them? I take all of this gossip in a light hearted way, and while it is quite confusing, it makes it a fun read. One tends to feel like they part of that circle of friends.
ReplyDeleteI will have to disagree with you about it being a happy change of pace when Stein talks about gossip and scandals, because thats all this book is! It seems like every paragraph I read is just talking about another random person with an uninteresting back story. I will admit that Manolo was an exception to this, I thought he was a shiesty fellow. I have more respect for him then I do for Stein, atleast we know where he gets his money from! Stein needs to take a break from her idle life and do some extreme sports or something...anything to make me somewhat interested in her.
ReplyDelete