Three Lives in Reading 1001

Jan 12, 2017 Leni Iversen rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, 1001books

The first story, "The Good Anna", was alright. A bit tragicomic and rather vague. The story of the life of a woman of German descent who appears to be an asexual lesbian. I'm not sure. Everything is very vague, and with many repeated phrases, and then Anna dies. Stein is fond of repetitions. They seem to be her main literary device. This story was sort of a three star read, and the main reason why I didn't bail on the second story or rate the book one star. That, and I was sort of mesmerized by The first story, "The Good Anna", was alright. A bit tragicomic and rather vague. The story of the life of a woman of German descent who appears to be an asexual lesbian. I'm not sure. Everything is very vague, and with many repeated phrases, and then Anna dies. Stein is fond of repetitions. They seem to be her main literary device. This story was sort of a three star read, and the main reason why I didn't bail on the second story or rate the book one star. That, and I was sort of mesmerized by the strange repetitive language, so I guess it does work, on some level, as a literary device.

The second story, "Melanctha", almost made me quit reading at the outset. It is about a woman who has a white mother and a black father. She has a friend who is a woman of colour but was raised by white parents, and we get descriptions like this:

Rose Johnson was careless and was lazy, but she had been brought up by white folks and she needed decent comfort. Her white training had only made for habits, not for nature. Rose had the simple, promiscuous immorality of the black people.

...

Melanctha Herbert was a graceful, pale yellow, intelligent, attractive negress. She had not been raised like Rose by white folks but then she had been half made with real white blood.

And it gets worse too, but I'll save you the indignity and indignation of reading it. The descriptions get repeated a lot too. Stein is fond of repetitions. They seem to be her main literary device.

I was telling myself that this was written in 1909, and that at least we have a POC protagonist here, and wasn't Stein supposed to be a lesbian, come on I wanted diversity here not racism! And since the book is under 200 pages long and I needed it for a reading challenge, I persevered.

Briefly, it looked promising (if you manage to ignore the many uses of the n-word, all the n-words!). It appeared to be the story of a young girl coming to terms with her sexuality, searching. She was hanging out with men without really knowing what it was she wanted, or understanding what they wanted from her. Then she meets a woman who teaches her the ways of the world, and reading between the lines there was some intimate physical education too. But then they have a falling out, Melanchtia finds a man who isn't interested in her and decides that she must have him. Then the POV changes to that of the man, who wonders first if he loves her, then if she loves him, and starts to feel increasingly manipulated by her. For page after endless page, we get various repetitions (for Stein is fond of repetitions. They seem to be her main literary device) of them arguing about the right way to live, which generally ends like this:

"I don't rightly see what you mean by what you say when you is saying the things that you is saying to me, Jeff. No, it certainly does seem to me you don't know very well, what you mean, when you are talking."

"I don't ever say you ain't always right, Melanchta, when you really say things to me. Perhaps I see it all to be very different when I come to really see what you mean by what you are always saying to me."

Later the point of view jumps back to Melanchta and back to the opening sequence and the story goes exactly nowhere, except to establish that good relationships are impossible because one person will always love and need the other less, and thereby have all the power. And then Melanchta dies.

The third story, The Gentle Anna, is mercifully short and features a German woman who always does what she is told and never thinks to have any desires of her own. She slowly wastes away. And then she dies. Because Stein likes repetitions. They seem to be her main literary device.

Gertrude Stein might very well be worth reading. I don't know, I haven't read anything else by her. But just skip this, her first work. I wish I had. ...more

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