Stein: Literary Genius or Psycho?

If you have never read Gertrude Stein you have never had the pleasure of being lost beyond confusion. Confusion which lost never to grow fruit. (Sorry, I am getting ahead of myself). Let me give you an example of her poetry (keep in mind she also writes entire novels using this same form):

A SOUND

Elephant beaten with candy and little pops and chews all bolts and reckless reckless rats, this is this.

That was one of my favorites. Not that I understand it, simply because the image of an elephant being beaten with candy is really hilarious. The only meaning I could gather from it in relation to sound is that elephants are loud. Feel free to help me out if you have any ideas. I will be learning what all this means during class in two days times and I will be sure to come back and enlighten you.

Let me give you an easier example, this is only a portion of it because the description goes on for three pages.

ROASTBEEF

In the inside there is sleeping, in the outside there is reddening, in the morning there is meaning, in the evening there is feeling. In the evening there is feeling. In feeling anything is resting, in feeling anything is mounting, in feeling there is resignation, in feeling there is recognition, in feeling there is recurrence and entirely mistaken there is pinching.

 I want to draw attention to the connections she makes between each successive phrase. It seems the first two phrases are referring directly to roastbeef. Roastbeef is cooked from the outside in so that the outer portions redden first and you could call what is happening to the inner portions “sleeping.” In the next two sets of phrases she seems to be comparing morning with the inside of roastbeef and evening with the outside. You wake from sleep in the morning so this would make sense and the reference to feeling in regards to evening could should that the reddening of the beef is similar to feeling. The beef in effect feels the heat of the oven. She then repeats the phrase “In the evening there is feeling.” This acts as a transitional sentence to show she is going to talk about this idea of feeling instead of talking about the roast. She goes on to describe feeling which seems quite easy to understand although I admit I am probably missing some of the meaning. I found myself thrown off when she brought in pinching, but often pinching is what you do to make sure you can feel ie. “Pinch me. Am I dreaming?” Those are just some thoughts I had about it.

I am excited to discover what has been said about this poetry by people who have dedicated years of their life to the study of it. Personally, I think I would go crazy reading Stein all the time.

COLD

In a trance she went from one exercise to the next. Feeling nothing, thinking nothing… Was it hot? No sweat dripped from her brow. The body in which she had been living no longer seemed to contain her. Mechanically she lunged, once, twice, twelve, done. Her body stopped the motion without receiving the signal from her brain. Slowly a tinge of frustration stirred in her body, but her mind was unaware. The motion from left to right, right to left, became more intense, muscles were screaming out for acknowledgement. One. Two. Twenty. More. Faster. The med ball flew out of her hands across the room as if propelled by its own force. She had no control. The frustration was growing, it was taking over her body, but she wasn’t there. One. Two. Ten. A leg thrust out and kicked the swiss ball sending it bouncing violently towards the unknowing machines. Still, nothing… On to the next… Walk. Jog. Run. Faster. Sprinting. Uphill. As fast as the machine allowed. Her body screamed out with the desire to feel. The connection was gone. Frustration exploded within her body. An angry rage over took her physically as she ran. She was somewhere else. Gone. And then, nothing… The first sensations began to stir within her. Sound thundered in her ears. Pellets of water slashed against her body. Soap. She could smell it. Tile. She turned the knob and it was over.

Anything to help a sister

I don’t usually post these chain messages, but I was told to “or else”

Goodenough tagged me for this meme and these are the rules…

1.) You have to post the rules before you give the facts.

2.)Players – You must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your middle name. If you don’t have a middle name, use the middle name you would have liked to have had.

3.)At the end of your post, you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag.

I don’t know if I have four people to tag, but I will try. My middle name is my aunt’s name. (Only she spells it with an “e” at the end).

L ~ Loud, and opinionated, but certainly loud. My siblings used to torment me for talking too much. I never could seem to say everything that I wanted to. I am still working on getting everything out. Good thing I have a blog to help.

Y ~ Young. It is the best I could do with “Y.” And anyway, it is true. Although I am starting not to feel so young. I will always be younger than my four older siblings.

N ~ Neurotic. (Do I really need to explain this one?) If you have ever had to live with me you know it is true.

N ~ Natation. I found this word. It means swimming. I never realized how much I love swimming until last semester. I finallly started doing laps at the pool for excercise and I can’t get enough of it.

Now I need to tag some people…

The Gomms; Slayemin

That is all I have.

Lawrence in Love (with himself)

Oh Lawrence… How your pomp does make me laugh!!!

I spent the weekend reading D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love. If you haven’t had the pleasure I would recommend waiting until you have absolutely nothing else you could possibly do – when you have finished every book on your shelves – when no one is around to entertain you – basically, don’t waste your time. That is, unless, you enjoy reading simply to discount everything that a book suggests. This novel is a romance of sorts, but no romance any woman I know would want to take part in. It is also a philosophical discussion of love and death. It is chauvinistic and pompous. The women seem to have all the wrong ideas, and the “right” ideas are so far fetched it is hard to take the work seriously. However, I do not think it was written as a comedy.

As an example, let us take the main character of Rupert and extrapolate his ideas. Just to note, this character is supposed to be the voice of reason in the novel, and his ideas are carried throughout as solid.

Here is an instance of Rupert sharing his ideas (which he constantly feels the need to do) with Ursula (his “love” interest):
“I don’t believe in love at all–that is, any more than I believe in hate, or in grief. Love is one of the emotions like all the others–and so it is all right whilst you feel it. But I can’t see how it becomes an absolute…it is only part of any human relationship. Any one should be required always to feel it…I cannot conceive.”
This is how Rupert woos Ursula, telling her that love does not exist and that she should not expect him to feel it.
Again, Rupert woos Ursula with his endearing words:
“I don’t feel the emotion of love for you–no, and I don’t want to. Because it gives out at the last issues…There is a real impersonal me, that is beyond love, beyond any emotional relationship…we want to delude ourselves that love is the root…The root is beyond love, a naked kind of isolation, and isolate me, that does not meet and mingle, and never can…Ultimately, there is no love.”
This is Rupert’s proclamation to Ursula urging her to unite with him, but not for love, for Something. Despite her insistence for an explanation of what this Something is, Rupert can offer none.
He continues by telling Ursula, “I don’t want your good looks, and I don’t want your womanly feelings, and I don’t want your thoughts nor opinions nor your ideas…”

(He does however want her to climb into bed with him).

Ursula does fight him and first, and tells him that his ideas are ridiculous, but the novel suggests that she feels inevitably drawn to him despite her disgust.
At any rate, she does end up first his mistress, then married to him and decides that all his ideas on love and life are right. Near the end of the novel she says to her sister, talking of Rupert’s Something, “But there can be something else, can’t there…One can see it through one’s soul, long enough before it sees itself through in actuality. And then, when one has seen in one’s soul, one is something else.” When her sister questions her and tells her that she can’t get away from love, Ursula responds saying, “Love is too human and little. I believe in something inhuman, of which love is only a little part. I believe what we must fulfil comes out of the unknown to us, and it is something infinitely more than love. It isn’t so merely human.”

This goes back to Rupert’s disgust with humanity which he expresses to Ursula in one of his wooing lectures. He says, “[Humanity] has become dead to me. I don’t believe in the humanity I pretend to be a part of…I hate the dying organic form of social mankind…” Ursula now encompasses all of Rupert’s ideas. She is no longer an individual. Her sister on the other hand maintains her individuality in her relationship and ends up less than happy where as Ursula appears to be so.

The themes discussed in this novel are beyond pretentious and Lawrence’s treatment of women is ridiculous and appalling. He pretends to know something of the way women think. The title itself is a presumption that the text cannot live up to.

I will leave it at that. If you are interested in discovering what Rupert’s thoughts are on death, men, and many other exciting topics set aside 10 hours or so and prepare yourself for some laughs mingled with endless disgust.

Withdrawn

I have no excuses for my absence. Well, maybe a few, but I don’t know if they really explain why I couldn’t spend ten minutes writing something out. I will try to convince you:

1. I was captured by aliens and taken away to another galaxy where tests were performed on my brain. It took only ten minutes time for them to document everything I know…

2. When I came round and saw that they had dropped me back in my flat in Brisbane I fell immediately into a black pit of despair. Here I met several aspiring poets, actors, and of course an endless number of teenagers. I spent several weeks in the pit; mulling around, attending interpretive dance performances in the rain, watching re-runs of reality tv sit-coms…

3.  One day I won a contest for the best film adaptation of the evolution of a grapefruit into a tadpole. The prize was of course a round trip ticket to the Lake of Swelling Happiness. Here I found an endless supply of brownies which filled my belly with sentiment and sent my heart swooping…

4. Unfortunately, the second round of the ticket brought me back to Dry Land. I had no choice but to pursue the odious task of sewing up a situation.

So, I am back now, but only in part. I left my better half in the lake.