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.