Profil,es and Interaiews

GERTRUDE STEIN

I.

Some years ago I left Gertrude Stein's Villino in Fiesole with a manuscript

she had given me.

"Each one is one. Each one is being the one each one is being. Each one is one

is being one. Each one is being the one that one is being. Each one is being one

each one is one.

Each one is one. Each one is very well accustomed to be one. Each one is very

well accustomed to be that one. Each one is one." (Galeries Lafayette). Com'

pare with oVanity.of vanity; vanity of vanities; all is vanity' of Ecclesiastes.

This was when Bergson was in the air, and his beads of Time strung on the con'

tinuous flux of Being, seemed to have found a literary conclusion in the austere

verity of Gertrude Stein's them*'Being' as the absolute occupation.

For by the intervaried rhythm of this monotone mechanism she uses for in'ducing a continuity of awareness of her subject, I was connected op with the

very pulse of duration.

The core of a oBeing'was revealed to me with uninterrupted insistence.

The plastic static of the ultimate presence of an entity.

And the innate tempo of a life poured in alert refreshment upon my mentality.

Gertrude Stein was making a statement, a reiterate statement . . . basic and

bare . . . & statement reiterate ad absurdum, were it not for the interposing

finger of creation.

For Gertrude Stein obtains the belle matiire of her unsheathing of the fun'

damental with a most dexterous discretion in the placement and replacement

of her phrases, of inversion of the same phrase sequences that are so closely

matched in level, as the fractional tones in primitive music or the imperceP

tible modelling of early Egyptian sculpture.

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Ihe flux of Being as the ultimate presentation of the individual, she endowswith the rhythmic concretion of her art, until it becomes as a polished stone, abit of the rock of lif*yet not of polished surface, of polished nucleus.

This method of conveyance through duration recurs in her later work. As sheprogresses it becomes a-plified, she includes an increasing number of the at-tributes of continuity.

The most perfect example of this method is ltalia*s where not only are youpressed close to the insistence of their existence, but Gertrude Stein throughher process of reiteration gradually, progressively rounds them out, deco-rates them with their biological insignia. -

Th"y revolve on the pivot of her verbal construction like animated sculpture,their life protracted into their entourage through their sprouting hair . . . flIonger finger nail; their sound, their fmeil.

"They have some_thing growing on them, some of them, and certainry manyothers would not be wanting .u.h things io b" growing out of them that is tosay growing on them.

"It makes them these-having such things, make_s them elegant and charming,t*:t them ugly and disgusdng, *akL them clean Iookiffid sleek and richand dark, makes them dirty-looling and fierce r"rtirr.,

H-ow simply she exposes the startling dissimilarity in the aesthetic d6nouementof our standardized biology.

Thty solidify in her words, in ones, in crowds, complete with racial impulses.Th"y are of one, infinitesimally varied in detail, ,u.i"l consistency. packed byher-poised paragraphs into the omniprevalent plasm of life from which sheevolves all her subjects and from which she never allows them to become de-tached' In Gertrude stein Iife is never detached from Life; it spreads tenuousand vibrational between each of its human exteriorizations and the other.

Profilcs and Interaiants

"They seem to be, and that is natural because what is in one is calried over to

the other one by it being in the feeling of the one looking at the one and ften at

the other one.

"They are talking, often talking and they are doing things with pieces of them

while th"y are talking and th"y are things sounding like something, they are

then sounding in a way that is a natural way for them to be sounding, they are

having noise come out of them in a natural way for them to have noise come

out of them."

It may be impossible for our public inured to the unnecessary nuisances ofjournalism to understand this literature, but it is a 'literature reduced to abasic significance that could be conveyed to a man on Mars.

In her second phase . ... the impressionistic, Gertrude Stein entirely reverses this

method of conveyance through duration. She ignores duration and telescopes

time and space and the subjective and objective in a way that obviates interval

and interposition. She stages strange triangles between the nominative and his

verb and irruptive co-respondents.

It has become the custom to say of her that she has done in words what Picasso

has done with form. There is certainly i, her work an interpenetration of di-mensions analogous to Cubism.

One of her finest oimpressions' is Sweet Tail. "Gypsiesr" it begins.

"Curved planes.

"Hold in the coat. Hold back ladders and a creation and nearly sudden extra

coppery ages with colors and a clean gyp hoarse. Hold in that curl with the

good man. Hold in cheese. . . ." A fracturing impact of the mind with the oc-

cupation, the complexion, the cry of the gypsies.

Cubistically she first sees the planes of the scene. Then she bre"ks them up into

their detail. Gypsies of various ages bring ladders for the construction of . . .something. "A clean gyp hoarse." Hear it, see it, attribute it, that voice?

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The occurrences of "HoId in" impress me as a registration of her mind dic.tating the control of the plan", of the pictul:, it is so rapidly and unerringlyputting together; no, crtoosing togeth"r. ..A rittle p"n *irt*;;rrr;'ilT;rr-

traction of "The clean gyp hoarser" accelerated, in he, chase of sounds amongsolids by telescopios th" 'ilittle pan" with th" "ri*ation of the gypsy holdingit.

Percontra in "Wheel is not on a donkey and never neverr, her reason disen.ta8es the donkey and cart from her primary telescopic visualization.

It is the variety of her mental processes that gives such fresh significance toher words' as if she had got them out of bed early in the morning and washedthem in the sun.

They make a new appeal to us after the friction of an uncompromised intellecthas scrubbed the meshed messes of traditional associations ofi them.

As in the little phrase ..A wheel is not on a donk"yr,, . . . I few words she hasIifted out of the ridiculous, to replace them in the sanctuary of pure expres-sion.

"A green' a green coloured oak, a handsome excursion, a really handsomeIog' a regulation t9 exchange oars." An association of nomadic recreation andrest through the idea .wood, oak, log, oars.

Again how admirably the essences of romance are collected in the followingcurve'course that for beauty of expression courd hardry be exeeiled.

"The least license is in the eyes which make strange the less sighed hole whichis nodded and leaves the bentiender . . . it makes medium and egg-Iight and notnearly so much.,,

To obtain movement she has shaped her words to the pattern of a mobile emo-tion' she has actually bent the tender and with -"diu* and egg-light and notreally so much, reconstructed the signal luminous, the form, the semi-honestyof the oval eye.

Pro filc s an d, I nteraiews

But in 'osimple cake, simple cake, relike a gentle coat, . . . seal it blessingand that means gracious, not gracious suddenly with spoons and flavour but allthe same active. Neglect a pink white neglect it for blooming on a thin pieceof steady slim poplars." Round the cake, the sociable center, the tempo ofthe gypsy feast changes . . . "seal it blessingr" do gypsies say grace or is bless-ing again the bowing pattern of feeding merging with spoons and flavour?

The'ogentle coating" ... icing? . .. of thecakeconfuseswiththegreaterwhite-ness of the sky wedged between poplars that are depicted with the declivity ofline of Van Gogh. 'oNeglect it . . . ." Again a direction for the mind to keepthe plates of the picture relatively adjusted.

"And really all the chance is in deridi.,S cocoanuts real cocoanuts with straw-berry tunes and little ice cakes with feeding feathers and peculiar relationsof nothing which is more blessed than replies."

In o'feeding feathers" the omission of the woman berween her feeding and herfeathers results in an unaccustomed juxtaposition of words by associating asubject with a verb which does not in fact belong to it, but which visually, isinstantaneously connected.

This process of disintegration and reintegration, this intercepted cinema ofsuggestion urges the reactions of the reader until the theme assumes an un-parallelled clarity of aspect. Compare it with George Borrow's gypsy classicand consider the gain in time and spontaneity that such abridged associationsas derision and cocoanuts, strawberry tints dissolving into tune and above allthe snatched beauty of the bizarrerie feeding afiords us.

And these eyes, these feathers are continuously held in place by the progres-sive introduction of further relationships, "And nearly all heights hats whichare so whiled . . ." And no one comes to realize how Gertrude Stein has buildedup her gypsies, accent upon accent, colour on colour, bit by bit.

Perhaps for this reason it is not easy for the average reader to "get" C,ertmdeStein, because for the casual audience entity seems to be eclipsedbyexcresence.

Truly with this method of Gertrudebris gets littered around the radiumness.

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Stein's a goodly amount of incoherent de_that she crushes out of phrased conscious-

'olike message cowpowder and sashes sashes, like pedal causes and so sashes,and pedal cause kills surgeon in six safest six, pedal sashes.,,

Io* that's just like Gertrude Stein! Even as I type this suspect excerpt it clari-fies as the subconscious code message of an accident. The sending for the sur-geon. The first aid with gfpsy sashes.

The cow that''' like gunpowder. . . may be a cause for being killed . . . but ifin in six minutes the surgeon arrives . . . tt. probability of safety. The simulta-neity of velocity-binding, sashes-pedalling ;f -"rr"ng"r,s bicycle.

2.

fhere is no particular advantage in groping for subject matter in a literaturethat is sufficiently satisfying as verbul d"riin, bo, thl point

"t irrr", for thosewho are confident of their ability to write GJrtrude Stein with their minds shut,is that her design could not attain the organic consistency that it does, werethere no intention back of it.

Kenneth Burke deducts from her efiectiveness the satisfying climax of subject.For it is rather the debris, always significant with that rhythm he analyses thathas attracted his attention, than the sudden potential, and, to a mind attunedprotracted illuminations of her subject which form ,h" ,;t essence of Ger-trude Stein's art.

Nevertheless it is disconcerting to follow with great elation certain passages Ihave quoted when unexpectedly time and space crash into a chaos of dislocateideas, while conversation wouid seem to i.oceed from the radiophonic ex-change of the universe. Yet you come up fo, alwith the impression that youhave experienced something more extensively than you ever have before . . .but what? The everything, the everywher", thl simurianeity of function.

Profilcs and, Interaiews

But these concussions become less frequent as again and again one reads her,

and each time her subject shows still more coherence. One must in fact go into

training to get Gertrude Stein.

Often one is liable to overlook her subject because her art gives such tremen'

dous proportions to the negligible that one can not see it all at once. As for in-

stance in ooHanding a lizard to anyone is a green thing receiving a curtain.

The shape is not present and the sensible way to have agony is not precautious.

Then the skirting is extreme and there is a lilac smell and no ginger. Halt and

suggest a leaf which has no circle and no singular center, this has that show

and does judge that there is a need of moving toward the equal height of ahot sinking surface."

To interpret her description of the lizard you have to place yourself in the

position of both Gertrude Stein and the lizard at once, so intimate is the liai'son of her observation with the sheer existence of her objective, that she in'vites you into the concentric vortex of consciousness involved in the most tri'fling transactions of incident.

Her action is inverted in the single sentence "Handling a lizard . . etc." Where

the act of the subject transforms into the possibility of the obiect.

'oThe change is not present . . . ." She has taken on the consciousness or rath'

er the unconsciousness of the lizard in the inexplicable predicament of itstransportation.

And in "The sensible way to have agony is not precautiousr" it's struggle to

retrieve its habitude.

How much beauty she can make out of so little. After the "green thing receiv-

ing the curtainr" this comparison of a lizard to a leaf.

'"Ihis has that show and does judge f' again the inversion. She is turning the

lizard outside in, its specular aspect fuses with its motor impulses and now

she represents the palm of the hand to you as a land surveyor might a proepect.

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To the advocates of Stein prohibition I must confess that the line "then the

skirting is extreme and there is a lilac smell and no ginger" is not clear to me;

the immediate impression I receive is that the puffing of the frightened rep-

tile's belly is being likened to a billo*irg skirt that the lilac shadow on the

flesh of the hand shunts into the smell of the lizard . . . . But why the ginger?

Something suggested ginger to the author and escaped her, so she denies the

ginger. 1he greatest incertitude experienced while reading Gertrude Stein is

the indecision as to whether you are psychoanalysing her, or she, you.

There is a good deal of ginger floating around in this book of. Geography and.

Plnys, as are also pins stuck about. The ginger so far escapes me, the pins Iaccept as an acute materialization of the concentric.

Compare this lizard episode with an example of a dream animated by the pro-jection of the intellect into the intimacy of the inanimate.

"The season gliding and the torn hangings receiving mending, all this shows

an example, it shows the force of sacrifice and likeness and disaster and a rea-

son." Tend,er Buttons.

Gertrude Stein possesses a power of evocation that gives the same lasting sub-

stance to her work that is found in the Book ol lob.

Take the colossal verse

"He spreadeth the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth

upon nothing." Iob

Which has the same mechanism as the eye-egg light episode and the lizard.curtain episode, and the analogy to Gertrude Stein is obvious in such pas-

sages as the following:

ooAmlaseaorawhale

Darkness itself

Who can stay the bottles of heaven

The chambers of heaven." lob

Profilcs and, Interaiew s

Like all modern art, this art of Gertrude Stein makes a demand for a creative

audience, by providing a stimulus, which although it proceeds from a com'

plete "ertheiic

organiration, leaves us unlimited latitude for personal response.

For each individual with his particular experience she must induce varying

interpretations, for the togician she must afford generous opportunity for in'

ferences entirely remote fror11 those of the artist approaching her writings'

There is a schoi"rly manipulation of the inversion of ideas, parallel to Alice

In the Looking Glass; one is nonplussed by the refutation of logic with its

myriad insinuations that surpass 1ogic, which Gertrude stein in her Plays

achieves through sYncoPation.

I point these things out in passing, to draw attention to the class of material she

brirrg, to the maiufactrr" of her new literature- If you can come to think of a

philosophy, apart from the intrication of your reason' leaving on your mem'

ory u., uUrtrr"t impress of its particularity as a perfume or a voice might do,

you can begin to sort out the vital elements in Gertrude Stein's achievement.

She has tackled an aesthetic analysis of the habits of consciousness in its lair,

prior to the traditionalization of its evolution'

perhaps the ideal enigma that the modernwould desire to solve is, o'whatwould

we know about "rythirrg,

if we didn't know anything about it? "'

' ' to track in-

tellection back to the embrYo.

For the spiritual record of the race is this nostalga for the crystallization of

the irreducible surplus of the abstract. The bankruptcy of mysticism declared

itself in an inability to locate this divine irritation, and the burden of its debt

to the evolution of consciousness has devolved upon the abstract art.

The pragmatic value of modernism lies in its tremendous recognition of the

.o*f"r,r"tion due to the spirit of democracy. Modernism is a prophet crying

in the wilderness of stabilized nature that humanity is wasting its aesthetic

time. For there is a considerable extension of time between the visits to the

picture gallery, the museum, the library. It asks'owhat is happening to your aes'

thetic consciousness during the long long intervals?"

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The flux of life is pouring its aesthetic aspect into your eyes, your ears-andyou ignore it because you are looking for your canons of beauty in some sortof frame or glass case or tradition. Modernism says: Why not each one of us,scholar or bricklayer' pleasurably realize all tfrat is impressing itself uponour subconscious, the thousand odds and ends which -"k" up your sensoryevery day life?

Modenrism has democratized the subject matter and, la betle rnatiire of art;through cubism the newspaper has assumed an aesthetic quality, through Ce-zilnns a plate has become more than something to put an apple ,porr-Br"r-cusi has given an evangelistic import to eggs, and Gertrude Si.i" has given usthe Word, in and for itself.

Would not life be lovelier _if

you were constantly overjoyed by the sublimelypure concavity of your wash bowls? The tubular dynamics of your cigarette?

fn reading Gertrude Stein one is assaulted by "

dual army of associated ideas,her associations and your own.

"This is the sun in. This is the lamb of lantern of chalk." Because of the jerk ofbeauty it contains shoots the imagination for a fraction of a second through as-sociated memories.

!f sun worship. Lamb worship. Lamb of, light of, the world. (Identical inchristian symbolism.) shepherd carries lanie.n. The lantefrl : lamb,s eyes.Chalk white of lamb. Lantern sunshine in chalk pit : absolution of whiteness- pascal lamb : chalk easter toy for peasants.

All this is personal, but something of the kind may happen to anyone whenGertrude Stein leaves Grammatical lacunae among her depictions and themind trips up and falls through into the subconscious sou.ce of associatedideas.

The uncustomary impetus of her style accelerates and extends the thoughtwave until it can vibrate a cosmos from a ray of light on a baa lamb.

Pro filcs and, Intnroiew s

This word picture which at first glance would seem to be a lamb being led past

a chalk piiby lantern at sun in (down) is revised when on reading further Imust conclude that it is still day light and I discover the lamb that carries it'self is itself the lantern of chalk.

And here let me profier my apologies to Gertrude Stein who may have inteuded

the description fo, . . . a daisy. The sun as the center, chalk as petal white, and

the lamb an indication of the season of the year'

Let us leave the ultimate elucidation of Gertrude Stein to infinity.

Apart from all analysis, the nahrral, the dEbonaire way to appreciate Gertrude

Stein, is as one would saunter along a country wayside on a fine day and pluck,

for its beauty, an occasional flower. So one sees suddenly:

"He does not look dead at all.The wind might have blown him."