Stein Consciousness

A stream of consciousness. A rhythm – water tripping over stones; a word portrait – a face made up from, out of words. A question, many of them, a Cubist answer. The limits of language stretched, and stretched. And yet they still do not say, do not convey, all that the writer wanted. But each word is at least animated – new life given to it, rebuilt differently to than before. The neglected remembered and the old reinvigorated; then joined. A new city fashioned from the tired, calling to itself (and its creator) all eyes, all attention. Inside and outside, a citizen and tourist attraction in hurried, harried lives. Out of all the novel works of that generation Stein's ironically have survived.

*

Putting something across … Something put across … What? Chattings and still-born thoughts, that is, those that aren't quite ready. Fragments that join, unite to make a riddle. Writing in little pieces and in little places, opening many little doors and causing other little doors to close. 'Culture is power. Culture.' And 'the thread is the language of yesterday.' That is not the modern way, that is the Cubist way. The method used by Stein, a fascinating mind, even more of a puzzle than Joyce or Proust. 'There are ways of admiring something.' Yes, and by writing of her writings I am doing so. And by quoting from I am doing so again, hoping that by scrambling her lines I will find some clarity, that I will throw off some of the exhaustion that comes with reading her longer pieces; that winding stream is harder to follow. 'A cloud of white' briefly lifts, some partial understanding is gained; 'a chorus of all bright birds' pipes up, and then just as suddenly as they commenced to sing stop; the cloud again descends and casts a white-grey light over the page.

The shorter pieces in Geography & Plays are more the thing. The thing that puts something across.

*

'Put something down. Put something down some day … in my hand … in my hand writing. Put something down some day in my hand writing.' It's like she gets stuck, stuck like a needle in a groove, repeating the same lines over and over, adding to or varying them, changing the order of their words or amending one or two to vary the sense. This can go on for some time. The reader enters a kind of trance, eyes skimming, taking nothing in. Not reading, not reading. Another one.

*

Many words read appear English, but their combination at times displeases; joined as they are all sense is distorted, and no sense is made. They are a doorway to a rare find, a rare mind. To Stein: living in thinking, 'You have to feel what you write.' But the reader does not.

*

STEIN SPEECH

'What have I to say. I cannot understand words. There is a way of speaking English … anybody can begin and go on … by twice repeating you change the meaning you actually change the meaning. And finish. This makes it more interesting. I shall state what I think and study. Instinct. Instinct or reason. Instinct or reason. I study very much. And make lists. I will get so that I can write a story. I am going to conquer. I am going to be flourishing. I am going to be industrious. A beginning, no middle, no ending.'

Picture credit: Stein in 1935, Carl van Vechten (source: Wikipedia).

See Geography & Plays (with an introduction by Sherwood Anderson) by Gertrude Stein.

From journal, January 2023.