/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.23034284]

I saw a post on social media about Gertude Stein being the most influential writer of the 20th century. I totally disregarded this opinion, mostly due to me not being a fan of her writing. After considering it for a few days now and remembering her life story, it makes perfect sense. Do any other /lit/ anons agree or disagree with this sentiment?

[Anonymous No.23034287]

>>23034284
was it by this guy? I think I'm starting to agree...

[Anonymous No.23034316]

>>23034287
Yep, him. Man has so many based literature takes

[Anonymous No.23034454]

>>23034284
She was a massive influence on literature, far more than most of the big names of her day.
>>23034287
Retarded "hot take." Hemingway's minimalism is ultimately Stein's minimalism, she groomed him in the literary sense but the biggest difference between them is that Hemingway exploited being a celebrity and Stein didn't so Hemingway became a household name. In some ways Hemingway is more subtle than Stein, Stein draws attention to the implied with various literary techniques like repetition where Hemingway just implies and that "middlebrow audience" completely misses it and just sees the adventure and the celebrity. Hemingway does not hold a candle to Stein but he is not "safer," just more read because he was pretty much the Paris Hilton (yes, oldfag out of touch with the times) of his day.

[Anonymous No.23034469]

>>23034454
>but he is not "safer," just more read because he was pretty much the Paris Hilton (yes, oldfag out of touch with the times) of his day.
Is that so? I think he is indeed safer.

[Anonymous No.23034518]

>>23034469
But you can not say why?

[Anonymous No.23034602]

>>23034518
His writing style is far more poppy. Reading something like For Whom the Bell Tolls is like reading a movie. Dialogue, dialogue, action, action. Reading Stein is something more abstract and some would say mystic/cryptic. Plus, just the themes they would use. Hemingway is an easier sell.

[Anonymous No.23034615]

>>23034284
>google her early life
>
Yeah I dont think she influenced much of anything other than how much smoke the oven produced.

[Anonymous No.23034629]

>>23034284
>>23034454
lol
lmao
lmao again
like lmao
seriously, this seems like a manufactured legacy that's common among "influential" jewish artists

[Anonymous No.23034640]

>>23034602
> i am middlebrow
Like I said, Hemingway did not draw attention to the implied and people read him because of the image he created for himself which is ultimately the image of a broken old man and that is very relatable. You just restated everything I said but in middlebrow. Stein is easier than Beckett, people are just turned off of her because of the reputation.
>>23034629
Even if you ignore her writing she had a massive influence as a mentor that can not be ignored unless you are a retard. You are a retard.

[Anonymous No.23034652]

>>23034640
>people read him because of the image he created for himself which is ultimately the image of a broken old man and that is very relatable.
No one gives a shit about his made up mythology these days. His novels are recommended because they're easy books to read for the plebs. He's a high school tier author.

[Anonymous No.23034659]

>>23034652
We get it, you are a plot fag.

[Anonymous No.23034662]

>>23034652

[Anonymous No.23034688]

>>23034659
We get it, you're a cult-of-personality fag.

[Anonymous No.23034694]

>Never hear about Stein a single time before today
>Nobody I've ever known in real life has ever mentioned her, not my friends, not my professors, not even random art hoes, nobody
>Nobody on /lit/ has mentioned Stein for the five years I've been visiting this place.
>Nobody has ever once mentioned her books by name either, never
>Suddenly, today, there is randomly a Gertrude Stein thread in the catalog, and then another Gertrude Stein thread
>One of them a random twitter screenshot of a guy using her to attack Hemingway for no reason
>The other calling her massively influential when I have literally never heard her name in my entire life
>Google her
>She's best known for hosting Hemingway and Fitzgerald at her Salon and that's about it
What the fuck is happening here
Is this some attempt at manufacturing a new Guenon

[Anonymous No.23034706]

>>23034640
>she had a massive influence
But how? Where? To whom or why?
I've never hear of her in any shape or form until today and I'm avid reader of classic and early 20th century literature.
You say that because it's what the media with the correct opinion says so or because it's a fact?

[Anonymous No.23034721]

>>23034688
>waffle
If that was the case I would not have said that Hemingway can not hold a candle to Stein.
>>23034694
I mentioned Stein yesterday and a few days ago in the Beckett thread that is surprisingly long lived. I bring her up fairly often. No idea about the twitter thing, assumed standard twitter posting.
>>23034706
>But how? Where? To whom or why?
Hemingway would not exist without Stein, thats the big one for lit. But just go read about her Paris salon and all the people in the arts who clamored for her advice, its a long list and a good many across multiple disciplines sought her guidance.

[Anonymous No.23034722]

>>23034694
Stein was in vogue in back in the day but fell out of favor because she liked fascism and virginia wolfe fit the early 1900's feminist writer required diversity quota better for modern readers.

[Anonymous No.23034776]

>>23034694
dumb frogposter

[Anonymous No.23034833]

>>23034284
>the most influential writer of the 20th century
No, sorry, but thanks for playing. Please try again.

[Anonymous No.23034835]

>>23034721
>If that was the case I would not have said that Hemingway can not hold a candle to Stein.
You brought up his "mythology" despite being irrelevant these days.

[Anonymous No.23034850]

>>23034694
Didn't Stein's "The Making of Americans" make the /lit/ top-100 list four or five years ago?

[Anonymous No.23034899]

>>23034284
Wyndham Lewis's pages against her are for me quite definitive.
Stein is for me a typical writer for "men of letters and nothing else".
She was highly influential, her style can be seen in Hemingway, some Joyce, Faulkner etc. even indirectly. But it's a rotten kind of literature, childish, "faux naif" as Lewis describes them, literature that is made to be more or less hummed in an incantatory manner and in which life, ideas and the truth play but little part. This is a very popular sort of literature nowadays, literature as a poor man's music, free of ideas, irrational, primitive, the molly bloom incantation.
Stein gives you a string of 1000 words meaning approximately nothing or little, full of repetitions, like a shamanic prayer, and you're supposed to call it great literature. Well, there is indeed a fascinating rhythm to it, but if that's what you want maybe listen to Jacob Gerswhine, no? It's also, from a purely artistic perspective, considerably inferior to what had already been done in France since the times of Mallarmé and Verlaine, and in her own time by Paul Valèry -- it can in fact be considered a pseudo-intellectual dilution of the musical poets of the symbolist style, who did it better and more intelligently and with less insistence upon ridiculous things.
So... There is indeed a case to be made she was one of the most influential writers of the century, but mostly because it was a rotten century rich in rotten writers. It's the victory of verbalism over life, images and thought, "wordceldom" over an adequate and full apprehension of reality as you have in truly great modern writers like Stendhal, Goethe, Flaubert and such others, or Borges and Kafka if you prefer shorter prose...

1/2

[Anonymous No.23034908]

>>23034899
2/2

He has more pages on her, but I'm too lazy to post and it's been some time since I read the book ('Time and Western Man') so I won't remember the best ones.
The book also contains much fair criticism of Pound, by the way.

[Anonymous No.23034914]

>>23034694
Gertude Stein is talked about in english Feminist classes and talked often as one of the most unique writers who ever lived. I have no idea how you've never heard of her.

[Anonymous No.23034940]

>>23034833
While I prefer Pynchon to Stein his influence does not compare.
>>23034835
And? I should ignore the past because you say things are different right now? You are play games and trying to be right, waffling all over the place.
>>23034850
Think it made the top 100 more than once, we have had more than a few Stein anons. If memory serves the last time (possible only time?) was mostly the doings of an anon who never read her but made loads of threads asking about The Making of Americans, really showed the herd mentality non-reader status of /lit/. But he got me to read Stein even if it was Modern Fiction Studies Volume 42 that really got me into her, I hunted it down because of the interview with Paul Bowels but reading the rest of the issue which is all about Stein got me interested. I love Bowels.
>>23034899
>they are definitive because I agree with them even if no one else does!
Do you have anything resembling an identity? or do you just appeal to authority on everything. Lewis is pretty good but was shit and self serving when it came to criticism, he could have learned a thing or two from Stein on that front.
>>23034914
She is talked about in English lit classes in general, the feminism angle is somewhat forced in that she was not a feminist in that sense.

[Anonymous No.23034955]

>>23034940
>And? I should ignore the past because you say things are different right now? You are play games and trying to be right, waffling all over the place.
He's read these days because he's an easy read for retards and highschoolers, not because his "mythology". He's safer than Stein because what he writes is easier and more palatable for plebs, not because he's some myth.

[Anonymous No.23035165]

>>23034955
>missed the point completely
If it was not for that mythology he would have been largely forgotten. He sold multiple generations of plotfags on his lifestyle and without that he would be no bigger than Stein, still an influence but most of his reputation is selling a lifestyle to aimeless teenagers with big dreams they will never follow through with. "Plebs" can plotfag their way through most of Stein just as easily as they can plotfag their way through Hemingway, it is easy to reduce Stein to platitudes if you have actually read her.

[Anonymous No.23035176]

>>23034940
>Do you have anything resembling an identity? or do you just appeal to authority on everything. Lewis is pretty good but was shit and self serving when it came to criticism, he could have learned a thing or two from Stein on that front.
Everything? You only ever heard one of my opinions.
Stein lived 100 years ago. Many pages have been written on her. There are no high mysteries in human-made things, and people, specially smart people, have the capacity to the see the truth, so it's only natural that some critics would have discovered the most important truths about Stein's style, and it's only natural that I agree with them.
I suppose you are one of those who repeats old ideas while believing them to be original, groundbreaking, and you feel very special while doing so. In reality, 90% of what we think has already been thought, and written, by someone else, I just happen to recognize this fact.
"Appeal to authority" does not mean what you think it means. An appeal to authority is an argument of the form: 1) X said Y; 2) therefore, Y is true. That was not my argument. I didn't make an argument. I posted Lewis's criticism, with which I agree. It's less an argument than a description, in my opinion accurate.
I have nothing to add to Lewis's criticism because I don't think there is anything particularly important to be added. I think it's a very good and true criticism, and I have nothing to add to truth.
Also,
>they are definitive because I agree with them even if no one else does!
For me, yes, they are, which is what I wrote: for me. Because I think they're true. I frankly do not care what modern literary critics in general think, I do not consider them very smart.
And Lewis's book is not widely known, so there are no many people who could agree with its specific criticisms to begin with, most of them being unfamiliar with the book. But as far as people who rejected Stein's writing, there have been many such, she is not unanimously appreciated by writers and critics.

[Anonymous No.23035217]

>>23035176
>Everything? You only ever heard one of my opinions.
I asked, I did not state definitively that you lacked an identity. Point was that you offered nothing but an appeal to authority which is quite weak when it is only supported by an anonymous post. An appeal to authority only has as much authority as the person who made the appeal.
>I suppose you are one of those who repeats old ideas while believing them to be original
lol, you are the one who tried to support your view with the words of someone who has been dead almost as long as Stein has. Whose ideas have I have been repeating?
>For me, yes, they are, which is what I wrote:
Your believing something to be true does not make it definitive by any standard, you can state something definitively (which you did not do) but you can not assert something as definitive without backing it up with considerably more than you did. It is just something you think is true and your post added nothing beyond vague allusions and "just trust me bro, a dead guy agrees with me."

[Anonymous No.23035219]

>>23034899
I wouldn't trust a fascist's opinions on a Jewish artist just like I wouldn't trust a Jew's opinion on a fascist artist. Both are likely coming from the School of Resentment.

[Anonymous No.23035260]

If you don't like stein you don't understanding writing, it's really that simple

[Anonymous No.23035278]

>>23034284
Some nigga is reeeaally trying to make that tweet a thang here

[Anonymous No.23035282]

>>23035217
>just trust me bro, a dead guy agrees with me
That's a bizarre way of describing my post, which contains no appeal to authority. That's like accusing someone of appeal to authority for posting, say, an argument by Hume against induction and saying "I think this is a good argument". The person is not telling you to agree with it, that's what the argument itself is telling: the person is merely telling you Hume made an argument with which he agrees, and posting it so that you may see it.
I agree with a lot of Lewis's description of Stein's work. Specifically: I think she's a fake naive. I think she writes in an incantatory musical style that is unnecessarily and stupid. I think she's playing a part. I think she could write more or less like an intelligent person, but pretends she can't. I think she's purposefully trying to be so very modern and so very smart and so ahead of you and dismissive of you and there is nothing else to her, no substance, only attitude, a child's attitude.
Likewise, saying his view is "definitive for me" means that, once I read it, I agreed with it (though I had had similar thoughts earlier) and did no much think about it later, because I thought the argument was very good. That's what "definitive for me" means.
Anyway, what would constitute proof here?
Do you want me to quote a passage? Lewis himself quotes a few, as I remember it, compares her to child literary characters and such, showing similarities of style. Here's one that's very celebrated, though I don't think he quoted it:

"If I told him would he like it. Would he like it if I told him. Would he like it would Napoleon would Napoleon would would he like it.
If Napoleon if I told him if I told him if Napoleon. Would he like it if I told him if I told him if Napoleon. Would he like it if Napoleon if Napoleon if I told him. If I told him if Napoleon if Napoleon if I told him. If I told him would he like it would he like it if I told him.
Now.
Not now.
And now.
Now.
Exactly as as kings.
Feeling full for it.
Exactitude as kings.
So to beseech you as full as for it.
Exactly or as kings.
Shutters shut and open so do queens. Shutters shut and shutters and so shutters shut and shutters and so and so shutters and so shutters shut and so shutters shut and shutters and so. And so shutters shut and so and also. And also and so and so and also.
"

What's in there, exactly?
>incantatory rhythm
>childish writing, full of repetitions, broken syntax, lack of reasoning, and such, with a comic effect
>lack of thought
>lack of vision, images
>high level of randomness, as far as I can see, meaning, for me, lack of artistry, i.e., one could write similar things almost automatically, as did the surrealists

How is Lewis's description not accurate?
I think it describes well that kind of style.
What do you think it misses?

[Anonymous No.23035291]

>>23034454
>Hemingway's minimalism is ultimately Stein's minimalism
Not how it works. You don't get what he's saying.

[Anonymous No.23035335]

>>23035282
So Joyce got to write FW after he read her? Seems like she was trying to channel her inner schizo like this.

[Anonymous No.23035350]

Another ‘influencer’ of the 20th century downwind of Otto Weininger

[Anonymous No.23035357]

>>23035282
>I didn't make an appeal to authority
>How was my appeal to Lewis wrong
Using Lewis (or Hume) to bolster an opinion supported only with vague allusions is an appeal to authority. I can make Lewis out to look like a joke if I wanted to by selecting passage which support that or I can keep things in context and look at him on the whole, which should I do? I never said all of Stein is absolute gold, did not even imply it but writing her off because of a poem or even writing off her prose because of her poetry or her drama because of her prose is ridiculous, should I write off Lewis's novels because his paintings are hackneyed mishmashes of related styles forced together without any real sense? His paintings are much like his criticism, technically proficient but that is about it, he follows the forms but does not understand them.

I am not much for poetry and can't offer much there, I will play the game if you really want but you will have to provide an interpretation, your observations are meaningless without that.

Also, If you can not write in proper paragraphs I am going to start ignoring you, at least reddit space so it is not obnoxious to read if you must throw in all those retarded newlines.
>>23035291
That clause was not a rebuttal or the point.

[Anonymous No.23035363]

>>23034284
What’s the easiest Stein to read? A lot of books I’ve been reading mention her and I’m beginning to think it’s a sign. Some of her stuff seems only a step below something like Finnegans Wake though

[Anonymous No.23035368]

>>23035357
>That clause was not a rebuttal or the point.
There's no point. The entire thread is you saying nothing.

[Anonymous No.23035373]

>>23035357
>Also, If you can not write in proper paragraphs I am going to start ignoring you, at least reddit space
Feel free.

[Anonymous No.23035374]

>>23034284
step aside, fags

[Anonymous No.23035384]

>>23035363
From what I have read of her she never approaches FW levels of abstraction and word fuckery. Three Lives is the easy in, if you have read Ulysses or Beckett's Trilogy then you can jump right into Making of Americans without issue if you want something more challenging.

[Anonymous No.23035392]

>>23035384
I’ve read both but from what I’ve sampled of Stein, I just find it more jarring and tedious. Maybe it simply takes time to get used to

[Anonymous No.23035423]

>>23035392
How is Three Lives jarring? I could not call it tedious either but I can see how someone could see it that way, really can not see how it could be called jarring though. Same goes for Making of Americans but there I can see some room for viewing it as jarring. Perhaps I just don't understand what you mean by jarring.

[Anonymous No.23035427]

>>23035423
I’ve only read portions of Tender Buttons. It has very impressionistic writing, if that’s the word

[Anonymous No.23035439]

The Making of Americans is a mania-inducing book

[Anonymous No.23035443]

>>23035427
Oh, you read both Ulysses and Beckett's Trilogy, for what ever reason I thought you meant you read both Three Lives and Making of Americans. I never read Tender Buttons, not big on poetry so I can not say much there but Three Lives and Making of Americans are cohesive novels and not experimental collections of poetry that suggest a novel so should be easier going. Three Lives is fairly traditional modernism, Making of Americans is probably the closest you can get to a Joyce and Beckett collaboration.

[Anonymous No.23035445]

>>23035439
in what way?

[Anonymous No.23035480]

>>23035219
There's nothing to trust or mistrust, you bloomian imbecile, just read his description, read Stein (prose or poetry) and verify whether his description is accurate or not (it is).

[Anonymous No.23035490]

>>23035480
rude

[Anonymous No.23035994]

>>23034284
>I saw a post on social media
You mean the thread you made yesterday that got deleted for being low-quality twatter screenshot of a middlebrow literal who?

[Anonymous No.23036198]

>>23034454
Hemingway also uses repetition quite a lot. Not the same degree as Stein (but then again, who was), but he does use it.

[Anonymous No.23036202]

>>23034640
Making of Americans is far harder than every other Beckett save Worstward ho! Yes, I have read both. Tender buttons is still harder.

[Anonymous No.23036207]

>>23034899
>>23034908
Ignore this guy, he is a Beckett groupie and it frequently turns out that he hasn't read the writers he is criticizing.

[Anonymous No.23036208]

Late Beckett was just a poorer Stein copycat btw.

[Anonymous No.23036211]

If I'm allowed to have a nuanced opinion, Stein and those influenced by her tend to be those kinds of fruity artists whose feet don't quite touch the ground. Aging potheads who aren't as sharp as they used to be. Sometimes it works, sometimes it's not being corny and lame on purpose and the work suffers as much as the audience suffers when one of them is interviewed.

[Anonymous No.23036551]

/lit/ just hates her because she's Jewish. All the rest is an excuse.

[Anonymous No.23036558]

Stein is great - and difficult

[Anonymous No.23036574]

>>23034694
https: //warosu.org/lit/?task=search&ghost=false&search_text=gertrude+stein

[Anonymous No.23036581]

>>23034694
>One of them a random twitter screenshot of a guy using her to attack Hemingway for no reason
The reason is because Hemingway sucks

[Anonymous No.23036688]

Kek at this homosexual absolutely seething ITT in defense of Stein. Probably the same retard who said he’s the only one to know of obscure writers like Lispector and John Hawkes. Certainly writes like that homosexual. My professor, a prominent modernist scholar, only mentioned Stein in passing in 400-level modernism seminar.

[Anonymous No.23036732]

>>23036207
Beckett is a similar kind of writer, also poisonous, though less.

[Anonymous No.23036741]

>>23036732
>poisonous
fag