9/23 On Gertrude's ......

After reading the selection from Gertrude Stein’s “How to write,” I have come to an obvious conclusion: It’s complete nonsense. But I understand that this was the point of her writings; to do away with lofty cryptic meanings and have the reader indulge in the more primitive pleasure of rhythm and sound. The generation of writers in which Stein was a part of strongly believed that, “the instincts of man were superior to the reasonings of the rational mind.” But there seems to be some method to this madness; her words are not just jumbles of words and phrases that have nothing to do with each other. I would assume that Stein wrote her work with some kind of organization and meaning in her mind, and I would be curious to find out if she did write with her own kind of personal meaning. While this is great for herself, it cuts out the reader-writer relationship, and this makes it very difficult to read. While I can appreciate her writing rhythm, his gets quite arduous and boring after a while. If I wanted to be indulged rhythmically, I would listen to some good music, and be infinitely more entertained than by Stein’s self-indulging, rambling, mother goose-like blather