Food: Gertrude Stein (Penguin Modern)

What a stupid book. It said absolutely nothing in the stupidest language possible. I read her monograph on Picasso, and of course the Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, so this seemed a safe bet for a pound, but nah. She should have stuck to collecting art.

Some of these I really liked and I kinda got. Particularly 'breakfast'.Others just left me slightly confused.Gertrude Stein is an interesting place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

Wonderful book of off the table madness. Really cheered me up. I love Stein. She is a visionary.

Thank goodness I only paid £1 for this. Not impressed 😑 ...examples of content -ChickenStick stick call then, stick stick sticking, sticking with a chicken. Sticking in a extra succession, sticking in.And -AsparagusAsparagus in a lean in a lean to hot. This makes it art and it is wet wet weather wet weather wet.I'd recommend buying something else...

This is a member of the Penguin Moderns, which are true pocket-sized books. It has 55 small pages. Gertrude Stein was an American living in in Paris. She published these poems in 1914 (1). This is not a book for vegetarians. The titles include beefsteak, mutton, fish, salmon and sausages, along with dairy products and assorted vegetables. The first years of the twentieth century in Paris were a great experimental period in the arts and Gertrude Stein knew many of the artists. Picasso painted her portrait in a proto-cubist style. The book begins with four prose-poems: Roastbeef (6 ½ pages), Mutton (2 ½ pages) Breakfast (3 ½ pages) and Sugar (2 pages). The remaining entries are shorter, varying from one page to a few paragraphs to a sentence.On reading these poems, my first thought was “What the . . .?”. My second thought was “Why did Penguin include this in their Penguin Moderns series, which is limited to only fifty titles?”. This is poetry that passeth all understanding. There is no introduction, which is badly needed. The critical reaction to these writings was split equally into two camps, that the poems are bonkers and that the poems are not-bonkers (2). The not-bonkers camp describes them as early examples of Cubist writing.Roastbeef begins “In the inside there is sleeping, in the outside there is reddening, in the morning there is meaning, in the evening there is feeling”. So far, so modernist, but there is also a paragraph that seems traditionally poetic, whether deliberate or not: “Lovey snipe and tender turn, excellent vapor and slender butter, all the splinter and the trunk, all the poisonous darkening drunk, all the joy in weak success, all the joyful tenderness, all the section and the tea, all the stouter symmetry.” Later there is “Claiming nothing, not claiming anything, not a claim in everything, collecting claiming, all this makes a harmony, it even makes a succession". The not-bonkers camp explains this sentence as a manifesto where Stein "claims nothing" in an attempt to capture the object's realistic nature when stripped of the connotations of its typical representation.Mutton begins with “A letter which can wither, a learning which can suffer and an outrage which is simultaneous is principal. It ends with “A meal in mutton, mutton, why is lamb cheaper, it is cheaper because so little is more. Lecture, lecture and repeat instruction.”Cranberries is less than a page long. It begins “Could there not be a sudden date, could there not be in the present settlement of old age pensions, could there not be by a witness, could there be.” Celery is shorter “Celery tastes where in curled lashes and little bits and mostly in remains. / A green acre is so selfish and so pure and so enlivened.” Rhubarb is a single sentence “Rhubarb is susan not susan not seat in bunch toys not wild and laughable not in little places not in neglect and vegetable not in fold coal age not please.”The final poem is “A Centre in a Table”: “It was a way a day, this made some sum. Suppose a cod liver a cod liver is an oil, suppose a cod liver oil is tunny, suppose a cod liver oil tunny is pressed suppose a cod liver oil tunny pressed is china and secret with a bestow a bestow reed, a reed to be a reed, in a reed to be. / Next to me next to a folder next to a folder some waiter, next to a folder some waiter and re letter and read her. Read her with her for less."_________________________________________________________________________________________________________(1) These poems were first published in  Tender   Buttons  in 1914. This contains three sections titled "Objects", "Food", and "Rooms".(2) Stein used language experimentally to create relationships between the word and the things seen using a realist perspective. Rather than using conventional syntax, she experimented with alternative grammar to emphasize the role of rhythm and sound in an object's "moment of consciousness". She deconstructed this relationship. The cubist approach reconfigures a one-sided perspective to reveal a subject's essence through multiple perspectives. She cites Picasso's influence on her work, saying "I began to play with words then. I was a little obsessed by words of equal value. Picasso was painting my portrait at that time, and he and I used to talk this thing over endlessly. At the time he had just begun on Cubism".

Stein’s work was always experimental and this is no different. What I like about this is that it’s about food and that at the same time, it’s not. It’s about life and how our food relates back to the lives that we live.