Customer Reviews

Gertrude Stein Reads

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Gertrude Stein's work is meant to be read. She accomplished the same ends with words as did the cubists with paint. Her work defies linear syntax and conventional gramerical boundaries. She takes an object and strips all traces of reality from that object and presents it so that only the idea of that object remains. And it is the idea that Stein considered the most important. Her writing is frustrating at first and this audio casset makes Stein more accessible. You get a feel for the flow of her poetry. The rhyme and timbre that is elusive on the page is brought to life. Although this selection is short and doesn't give a hint as to when or where or under what circumstances it was recorded it still provides the reader with the essence of Stein.

While this tape is, as already observed, a brief selection of Stein's reading, it is essential to anyone who loves, or would like to learn to love, her work. The cadences and intonations of her readings reveal everything we need to know about her purposes and methods as a writer; even the most hermetic and arcane of her work becomes "readable" if her voice is present as one reads. This is not merely a precious historical document, but the perfect gateway to the treasures of Stein.

Briefly, Gertrude, briefly and succinctly, succinctly is as it was and it was as it was remembered. A golden voice, an only voice a voice is as separate as a letter not sent, a letter not sent, not written not not sent not not delivered. A voice to stop stars, stars as they shine, shine shine as is as it was remembered stars as wars not remembered not remembered too painfully, not rememebered as succinctly as briefly as this tape is. A winner in brief, brief as a winner a golden winnner with a voice to stop stars. Miss Stein the secret is still with you.

As the famous review of Anthony Adverse went, similarly goes my review of this tedious little tape: "A Huge Mountain of Trash". It, however, is only huge in its trashiness, not in size or content. Perhaps my review of this would be more accurate as: "A small pile of gibberish."