Customer Reviews

Ida

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This seemingly nonsensical book has a magical lyricism, a genius, that surfaces stronger and stronger with each reading. Her every paragraph is composed of triple entendres that are fraught with humor and meaning.

I first read Ida in college, when I had just started on what would be my life-long love affair with Gertrude Stein. While I've reread other works, I haven't revisited this one since then.

I always find it quite difficult to review Stein. I love her work, but as much for the poetry in it as for anything else. I find myself continually surprised and delighted by her wordplay and I have a hard time understanding why it seems to be pretty generally thought that she was difficult on purpose. As always, I don't find the text particularly difficult and I found myself coming away with a smile on my face from the fun and wordplay-- sensual love of the text. I'm willing to concede that maybe I'm just not genius enough to appreciate the really inaccessible bits, but then I don't really miss them.

Ida is an ordinary woman, with parts of her life extraordinary-- much like the lives of everybody. She has a twin (real or imaginary), dogs, husbands, ideas. And what happens is what happens to us all-- she lives her life.

I'd recommend it, but then I know that I really love Stein's work. If you haven't read her before then the The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas may be the best thing to get used to her diction.