Three Lives (Dover Thrift Editions) [Paperback]

Gertrude Stein (Author)

Book Description

Series: Dover Thrift Editions | Publication Date: March 17, 2011

The first of Gertrude Stein's publications, this accessible 1909 volume was an experiemntal work for its time and established the author's reputation as a master of language and a voice for women. In three separate tales, Stein invests the lives of three working class women with extraordinary insights into race, sex, gender, and other feminist issues.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Consists of three character studies of women; "The Good Anna"--a kind but domineering German servingwoman; "Melanctha"--an uneducated but sensitive black girl; "The Gentle Lena"--a pathetically feebleminded young German maid. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

About the Author

Gertrude Stein was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, in 1874. As a child she lived in Vienna and Paris before returning to the United States to study at Radcliffe College and Johns Hopkins Medical School but left before taking her degree. In 1903 Stein moved to France where she lived with Alice B. Toklas. Her first novel, Three Lives, was published in 1909. Its prose style is highly unconventional and virtually dispenses with standard punctuation. Tender Buttons (1914) was even more experimental and sold extremely poorly. Other work by Stein include her theory of writing, Composition and Explanation (1926), The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933), two volumes of memoirs, Everybody's Autobiography (1937) and Wars I Have Seen (1945). Stein died at Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1946.

Marianne DeKoven is Professor of English at Rutgers University. She is the author of A Different Language: Gertrude Stein’s Experimental Writing, Rich and Strange: Gender, History, and Modernism, and Utopia Limited: The Sixties and the Emergence of the Postmodern. She is the editor of Feminist Locations: Global and Local, and Theory, Practice, and Agency: Working Papers from the Women in the Public Sphere Seminar 1997–1998. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications (March 17, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0486280594
• ISBN-13: 978-0486280592
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #527,736 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A suitable book for Gertrude Stein beginners, April 7, 1999

By 

K. A. Mera "K. A. Mera" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Three Lives (Dover Thrift Editions) (Paperback)

Stein's Three Lives, first published in 1909, is one of the easier books of her in terms of language. The third story in it, "Melanctha", which is an adaption of her earlier "Q.E.D.", has caused much controversy, mainly due to its racist remarks and stereotypical representations of African - Americans. It is what lies beyond this, however, that distinguishes "Melanctha" from 19th C novels and renders it one of the most important works within the Modernist canon. In her typical style of a "continuous present" and her free usage of a pseudo-vernacular she describes the relationship of Melanctha, a mulatta, with Dr. Jefferson Campbell, also a mulatto. Their struggle "to understand" is a battle of different modes of perception and thus connects the book to Stein's most important teacher, William James. Despite its racist depiction of African Americans, this book is a must for all interested in the beginning of Modernism presented by Gertrude Stein.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Setting An Intense Mood By Using Blocks of Repitition in the Prose: Not Stream of Consciousness, March 4, 2007

By 

J. E. Robinson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Three Lives (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) (Paperback)

This is not a great novella or a set of great short stories but it is a very fascinating use of prose to create drama and intense feelings. Readers expecting to discover another Tolstoy will be very disappointed. Her writing style is very unusual but she does not write great novels. Hemingway and Katherine Porter claim that she influenced their work. She probably did; but, she is a writer's writer presenting unusual structure and prose. She is not a great novelist.

Stein published 26 books starting with this collection of three stories in 1909. This is her first book and she self published only 500 hard copies. She had to fight with the publisher to get it published her way. He wanted to make it more conventional. It was not written as a novel aimed at wide popular sales. She was seeking a smaller and a more critical audience.

When it was written, she had left Baltimore and was living in Paris on money inherited from her father. She had the luxury of being able to do whatever she wanted. As a result, she bought paintings and wrote experimental fiction.

This is a collection of three short stories. This particular book has an excellent introduction by Professor Ann Charters plus it has Q.E.D., which is another very brief collection of short stories and under 50 pages.

What is she doing here? She uses very simple characters, stereotypes really, as a vehicle to try out her experimental prose. It is not stream of consciousness - that was made famous by Joyce a few years later - but rather it is repetition of blocks of prose to create mood. She got the idea of repetition from painters who use repetitive brush strokes to create paintings. It sounds like an odd ball idea but it is original and effective.

There are three short stories here: The Good Anna, Melanctha, and The Gentle Lena. The first and last are about young German immigrant women and their struggle to control and be controlled, either by men or other women.

The most dramatic work and the longest is the over 100 page novella, Melanctha. This describes a very turbulent relationship between a young black doctor and the mixed race, half black, Melanctha, in Bridgeport. They have a conflicted relationship filled with stress. Stein manages to effectively bring the stress to the reader by repeating blocks of their conversations with just slight changes, paragraph to paragraph. After a while the reader feels that they are in the room with the arguing couple.

So, is this a great novel? No. But it is a highly original and interesting use of prose to create the intense mood of the story. It is considered by many as a milestone in American literature. Stein was tempted to follow in the tracks set by Henry James, but in the end struck her own unique chord.

Of her 26 works, this is the first and one of her four most important works. The other three are Tender Buttons (1914), The Making of Americans (1925), and The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933). The last was a best seller and brought her widespread fame.

For a good selection of her works, there is a 736 page collection by Vintage, March 17, 1990, ISBN-10: 0679724648 or ISBN-13: 978-0679724643 which contains all the good Stein works including Melanctha.

20 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Turn off your TV., October 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Three Lives (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) (Paperback)

This is an important work of literature. The use of language to tell stories beyond what can typically be told in narrative was radical at the time. Students of early 20th Century American literature, students of gender studies, students of American studies should all be required to read it. Not an uplifting book and certainly not a book to recommend to your friends who spend more time watching TV and going to movies than reading.

There is a controversy surrounding the book's central character named Melanctha. It is unfortunate that television dominates culture in this era. It would seem that when a work of literature depicts a black person, a typical reader expects Cliff Huxtable to appear in one of his dandy sweaters to dispense advice to one of his children in DKNY clothing. Or readers of popular literature (books with bumpy covers) become offended when African American characters do not resemble one of Alice Walker's or Alex Haley's romanticized figures.

Melanctha is realistic. She is most likely a composite of many of the women with whom Stein came in contact while studying medicine in urban Baltimore. Melanctha's tragedy is that her intellect will go to waste because she is black and because she is a woman. Her sin (to some readers) seems to be that she talks like a black woman from Baltimore at that time would talk. So don't buy this book if you are offended by the way black people acted or German people acted (there is a story about German immigrants, as well) in Baltimore in the early 20th century.

If you are a fan of popular literature...Haley, Alice Walker, and the Cosby show are probably more up your alley. If you are interested in a very interesting experimental work from early 20th Century, by a woman who took her appreciation of post-impressionist art and tried to apply it to literature...this is it.