 
|
|
 |
|
3 Lives
by Gertrude Stein
| Price: |
$9.95 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. |
|
Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
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.
| Customer Reviews: |
|
| |
| Important For Its Time, But Showing Its Age |
| Customer Rating: 3 out of 5 |
 |
|
This may have been a groundbreaking piece of work in speaking in the vernacular of people of the American lower classes, but now it reads as a little stilted and (especially in the case of the middle story, about a black woman who grew up fatherless and who tries to find and make a life with an intellectual man) a little condescending toward her own characters.
Clearly, the stories are meticulously crafted; she meant them to be this way. She just never gets inside the minds of her characters, treating them like marionettes on sticks instead of living within them, even for the few dozen pages of each story.
I have to admit, I couldn't stop thinking, "You know, Henry James would have moved this along by now." That may not be fair, and it's not like these stories are unreadable, not by a long stretch, but they're the literary equivalent of those hour-long documentaries on late night cable news stations: the camera-eye shows more sympathy than empathy, and it's understood from the get-go that a good end isn't really on the table for any of these characters.
|
| Setting An Intense Mood By Using Blocks of Repitition in the Prose: Not Stream of Consciousness |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
 |
|
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.
|
| An amazing little volume |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
|
|
If you like experimental language and can still be surprised by linguistic expressions you thought to be impossible, you have come to the right place - get this book and read "Three Lives". It is a wonderful collection of short stories about three different women who struggle with life each in their own way, and Gertrude Stein's descriptions express linguistically, what the souls of these girls go through: Torture, boredom, helplessness, violence, love, sexual desire. Has there ever before been such an emotional language? I doubt it. The edition by Mondial (ISBN 978-1595690425 or 1595690425) includes an introduction by "enfant terrible" Carl Van Vechten, an essayist and photographer, who knew Gertrude Stein very well and delivers an interesting insight into her way of writing (and living) and the history of this book.
|
| Overrated book by overrated Genius |
| Customer Rating: 1 out of 5 |
 |
|
This book is highly overrated. I am sure I will get blown away for saying this but it has nothing to do with my appreciation of modern writing. I enjoy Joyce, and many avant garde writers. Stein has an ego as big as a house. Witness her constant comments about herself as a genius in the Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. The literary equivalent of Picasso she is not. The book is slow and boring, filled with failed, in my opinion, rhetorical tricks. If you want stream of consciousness avant garde writing there are many better writers, Joyce being the best. Jack Kerouac is a newer author who is great also. I found it difficult to finish this book. It did not keep my attention. I basically find all the praise for her as both a writer and an individual vastly out of proportion to her talent. It would be helpful if those writers and academicians who are full of praise for her would perhaps write some articles that are readable saying exactly why she is a genius.
|
| Not an easy book to read...or to like |
| Customer Rating: 2 out of 5 |
 |
|
In "3 Lives," Gertrude Stein recounts the life stories of three very different women living and dying in the city Bridgepoint. With "The Good Anna," we learn the story of a German maid, who maintains the homes of various grand ladies throughout her life. She loves taking care of stray dogs and scolding young ladies into what she deems to be their proper stations. She also cultivates a strong friendship with the widow Mrs. Lehntman, the great "romance" of her life. (Though, it's never entirely clear what is meant by "romance:' either a very strong friendship or an actual intimate relationship.)
In "Melanctha," we are related the history of a young black woman, bright and intelligent, who wants to learn more about life and love. She develops relationships with many different men but learns most of what she needs during her "wanderings" with Jane Harden. After a time, she finally decides to settle down and to get "really married" to the right man. She thinks she finds that in Dr. Jeff Campbell, but neither one knows exactly what he/she really wants.
In the final story, "The Gentle Lena," Lena is a young German girl, brought to the States by a cousin. She is considered ugly and dimwitted so no one in her new family really takes to her. All the girls taunt and tease her. Finally, she is et up in an arranged marriage to a man who doesn't really like women (though it's never said flat out whether or not he is gay). They have children, and the husband falls for the children, ignoring Lena completely.
All three women wind up alone, forgotten and eventually dead. But, that's not what I really didn't like about this book. Stein's use of language tended to get in the way, so much so that I could never really understand what characters were saying and could never empathize with them. In fact, with "Melanctha," their constant repetition of names and long-winded sentences that turn around on themselves to regurgitate what was said in the preceding sentences, made the characters seem simple-minded. I never liked any of the characters because I never felt that I was given anything to like. And, if I was, I had trouble discerning it through the tangle of words. I re-read passages many times simply to try to understand what was happening or what a character was feeling/thinking and never really understood. They came across very two-dimensional.
I forced myself to finish the book but still would have trouble recommending it, mostly due to the use of language.
|
|
