(In response to comments by Daleyz)
When I first started reading the Melanctha section I couldn't help but think it was incredibly racist. To be fair though, Stein writes the white characters in the other sections in a similar way: everyone uses names a million times in every sentence, and the syntax is all messed up. It's really jarring, but after a while i started to like it. It's almost like she's creating her own language, which i thought was kind of cool (if nothing else, at least it's really original). The other thing that she does really well, which i couldn't capture with two passages posted out of context here, was the way she develops her characters. The book is primarily about that I think, and some of it is absolutely amazing. I think the weird commas and the flow, after a while, become less grating, and make you read the story in a certain way. They force you to sound everything out in your head, which counteracts most readers' natural inclination to conceptualize the plot and characters and themes. It's almost like she's trying to make you walk through a garden maze, (try one rout, get lost, try another etc.) instead of letting you find the correct path by looking at the whole thing from above. It makes for a pretty unique and new reading experience, even though the characters, the plot, the language, and the implicit racism/classism, at times, feel old and outdated.
I've given up a bit on posting passages that can stand alone, because i'm not sure it's really possible. The Savage Detectives lends itself to that kind of thing, since it's written as a series of individual anecdotes, but even that didn't hold up too well.
T,
ReplyDeleteLiked the selection from Three Lives. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that even a short passage like this one:
"Sometimes now and again with them, and with all this trouble for a little while well forgotten by him, Jeff, and Melanctha with him, would be very happy in a strong, sweet loving. Sometimes then, Jeff would find himself to be soaring very high in his true loving. Sometimes Jeff would find then, in his loving, his soul swelling out full inside him. Always Jeff felt now in himself, deep feeling. "
... is totally capable of standing alone. It captures quite nicely the musicality of the prose, which to me is the great triumph of the book.
As an aside, I think that guy who commented before missed the point, as many are apt to do when reading Stein. Is he a friend? Because you should urge him to actually read the book... it's unlike any other and, as with other works that have passed the test of time with flying colors, shouldn't be dismissed so lightly, for such specious reasons.