The Making of the Americans
Gertrude Stein
1925
Around 925 pages
Gertrude Stein wrote a book (typed by her long-suffering partner, Alice B. Toklas), and it's basically unreadable. The book Gertrude Stein wrote can't be read. As I was saying, Gertrude Stein's book is an unreadable one.
Are you crazy yet?
It took me about 400 pages into this tome before the rage really hit. Obviously, the repetition is hella intentional. Gertie would call it insistence, not repetition. I suppose the steel man argument is that meanings shift with every repeated phrase, like how you can't say your name 100 times in a row without it eventually devolving into meaningless sounds.
I think saying "As I was saying" four times per paragraph is just bad writing. Artful writers can insist upon a point without bludgeoning the reader to death with it. I got through this one by sheer force of will, because hey, I've journeyed this far into the hellfires of the List. If you're not fighting for something as noble as a check in a box, you'll never make it.
RATING: -----
Interesting Facts:
Published in excerpts by Ford Madox Ford, at the urging of Ernest Hemingway. Guys, get a grip.
My boyfriend recently took me to see Gertrude Stein's home in Pittsburgh! It's near one of my favorite breakfast places, Bier's Pub. I hate her, but it was still nice.
UP NEXT: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie. This is the only Christie I have read so far.
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