Gertrude Stein, the woman, the artist

"I think one is naturally impressed by anything having a beginning a middle and an ending when one is beginning writing and that it is a natural thing because when one is emerging from adolescence, which is really when one first begins writing one feels that one would not have been one emerging from adolescence if there had not been a beginning and a middle and an ending to anything." 

― Gertrude Stein, Narration: Four Lectures by Gertrude Stein

Stein's rise to literary fame was not easy. She admitted that she was, "in those days a little bitter, all her unpublished manuscripts, and no hope of publication or serious recognition" (Lenert-Cheng 118) in the years preceding the publication of any of her works. But in 1933, her autobiography, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas was published. Within days it was sold out and general reaction to the book was quite good. This led to the publication of her other works, which had previously sat unread for years.

But what made Stein's work so good?

Stein had such a peculiar style that many people couldn't resist. They either understood it completely or didn't understand it at all, but still read her work to extract meanings. According to Gopnik, "Stein's style makes subtle thoughts sound flat and straightforward, and it also lets straightforward, flat thoughts sound subtle. Above all, its lack of the ordinary half-tints and protective shadings of adjectives and semicolons—the Jamesian fog of implication—lends itself to generalizations, sometimes profound, often idiosyncratic, always startling" (Introduction).