Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein

Rating:
Summary: Fine Compilation
Review: I think Gertrude Stein is a supreme literary artist of the 20th century, and this anthology offers a wide range of her work, which ranges from poetry to essays. Her writing is difficult to penetrate, but in her case, and I rarely say this about abstruse writing, it enhances the effect. It's as if underneath words lies the human being itself, in all its feeling and rhythms, and language is a mere shadow of this self. Her words are like paths crisscrossing around the being, so that the reader can eventually see the whole. Magnificant artist. She also was apparently a good person, having befriended Hemingway, James, Picasso and others. A+.

Rating:
Summary: Well compiled offering of a diverse writer
Review: Normally I am hesitant to give a book 5 stars, I try to save this rating for when I really really really am impressed by it, and if this hadn't been a compilation of Stein's writing, I might not have given it this rating. It is really Carl Van Vechten that deserves the stars, Stein's writing is a bit much to digest or even swallow a lot of times, but Van Vechten gives an insightful foreword and has selected a diverse array of this colorful and eccentric author's writing. I had never read any of her work before I happened upon this edition and it proved insightful to be able to compare Tender Buttons and The Autobiography of Alice B.Toklas together side by side, as this edition allows you to do. A good way to gain a feel for the work of Gertrude Stein