Tag: Gertrude Stein

‘A Favorite Colour’ by Gertrude Stein

I don’t know if Gertrude Stein was ever left in charge of children, but I imagine she would have been a somewhat Mary-Poppins-ish combination of severity and mischief. Most of her work is not for children, but the engine of its genius is a relentless questioning of why things are as they are, and even at its most austere it rarely strays far from a storytelling cadence. So I was delighted to discover that Stein had written a book for children, which became a favourite of my daughter when she was about four. This tiny chapter has the sound of poetry and concerns the big subjects of the small child: their names, their favourite things, and what they know about the world. “Her name is Rose and blue is her favorite color. But of course a lion is not blue. Rose knew that of course a lion is not blue but blue was her favorite color.” It used to work a charm at bedtime — something about its patient cadences completely settled her mind. 

First published with illustrations by Clement Hurd in The World is Round, William R. Scott, 1939; new illustrated editions published by Shambhala in 1993 and Harper in 2013

‘Tender Buttons’ by Gertrude Stein

There’s a sense of rhythm in reading these sentences aloud, given by her placement of words and use of punctuation. Many writers make use of the rhythm of words, of course, but the music in these phrases is all the more clear due to the language’s incomprehensibility. I will often know the rhythm of a sentence before I know what the words will be, so I’ll write down any words, so long as they have the correct number of syllables, to preserve the rhythm in my memory. I went back to Stein when I was writing a piece called At the Heart of Things, when I felt like I’d lost the music of the writing. And also I find refuge in all its nonsense.

First published in 1914 as Tender Buttons: Objects, Food, Rooms. Current available from Dodo Press, 2016. Read some of it here