Reconsidering Gertrude Stein

Institute Writing Fellow and UAlbany Professor Lynne Tillman reconsiders Gertrude Stein in the New York Times Book Review this past Sunday:

"Approaching Gertrude Stein’s writing critically is tricky. Because she strove to reshape literary conventions — syntax, language usage, narrative order and the sense of making sense — any comment on her choices may already be rebuffed in her poetics and practice. Stein is a trickster. This may be why, as I read 'Ida' and 'Stanzas in Meditation,' both reissued in corrected, authoritative editions from Yale University Press, I remembered a Jonathan Richman lyric I’ll paraphrase as 'Pablo Picasso never got called a jackass.'"

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