Carly, Stein post

Conversational style:
Stein’s style of conversational writing struck a cord with me. As a Journalism major in the electronic sequence (broadcasting), we are beat over the head repeatedly with the phrase “make it conversational.” Needless to say, this autobiography read much more smoothly than Henry Adams. For example, “Now he is against his will called Menalkas but he might be gratified if he knew that legally he is Raymond. However that is another matter.” (44) I found the lack of commas and colons intriguing, and I thought they were needed initially. After I while, I realized I was naturally filling them in as I read. Gertrude wanted to emulate Alice, and the conversational style went well with Alice’s continuing opinions about people. I’m not sure how many works exist that talk about the personalities of Picasso, Picassos’ girlfriend Fernande, Matisse, and the others, but she definitely adds color to their stories.
Narrative voice:The narrative voice as told through Toklas but (really) Gertrude makes me wonder if she didn’t feel like anyone would read it if it had her name on it. Like Henry Adams, she hides her voice under the mask of Tolka’s first person voice, which makes it more readable and less presumptious. I was familiar with the name Gertrude Stein before reading this book, but I didn’t know what she was known for.
Similarities between two books:Henry Adams and Stein are similar in that their life revolves around knowing important people, and they have written a book about it. Having connections during a major artistic movement and smartly buying paintings to hang in the Rue de Fleurus put Gertrude in the right place, much like Henry Adams’ situation. Also, Henry puts down Harvard and says his class wasn’t especially brilliant. Furthermore, he didn’t really learn anything at Harvard. Stein brings up a similar point when she attends John Hopkins Medical School; she laments that she is “bored” the second two years, and all but one of her teachers pass her.