The Immersion Library

About six weeks ago Gertrude Stein said, it does not look to me as if you were ever going to write that autobiography. You know what I am going to do. I am going to write it for you. i am going to write it as simply as Defoe did the autobiography of Robinson Crusoe. And she has and this is it.

Instinctively, this book strikes me as a hyperbolic expose on referring to oneself in the third person. But let’s ask some questions: Why would Stein choose to write a memoir as an autobiography of her life partner? Was she simply conducting an artistic experiment? Or was she bored with the traditional memoir method? Or is there an artistic value which I’m just not catching?

In terms of content, I did enjoy reading about the many American ex-pats in Paris and their relationship with Gertrude Stein. Her relationships with Picasso, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Erik Satie and more provide an insight into their view on art; whether writing, music or painting. The unifying pursuit of this age was to trade in ideas. The artist exercised their prerogative in presenting these ideas but regardless of their craft they could critique each other in their success in exploring an idea. In this sense, Gertrude Stein positioned herself as a kind of matriarch whose opinion and view mattered most to her contemporaries. Ironically, Stein had trouble reaching a larger audience with her writing. However, her impact on the culture and “scene” reached every audience through the agency of her friends.

If one wished to witness the birth of modern western art from a unique point of view, they could include this in their reading list along with works like A Moveable Feast. But don’t get too enamored with the form. I imagine Stein simply entertained a compulsion to indulge herself. It raises some questions but none of the possible answers seem to matter much.