GERTRUDE STEIN: Four Saints in Three Acts & Tender Buttons

Like what I do? Feel free to buy me a coffee: ko-fi.com/leafbyleaf
Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein - amzn.to/3MlHfUa
Paperback, 736 pages
Published March 17th 1990 by Vintage (first published 1962)
ISBN0679724648 (ISBN13: 9780679724643)
Four Saints in Three Acts: An Opera to Be Sung
Hardcover, 57 pages
Published June 1st 1934 by Random House (first published 1934)
Original TitleFour Saints in Three Acts
ISBN9999073271
Tender Buttons: Objects - amzn.to/3tuhp7N
Hardcover, 64 pages
Published March 26th 2013 by Chronicle Books (first published 1914)
Original TitleTender Buttons
ISBN1452112096 (ISBN13: 9781452112091)
Virgil Thomson: Four Saints In Three Acts - amzn.to/3sGuMCJ
CD
Released 2006 by‎ RCA Legacy
#leafbyleaf #bookreview #gertrudestein #tenderbuttons #foursaintsinthreeacts

[@ceaselessgrowth888]

“Literary fomo” is a term I’m going to use a lot in the future, thanks. Love the style of your video, feels like we’re having a conversation. Thanks for the beautiful content 💛✨

[@LeafbyLeaf]

That's wonderful! As far as I'm concerned, it's the only healthy FOMO out there. :):):)

[@TheChannelofaDisappointedMan]

I attended the UK's most avant-garde art school from 1997-2000. The professors on the writing program held four artists in the highest esteem: Brecht, Artaud, Beckett and Stein, and I am truly thankful for my relatively early exposure to their work. While not equally enamored of all Stein's output, her Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas remains one of my favorite examples of life-writing, a very subtle read that she wrote with astonishing speed. Thanks for your video, and may I add that the gravity and the reverence with which you treat artists and their works is a rare commodity in these times and is much appreciated.

[@LeafbyLeaf]

What a privilege to have experienced such great tutelage! Thanks so much for your kind words, too.

[@andrewmatthews5477]

My favorite aspect of her writing is how hilarious it is. There's so much play all the time.

[@LeafbyLeaf]

Well put!

[@MaximTendu]

"A Stone is a Stein is a Rock is a Boulder is a Pebble" - that's Papa for you. As for Stein, she might well be the Mama of Modernism. Thanks for your multimedia review. This channel is getting better and better.

[@LeafbyLeaf]

Very kind of you to say--thanks so much!

[@albinnibla]

Watching this on Ms. Steins's 149th birthday. Thank you!

[@LeafbyLeaf]

What a wonderful moment!

[@paullang3698]

I thought that your video on Gravity’s Rainbow was your most profound to date of the ones that I’ve watched. This one on Gertrude Stein was even more engaging in dealing with the psychology of reading difficult, even rebarbative, texts. Your kintsugi reference was especially brilliant.

[@LeafbyLeaf]

Very, very kind of you to say! I'm thrilled you found the video so valuable!

[@funkenschlag5701]

I wonder how many in the chorus thought to themselves: "Wtf am I singing?"

[@haroldniver813]

I’m very much like you in that when I see others enjoying and finding a great deal of meaning in a work of art that I didn’t necessarily appreciate, I question myself and wonder what I had done wrong in consuming that piece. That said, I’m very excited to go back to Stein again. And that recording of Virgil Thomson grabbed me right away - I ordered it immediately.

[@LeafbyLeaf]

Glad you enjoyed it! Happy reading & listening!

[@jamessaldariega3011]

Another author introduces! thanks for reviewing her works.

[@LeafbyLeaf]

My pleasure!

[@semiote]

Stein began to open up for me when I read this nice essay by Sianne Ngai entitled "The Cuteness of the Avant-Garde", which makes a point about Stein that is in the neighborhood of your mention of children. Imagine you were to read people talk unsympathetically about Stein, without having read her yourself. You hear them say how *difficult* and *inaccessible* she is. Then, you actually read her, and it sounds...like a children's storybook. The repetitiveness, the sing-song quality, the Jabberwocky-like reveling in playful nonsense. Ngai makes the point that Stein turns *cuteness* - the cuteness of the language we often reserve for children - a central element of her writing. She plays with this cuteness, magnifies it immensely (as in the gigantic The Making of Americans), or makes it strange and haunting. As if to tell us that even in cuteness, there is the sublime. This shouldn't surprise us, really: children are in touch with wonder - the joyful encounter with an unfathomed world - in a way that adults rarely are. This is why I think you're right that children could probably read Stein more easily than adults.

[@LeafbyLeaf]

Thanks so very much for this! I was able to find a PDF of that essay. All my best to you!

[@semiote]

@@LeafbyLeaf I'll be curious to know what you think of it!

[@johncrwarner]

I had the privilege of seeing the Mark Morris Dance Group dance Four Saints in Three Acts to a live rendition of the opera at the English National Opera in London. I remember the descent of the holy spirit "Pigeons on the grass alas" It was a remarkable performance and I am almost sad there are few recordings of "Four Saints in Three Acts".

[@LeafbyLeaf]

What a beautiful memory!

[@johncrwarner]

@@LeafbyLeaf It was a double bill with a danced version of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas which was also sung from the boxes at the side and danced on the stage.

[@johncrwarner]

@@LeafbyLeaf I have just been reading some Edith Sitwell poetry - some of her late works as part of my #1962 project and her poetry definitely benefits from being read aloud to you. I think in Edith Sitwell's case gaining from her poetry it helps to know some of the poetry she is escaping from and using as well. Victorian hymns were a source she used very effectively to write with / against parody / pay hommage to The connection is a weird one.

[@thomasceneri867]

Prepare For Saints is very good too: It encompasses that whole decade end scene.

[@LeafbyLeaf]

Thanks so much for this recommendation!

[@danteanantonio]

There’s a book by Thompson called “Music With Words: A Composer’s View”. It’s a little dated, but it talks about his ideas on the composition of vocal music, especially with respect to English prose/poetry. I believe there are some reflections on his collaborations with Stein. It’s a little hard to find (I had to borrow a copy from the Juilliard library) and written primarily for composers (I read it when I was starting to write choral music), but it may be of some interest to non-composers as well.

[@LeafbyLeaf]

Thanks so much for this recommendation! Seeking it out now…

[@waynesmith3767]

If more people listened to Thomson’s settings of Stein( including The Mother of us All) they might just enjoy her instead of trying to figure her out.

[@LeafbyLeaf]

👏👏👏

[@k.q.2957]

I enjoyed your thoughtful take on Stein here. I'm in the midst of rereading her A Novel of Thank You and am fascinated by how she plays with and interrogates the novel's form. I started exploring Stein after reading an essay that Carole Maso wrote on her that was in her book of essays, Break Every Rule. I highly recommend that essay (& the book as a whole) as it gives a useful way into Stein's work and some clues on what she's up to. Would be curious, too, to hear you review some of Maso's work if you haven't already. (The Art Lover, perhaps?) Thanks again for this, as it's giving me the courage I need to tackle Making of Americans later this year (or so I hope.) Cheers!

[@LeafbyLeaf]

Oh, I love Maso! I talked about Ava in another, older video of mine, but I can't remember which one (it was on another author). I've read Ada, Defiance, The Art Lover, and American Woman in the Chinese Hat. I think a Maso video is a great idea!

[@rickharsch8797]

Inspiring

[@LeafbyLeaf]

Glad of it, Rick!

[@robertpina7345]

Unrelated, but you mentioned wanting to go the ransom center for a David Foster Wallace exhibit, they have some stuff up now, not the whole exhibit they will likely put out. Today they opened the Women and the making of Joyce's Ulysses, I've been waiting since I first found out about it last semester. I can't believe I was more excited to see an original copy of Ulysses than the Gutenberg Bible.

[@LeafbyLeaf]

Oh, my! Sounds like I must get to Austin at once!

[@SteveReadswithSeamus]

I took my second effort at Stein this year. My first was in college when the professor introduced me to her, Celan, and Rilke. Rilke, as is well documented, stuck with me. Celan got another aborted effort about 5 years ago and will be worth revisiting again. Stein remains a mystery to me. This time, I better appreciated the sounds of the words, but not universally. Your analogy to Picasso was apt. I am happy to look at a painting for a short period, maybe even an extended short period, reflect on it and then move on to the next, perhaps abstract perhaps representative piece. In the end, that it was abstract sticks with me more than the work itself. As you say about reading, the time invested into a book demands something different for me. I want meaning AND beautiful sounds and lyricism. Stein ends up being a novelty for me, which is a shame given her stature. As a poet who reads a lot of poetry and has written far too much that remains unshared, I sometimes feel anger or even resentment at poets who intentionally obscure meaning to, what seems to be, a demonstration of their loftier intelligence. Is Stein this? No, I don’t think so. I think she is more playful and subversive, but in the end it manifests in the same way to the average reader often turning away that reader from ANY poetry. Which hurts writers who might be writing things that could connect with or even transform that same reader.

[@LeafbyLeaf]

Incredibly insightful and trenchant, Steve. Thanks for this!

[@SteveReadswithSeamus]

@@LeafbyLeaf thanks Chris! And speaking of poetry that people can read 😉 😉 the new literary Journal The Holon Project will have poetry by me and many others in its inaugural publication! Check it out! 🙏 😊

[@paulandreigillesania5359]

'Intellectual Dr. Seuss word music' That's howy brain boradcasted the words reading through Alice B. Toklas. It's consostent with the irony present hehe

[@LeafbyLeaf]

I love that!

[@andrewmatthews5477]

I like these works, but I appreciated her style as it became more refined over time. The novel 'Ida,' the collection of poetry 'Stanzas in Meditation,' and the ??? of 'The Geographical History of America' are my faves. Forgot about 'Lucy Church Amiably'! Have you read that one? There's echoes of DH Lawrence and lots of bucolic imagery, but all filtered through G Stein's unmistakable prose style.

[@LeafbyLeaf]

No, I haven't read that one. Thanks for these recommendations!

[@bobbcorr]

Did you do a video on Bottom’s Dream?

[@LeafbyLeaf]

Not yet. :)

[@alexschmidt2589]

Pretty nice chess set back there. Do you play?

[@LeafbyLeaf]

Thanks! I got it in the Old City of Jerusalem. It’s made of olive wood. Yes, I play-but I’m woefully average.

[@russellharvey7096]

What's this guy's name? Mr. Leaf? Just curious.

[@LeafbyLeaf]

Chris Via. Pleased to meet you! Funny thing is--you wouldn't believe how many emails I've gotten that start off with "Dear Mr. Leaf." :)

[@russellharvey7096]

@@LeafbyLeaf Pleased to meet you too Chris Via. I enjoyed the Silverblatt library walk-through. Which led me to the Novel Explosions review; Put a library hold on it, then noticed 700+ pages!?! Oy. I'll still take a peek, but my attention span...ya know. (Btw, writer / former programmer here as well.) Thanks for your stuff!

[@humanfirst11]

Why is it stuck at 18.9 😬😬!

[@LeafbyLeaf]

Eh?!

[@humanfirst11]

@@LeafbyLeaf subscriber count 😉

[@LeafbyLeaf]

Ahhhhhhh, yes. It has plateaued a bit. Actually-lookey there-just turned 19k.

[@humanfirst11]

@@LeafbyLeaf yay! congratulations 🎉🎉🎉. 🍁by🍁

[@LeafbyLeaf]

Thanks! Pretty crazy!

[@mudgetheexpendable]

Personally, I hate it. Why work so hard to get...nowhere much?

[@LeafbyLeaf]

You're definitely not alone in that sentiment. This wouldn't be the first time I could be cited as a sort of literary masochist! :)

[@mudgetheexpendable]

@@LeafbyLeaf yeeesss, that's one interpretation. I think it's more likely to be the impulse to understand and examine closely things not instantly and facilely scannable.