Critical Distance

[karenvanuska]

Comments

“Ladies’ voices give pleasure.”

[anonymous]

Pity for Professor Showalter that she can’t access Gertrude Stein’s exuberant frequency, and bully for you for sensing something awry in that. I just glanced up to see where some of Stein’s books (I have quite a few) might be sitting on my shelves. 3 Lives was next to The Fran Lebowitz Reader (which I think might please Stein) and Selected Operas & Plays was tucked in beside Norman Rush’s Mating (ditto, but perhaps for other reasons).

Stein’s statue in Bryant Park (like Gandhi’s in Union Square), is one of my sacred places. I occasionally bring her offerings of flowers as an expression of faith, or hope, or ardor, or gratitude. Whenever I finish a play or a novel I bring the manuscript to her and (weather permitting) sit quietly at her feet mimicking her pose (siddhasana), calling down her power. Stein helped make the road I walk on.

Re: “Ladies’ voices give pleasure.”

[karenvanuska]

Thanks for stopping by and leaving your love of Stein on my blog. I really must read her. Any writer who can inspire this much love (and in the case of Showalter, this much venom) will not disappoint me. Can you recommend one or two of her works?

Re: “Ladies’ voices give pleasure.”

[anonymous]

It might be fun to watch and listen to some of the operas first. When you see and hear how other artists get her, Showalter's unworthy appraisal will be overwhelmed, and then when you do read, you can read with fresh eyes. I would start at the beginning with 3Lives (aloud). She has to be read aloud! That's where the humor is

Re: “Ladies’ voices give pleasure.”

[karenvanuska]

Thanks for the insights and recommendations. Now all I need is time :).

Have a wonderful weekend!

Parker and Flaubert

[anonymous]

Thanks so much for Dorothy Parker’s comment on Flaubert. I had been thinking something similar about how much the Internet eased Showalter’s labors in creating Jury of Her Peers and how almost miraculous it is that he wrote Bouvard et Pécuchet without it. Even those few lines from Parker are energizing. Though I've heard Parker's actual voice (world weary and often slurring) I hear her written cadences differently: more like the SugarPuss character in Ball of Fire (Hawks and Wilder). Unbridled joy.

(Karen, Sorry about posting as Anonymous. I can't figure out how to get around that in this format. Anyway, it's Frances here. Still savoring your marvelous essay.)

Re: Parker and Flaubert

[karenvanuska]

How nice to see you here, Frances! Thanks for visiting. Your association of Parker's voice with SugarPuss is dead-on. I recently picked up the Portable Parker because some days, I just need to read her.