How do you understand something that does not want to be understood? Interpret something uninterpretable? Make sense of the nonsensical?
These are the main problems that endlessly frustrate me when reading Stein, specifically Tender Buttons.
It's just that you start out hopeful, expecting to conquer the work, discover underlying messages, and then you end up more confused than before you began.
So then I'll try to remove myself from attempting to interpret the text and appreciate the words for how they sound and roll off my tongue. But then I get bored. Moreover, while this may be one way to appreciate Stein's work, I strongly believe there is much more to it than simply appreciating it for its sound and rhythm.
Maybe, as we touched on in class, one of the purposes of her work is to make us break from our preconceived notions of language. By placing seemingly irrelevant words and phrases together, the text almost forces us to let go of what we associate specific words to mean and represent. It forces us to reconsider language within the context of semiotics (according to Saussure), and reminds us that the relationship between the linguistic signifier (any given word) and signified (what it is) is arbitrary. For example, while the letters c-a-t spell cat, they do not embody 'catness.' It is in fact accidental that 'c-a-r-a-f-e' are the letters that make up the linguistic sign of the actual object it is, and that 'chicken' is the word that identifies the poultry we eat. The seemingly random descriptions of each of the objects, foods, and rooms in Tender Buttons, may be there to teach us to remove what we expect to be there and shows us that words can be used for and mean more than what we know them to mean.
For example, take the prose under the heading "Cranberries,"
"Could there not be a sudden date, could there not be in the present settlement of old age pensions, could there not be a witness, could there be."
In my own experience with the word cranberries, I have never encountered a relationship between cranberries and old age pensions, or witnesses. Maybe it is due to my limited knowledge of cranberries, but I'm pretty sure that is not the case. What follows cranberries seems to be completely random, or better yet irrelevant. Maybe this is Stein's way of showing us that we don't need to associate words we know with the meanings we are used to. Maybe she wants us to no longer identify the letters c-r-a-n-b-e-r-r-i-e-s with the small red, acid berry we attribute to those letters.
Or maybe not? Different than my interpretations of the works of other authors and artists, is that by the end of Stein I always find myself questioning or second-guessing my possible explanations.
So while I can't leave you with any concrete explanations for her madness, I will leave you with this:
What I have come to conclude is that Tender Buttons is a series of contradictions.
- There are and there aren't patterns. For example, in her section entitled "Food," each passage is about food, except for when it's not. Or there will be a pattern of rhyming words and alliteration and then it will simply stop.
- There is and there isn't punctuation/grammar. Technically there are periods, and commas, and many of the signs of a proper sentence, but there is also a lack of verbs or question marks where they should be.
- It does and it doesn't make sense. This is self explanatory.
- It is simple and it is complex/complicated. Each individual word is more or less comprehensible and basic English, but many of the overall sentences or ideas are difficult to understand.
- It uses concrete and figurative language and abstract and non-figurative language. Sometimes she describes something for what it is with concrete wording and metaphors and sometimes it's completely abstract and unattainable.
While I am not sure if this has helped make more sense of Stein's writing or helped confuse you more, I hope in some way these thoughts can help you if not understand, at least come to terms with the Steinian struggle.
Great list of contradictions. While we discussed many of the individual aspects of Stein's writing in class (such as alliteration, grammer, etc.), we didn't really piece them together the way you did and show the contradictory nature of her writing in Tender Buttons - so I think that what you added here is really interesting.
ReplyDeleteWhoa, those are a lot of contradictions! In your first contradiction, you write that "There are and there aren't patterns", basing this on the subject's inconsistency; sometimes it is about food, sometimes it is not. Yet patterns usually invoke a sense of unity to a text. The lack of consistency in subject does not necessarily indicate a complete lack of unity. Patterns can only be found in from, structure, sound, rhythm, etc. Perhaps Stein intentionally strays from the topic of food so that her readers must carefully analyze her poetry for nuances of pattern and unity. If food isn't holding the piece together, then what is? This forces readers to pay closer attention to aesthetics, and less to content or subject. Sometimes it seems like Stein cares less about what the text is saying and more about how it is being said.
ReplyDeleteGood catalog of contradictions from a writer who certainly seemed to embrace the paradoxical. As Whitman said, "do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am vast. I contain multitudes."
ReplyDeleteI certainly felt your frustration in reading Stein. Good contradictions- you really summed up the "Tender Buttons" experience.
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