Gertrude Stein considered herself an experimental writer and wrote what The Poetry Foundation calls “dense poems and fictions, often devoid of plot or dialogue,” with the result being that “commercial publishers slighted her experimental writings and critics dismissed them as incomprehensible.” Take, for example, what happened when Stein sent a manuscript to Alfred C. Fifield, a London-based publisher, and received a rejection letter mocking her prose in return. According to Letters of Note, the manuscript in question was published many years later as her modernist novel, The Making of Americans: Being a History of a Family’s Progress (1925). You can hear Stein reading a selection from the novel below.
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Who knew editors were sometimes crass holes back in the day? Wonder if he later wished he had published Stein after all.
These days it’s more ‘just didn’t love it’ kind of replies.
I thought this a rather witty and surprising response for the period, if a little katty. It doesn’t seem to have put Ms Stein off.
In Marty Martin’s play, “Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein” Gertrude talks about the letter:
“Even a no can be a yes if it is done right. For example, Alice and I mailed off the manuscript of ‘The Making of Americans’ to a Mr. Fifield, a publisher in England and he responded by sending back my manuscript along with a letter that said Dear Madam there will be others will be others will be others other styles other books other publishers thank you; thank you no thank you no thank you no. And although it was a rejection it was not a no no no it was a yes an unmistakable one an that is what critics refer to as style; style.”
What what what do EYECARE if the fortunately forgettable Mr. Frederick Folderol Fifield finds Ms. Stein’s demonstrably fortuitous fable incomprehensibly far far far off the literary Wall-Wall compared to His-His? ‘Tis M’lady’s Buddha Badge of Honor to have been delicately trashed by that linguistically challenged, ever-so-tight-bummed LonLonLon-Done-and-Dismissed, Hardly-the-Last-Wordsmith Cross-the-Pond? Fah on the Far Out Mr. Fifield, I say!
Having suffered through Stein, I thought the response was brilliant. If life was too short in 1912 to slog through “The Making of Americans,” imagine how swampy it seems now. Stein’s life in inspirational. Her work is vastly overrated.