Food by Gertrude Stein | #8 Penguin Modern BOOK REVIEW

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Is this the lowest rated book on GoodReads?
/ 4260092352
Food by Gertrude Stein reads like it was written by a bad AI bot, except it's not funny. This book review is a warning to avoid Gertrude Stein's writing unless you know what you are in for! It felt like empty, wayward nonsense to me. That said, her other books seem to be more liked, so Food might just be a bad representation of an otherwise interesting author. It wouldn't be the first time the Penguin Modern series has given an unfavourable excerpt of an otherwise good author (I'm thinking about Daphne Du Maurier's short story The Breakthrough, which I reviewed earlier in the series).
P.S. Sorry Gertrude Stein fans if this one is not for you, but this is how I honestly and truly feel. Though before you criticize me, Gertrude Stein's Food has a 2.06* average rating on GoodReads which is the lowest rating for an 'actual book' that I've found, and I have looked for quite a while!
You can find me here, always happy to chat:
GoodReads: / oolevityoo
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My * ratings mainly reflect my estimate of accessibility/likeability to a general audience. Sometimes I award 5*s to less accessible books that I think have important messages and good morals.
* = Dislike (not recommended) ("failed")
** = Okay (recommended to select audience) ("flawed")
*** = Like (recommended to general audience) ("fine")
**** = Really like (strongly recommended to select audience) ("focused")
***** = Love (strongly recommended to general audience) ("fervent")
#bookreview #penguinbooks #literature #goodreads

Опубликовано:

21 авг 2024

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Комментарии : 13

@SteveReadswithSeamus 2 года назад

So, I cannot argue with you about this book, though might give it a tiny fraction of a star! My fiancé read a few and said… “read it aloud…” and all of a sudden the admittedly nonsense words took on a different meaning in their sounds and rhythms. Granted, not enough for me to recommend it and certainly not enough for me to say I enjoy or even appreciate the avant-garde but enough for me to laugh with the poetry a couple of times and not at it. I, too, studied Stein in college, but even with the help of a good professor didn’t find joy. But, the same course introduced me to Rilke, so… it transformed my life. We also did Paul Celan, perhaps something to explore later this year if you’d be game. I struggled more with him, but have been eager to give it a go again.

@levitybooks3952 2 года назад

I do think there might be some fun and lyricism to these poems, I did read a bit aloud to myself and some might work, but still it's nothing deeper than that. I found the same feeling of lyricism when reading Carol Ann Duffy or Alice Oswald aloud, but their poems conveyed interesting scenes and narratives even if there still wasn't a clear meaning to them, as we have here. I might try more Rilke soon (Duino elegies) and Celan is one I will keep an eye out for when I go to the library in a week or so (if COVID rates keep falling).

@SteveReadswithSeamus 2 года назад

@@levitybooks3952 I agree, a good poet can be masterful with their craft, have fun, and convey meaning. Like all avant-garde work, I am left cold by the memory of the meaninglessness. It almost feels like the ultimate expression of entitlement when there is so much meaning to be exposed to for a full and HUMAN existence.

@TundraBlue11 2 года назад

You summed this up in a nutshell. Disappointed. I bought this online, and was looking forward to sampling her writing. I opened the book, started Roast Beef and wondered what the hell I was reading. Flipped through to some shorter entries (Chicken, Dining, and Salmon to name a few), and can’t, for the life of me, wrap my head around this. Perhaps you have to be as high as a kite to get this? 🤨

@levitybooks3952 2 года назад

Oh no how unfortunate! That's the one risk of buying online, not being able to skim it in the shop to make sure it's readable! The only people I've found defending Gertrude Stein (mainly academics on twitter) have studied Gertrude Stein in some experimental writing class and defend it, as far as I can tell, only because "she was the first person to do this and historically it is important to all other experimental writing". My impression is that there is a 'very good reason' that nobody, in all this time, has written "Food 2 the sequel". The only way I can appreciate it is that she proudly writes as freely as possible to the point of near incoherence, but from my view I don't think it's something that deserves any praise really.

@danecobain 2 года назад

I noticed that this had a terrible average rating when I was going through this box set. I didn't mind it so much, but then I also studied Stein at university!

@levitybooks3952 2 года назад

Yeah I've gotten into the habit of trying not to put them on my currently reading on GoodReads until I've pretty much finished them because the average rating gives it away a bit. I do wonder what I would've learned had I studied her academically, but it does seem like one of those books that really would be better learned in class than out of enjoyment in one's free time.

@danecobain 2 года назад

@@levitybooks3952 That's a good plan! To be fair, I don't normally pay much attention to ratings anyway :D