Tender Buttons: Objects, Food, Room (1914)

act so that there is no use for a center ( )

This is exactly the kind of poetry that many people despise.

Trash. ( )

Ah, modernism. The point is that you will not understand. Well, alright, that's not the entire point, but that's part of the point.

Stein takes words and arranges them in a deliberately weird way, experimenting with and stretching the confines of language to inspire new ways of looking at words we use every day. It's not about making sense in a logical narrative way, but if you read it aloud there is a sort of sense to the rhythm and the way the words will slide off your tongue and it's intriguing and weird (in a good way) to say the least.

I went through it again and again and started highlighting random strings of words that caught my eye, because you wouldn't find these combinations of words elsewhere but they're great, such as:

"...a single hurt color." (p.3)

"A not torn rose-wood color." (p5)

and

"...every bit of blue is precocious."(p. 7)

or

a single frantic sullenness." (p. 13)

Some is fantastically nonsense, such as:

"The sudden spoon is the wound in the decision." (p 12)

"Elephant beaten with candy and little pops and chews all bolds and reckless reckless rats, this is this." (p 15)

and

"A receptacle and a symbol and no monster were present and no more." (p. 25)

Yet some of it seems to make very good sense, such as:

"What is the use of a violent kind of delightfulness if there is no pleasure in not getting tired of it."

"...there is some venturing in refusing to believe nonsense."

and

"A little calm is so ordinary and in any case there is sweetness and some of that." (p. 4)

"Kindness is not earnest, it is not assiduous it is not revered." (p. 22)

and my personal favourite:

"a description is not a birthday." (p.22) - make of that what you will. ( )

At the risk of sounding uneducated - this book is gibberish. It reminds me of the old story of the Emperor's New Clothes. Intellectuals all say it's a masterpiece, so everyone else agrees. All the while, even the intellectuals are saying "what the heck?" when they (try to) read it. But nobody wants to admit it because then they'll sound like an idiot. ( )

What is a tender button? Is it one too sensitive to hold your shirt closed? Is it one easily bruised when you are jostled in a crowd? Is it one you will cup in your hand and gaze at adoringly? You see the problem – and this is just the title.

Don’t try to read this as a novel or even a poem. This is a piece of experimental writing, a collection of short pieces loosely organized around the subtitles Objects, Food and Rooms. Most of the sentences observe normal syntax. Almost every one violates the rules of semantics. So there are hidden gems here. Where else would you find a line like “Sugar is not a vegetable”.

The writing has enough repetition and rhythm to suggest a mind pondering its subject, turning it this way and that to catch the light now from the window, now from the mirror.

Do not attempt to read this at one sitting, or to drive a motor vehicle afterwards. I found the iphone version ideal, because the constant distractions chopped the text into manageable, bite-size pieces.