{"id":161,"date":"2008-08-05T11:52:24","date_gmt":"2008-08-05T19:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/phlogma.com\/?p=161"},"modified":"2009-03-27T13:22:10","modified_gmt":"2009-03-27T21:22:10","slug":"made-the-way-you-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/weininger\/made-the-way-you-is-161","title":{"rendered":"“made the way you is”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Notes on Gertrude Stein, Three Lives<\/em><\/a><\/h3>\n

Stein was first introduced to Otto Weininger’s book during the Winter of 1907-8 by her brother, Leo. (See Katz’s article<\/a> and Stein’s recently discovered article on the degeneration of American women<\/a>.) Weininger is perceptible here but as much as intellectual peer as inspiration, something to be kept in mind while reading Three Lives<\/em>. She set herself a high standard in Flaubert’s Three Tales<\/em>. She, in a sense, “translated” Flaubert.<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“The Good Anna”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

25<\/em>
\n“—she naturally preferred the boy, for boys, love always better to be done for and made comfortable and full of eating, while in the little girl she had to meet the feminine, the subtle opposition, showing so early in a young girl’s nature.”<\/p>\n

37<\/em>
\nAnna “…loved to work for men…”<\/p>\n

44<\/em>
\nOf Mrs. Lehtmann, “She was too well diffused to catch the feel of any sharp firm edge.” On her reception of harsh ideas.<\/p>\n

46<\/em>
\n“…a german woman’s feeling for the masterhood of men…”<\/p>\n

55<\/em>
\n“Romance is the ideal in one’s life and it is a very lonely living with it lost.”<\/p>\n

58<\/em>
\n“Most women were interfering in their ways.”<\/p>\n

65<\/em>
\nIngratitude in the poor.<\/p>\n

70<\/em>
\n“…wonderful how poor people love to take advice…”<\/p>\n

74<\/em>
\n“There is nothing more dreary than old age in animals.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Melanctha”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

87<\/em>
\n“I’d maybe kill somebody else Melanctha ’cause I was blue, but I’d never kill myself.” says Rose.<\/p>\n

90<\/em>
\n“The things she had in her of her mother never made her feel respect.”<\/p>\n

93<\/em>
\nMelanctha: “…always pleasant, sweet-appearing, mysterious and uncertain, and a little wandering in her ways.”<\/p>\n

95<\/em>
\n“…with all her inborn intense wisdom was really very ignorant of evil.”<\/p>\n

95-7<\/em>
\n“learning” about men and power<\/p>\n

101<\/em>
\n“wandered on the edge of wisdom”<\/p>\n

103<\/em>
\nBroken arm without squealing.<\/p>\n

105<\/em>
\nMenlanctha’s and Jane Harden’s intimate phase.<\/p>\n

116<\/em>
\nMelanctha and Jeff Campbell clash in philosophies.<\/p>\n

118<\/em>
\nMelanctha accuses Jeff of self-ignorance. [Jeff is Stein. May Bookstaver, Melanctha.]<\/strong><\/p>\n

121<\/em>
\nJeff: folks just want to have too much fun.<\/p>\n

122<\/em>
\n“Strong, hot love… that makes you do anything for somebody that loves you.”<\/p>\n

123<\/em>
\nJeff’s fear of feeling things deep down.<\/p>\n

124<\/em>
\nJeff’s two kinds of loving: (1) quiet and (2) hot. Melanctha’s doubts about the former. See also p. 132.<\/p>\n

128<\/em>
\nMale skepticism of feeling; female offense at that skepticism.<\/p>\n

129<\/em>
\nJeff’s slowmindedness. [Cf.<\/em> Stein’s remark about herself on p. 225 of ABT<\/em><\/acronym><\/a>. She speaks of this as anything but an unambiguous fault.]<\/strong><\/p>\n

140<\/em>
\nMelanctha: “When you want to be seeing how the way a woman is really made of, Jeff, you shouldn’t never be so cruel, never to be thinking how much she can stand, the strong way you always do it, Jeff.”<\/p>\n

141<\/em>
\n“like a red Indian”<\/p>\n

153<\/em>
\n“It was a struggle, that was as sure always to be going on between them, as their minds and hearts always were to have different ways of working.”<\/p>\n

155-6<\/em>
\nMale disgust with not knowing exactly what the right way of doing was—fear of moral vagary.<\/p>\n

156<\/em>
\nAmbivalence toward woman.<\/p>\n

158<\/em>
\nJeff’s new feeling: “like a new religion” [This is what it must be like for a man to be swallowed whole by the feminine. It is a Kierkegaardian leap of faith, an abandoning of all hope of exhaustive explanation or rational foundation. Cf.<\/em> what Lawrence says in his Study of Thomas Hardy<\/em>.]<\/strong><\/p>\n

159<\/em>
\nBut Jeff still wants “to know always, the way [he]<\/strong> should be acting.”<\/p>\n

160<\/em>
\nFaith in this leap is easier for her than for him.<\/p>\n

161<\/em>
\nThe condemnation of woman to always be forgiving man. [Transgressive in nature, he must trail forgiveness.]<\/strong><\/p>\n

162<\/em>
\nMelanctha is “hurt in her head” by listening to his trouble.<\/p>\n

162-4<\/em>
\nThe loss of his capacity to be honest with her. The crippling aspect of the condition.<\/p>\n

171<\/em>
\nUsing her pain “like a weapon.”<\/p>\n

173-4<\/em>
\nJeff’s self-questioning [Stein’s]<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

175<\/em>
\n“Melanctha was too many for him.”<\/p>\n

179-80<\/em>
\nBeing game and never hollering.<\/p>\n

Ordinary hollering and suffering openly. What’s the difference? Melanctha responds, but you can’t see “made the way you is”.<\/p>\n

181<\/em>
\nMelanctha’s deep feeling in the moment:<\/em> it has little memory. She asserts that hers is “the right kind of feeling” and is liable to being trammeled by Jeff’s “fits of remembering,” she explains, “No, Jeff Campbell, it’s real feeling every moment when its needed, that certainly does seem to me like real remembering.” [The primacy of henids<\/a>, defended.]<\/strong> Melanctha has to do the “remembering for us both”.<\/p>\n

182<\/em>
\nMelanctha’s “in the moment” elitism.<\/p>\n

183<\/em>
\nThe surety of desire. Her final pitch.<\/p>\n

186<\/em>
\n“lost his feeling of deep awe”<\/p>\n

Beautiful<\/em> long passage on the awe of suffering and how it melts away in those too experienced at it: “In tendered natures…. to bear it.”<\/p>\n

188<\/em>
\n“real religion” gone<\/p>\n

189<\/em>
\nBecause he could<\/em> remember, he should<\/em> endure her retribution. [The moral agent has this burden.]<\/strong><\/p>\n

190<\/em>
\nBitterness not at her but at himself for having permitted himself the illusion.<\/p>\n

192<\/em>
\n“to be really loving right [two]<\/strong> must be thinking each one as good as the other”<\/p>\n

193<\/em>
\nFailure at knowledge left him quiet and sodden. Beauty gone.<\/p>\n

201<\/em>
\nRose’s simplicity contrasted with Jeff’s complexity. [Rose stood for Stein’s rival in Bookstaver’s affections.]<\/strong><\/p>\n

203<\/em>
\nMelanctha’s passion for Jeff “killed.”<\/p>\n

205-6<\/em>
\nThere is development in Jeff [Stein]<\/strong>, none in Melanctha. Her tragedy is that she cannot remember, consigned to wandering.<\/p>\n

207<\/em>
\nJeff learned<\/em> something from the experience. [However little<\/em> it can serve as motivation for having it.]<\/strong><\/p>\n

208<\/em>
\nA remarkable phrase: six negatives!<\/p>\n

210<\/em>
\nRose: solid, simple, certain.<\/p>\n

216<\/em>
\nWandering.<\/p>\n

226<\/em>
\nRose’s killing remark repeated.<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“The Gentle Lena”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

241<\/em>
\n“old-world ignorance”<\/p>\n

247<\/em>
\nLena, unexpectant, unsuffering. German Nature.<\/p>\n

250<\/em>
\n[Mrs. Hayden, Lena’s aunt, a distillation of the Weiningerian matronly “matchmaker.” As Melanctha had been of the “prostitute” archetype.]<\/strong><\/p>\n

252<\/em>
\nBlindness of instinctive matchmakers.<\/p>\n

259<\/em>
\nA comment (through the kindly German cook) on Mrs. Hayden’s matchmaking “vice”.<\/p>\n

268<\/em>
\nIllustration of Stein’s interest in character: in this case Irish “dirt” and German “dirt” in immigrant families.<\/p>\n

279<\/em>
\nStein’s compassion for the Lena type (voiced via the German cook).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Notes on Gertrude Stein, Three Lives Stein was first introduced to Otto Weininger’s book during the Winter of 1907-8 by her brother, Leo. (See Katz’s article and Stein’s recently discovered article on the degeneration of American women.) Weininger is perceptible here but as much as intellectual peer as inspiration, something to be kept in mind … <\/p>\n

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