Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

Tender Buttons: Objects
Tender Buttons: Objects
Tender Buttons: Objects
Ebook81 pages24 minutes

Tender Buttons: Objects

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

()

Read preview

About this ebook

First published in 1914, Gertrude Stein's revolutionary poetic work Tender Buttons is a must-read for every serious lover of literature. Delighting in the rhythm of words, its first section, "Objects," runs playful linguistic circles around teacups, ribbons, umbrellas, and other quotidian artifacts. Presented here in an exquisite small package, this new edition of "Objects" pairs Stein's avant-garde verse with colorful contemporary illustrations by indie art star Lisa Congdon, who illuminates and interrogates the classic Cubist text with visuals as capricious as Stein's own prose. A celebration of independent thinking old and new, this captivating marriage of image and text is a treasure of arts and letters.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateApr 2, 2013
ISBN9781452127668
Tender Buttons: Objects
Author

Gertrude Stein

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) was an American novelist and poet. Born in Pennsylvania, in 1903 she immigrated to France, where she would live for the rest of her life. The home on the Left Bank of Paris that she shared with her partner, Alice B. Toklas, became a cultural hub as young artists and writers began to gather there. As her salon rose to prominence, Stein befriended several expatriate authors living in Paris, including Djuna Barnes, James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway. Stein has been credited with coining the term the lost generation to describe this group of writers. She died in France in 1946. 

Read more from Gertrude Stein

Related to Tender Buttons

Related ebooks

Poetry For You

View More

Related articles

Related categories

Reviews for Tender Buttons

Rating: 3.701342393959732 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

149 ratings5 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I'm into some pretty "out there" stuff, but this just made me stressed out.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Inesperado. Esa es la mejor palabra con la que puedo describir esta obra. No me atrae la poesía, pero esta obra es diferente a lo que esperaba y diferente a todo lo que leí de poesía anteriormente.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    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.

    3 people found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    "Cutting shade, cool spades and little last beds, make violet, violet when." One of my very favorite books to read aloud for pleasure on sunny lazy weekend mornings over breakfast, or late into the evening with wine. The linguistic equivalent of putting on a jazz album or painting the room a new color--gratifies the senses and as Thoreau put it, "affect[s] the quality of the day" (which is "the highest of the arts"). I have a feeling Stein had a good idea of how to live well in the day to day, no matter what. And if it's any confirmation, the Alice B. Toklas cookbook seems to color everything as well.

    3 people found this helpful

  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    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.

    2 people found this helpful

Book preview

Tender Buttons - Gertrude Stein

A CARAFE, THAT IS A BLIND GLASS.

A kind in glass and a cousin, a spectacle and nothing strange a single hurt color and an arrangement in a system to pointing. All this and not ordinary, not unordered in not resembling. The difference is spreading.

GLAZED GLITTER.

Nickel, what is nickel, it is originally rid of a cover.

The change in that is that red weakens an hour. The change has come. There is no search. But there is, there is that hope and that interpretation and sometime, surely any is unwelcome, sometime there is breath and there will be a sinecure and charming very charming is that clean and cleansing. Certainly glittering is handsome and convincing.

There is no gratitude in mercy and in medicine. There can be breakages in Japanese. That is no programme. That is no color chosen. It was chosen yesterday, that showed spitting and perhaps washing and polishing. It certainly showed no obligation and perhaps if borrowing is not natural there is some use in giving.

A SUBSTANCE IN A CUSHION.

The change of color is likely and a difference a very little difference is prepared. Sugar is not a vegetable.

Callous is something that hardening leaves behind what will be soft if there is a genuine interest in there being present as many girls as men. Does this change. It shows that dirt is clean when there

Enjoying the preview?
Page 1 of 1