New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1922-08-20
A Bookman's Day Book
BY Burton Rascoe
AUGUST .

At lunch to-day with Sherwood An
dsrsen. IT, W. Fisher and Edmund Will
son jr., Sherwood told how he had be-
come interested in Gertrude Stein, and
hew he felt that she was, somehow
back of this whole movement III htcra-
tare toward new method Of expcss-
sion. II WAS at house one night" he
said. "when my brother, Karl Anderson
the painter. came iii laughing his head
called Tender Buttons.' He began read
ing il aloud to US as joke, and every
body laughed and had good time over
IL; but / got up dazed and left the room.
felt as If door 20 a new world had
opened for me. l walked about alone
for half the night turning this new eS--
perienee over in my mind. She seemed
TO nae like woman who played with
words in the same way another person
might toy with precious stones, admir-
ing and being thrilled by them and let
ting them fall through her fingers to
catch their changing color and radiance
] don't think she will ever be anything
TO readers but ! think that she is a big
event in literature, that she is of the
utmost importance to writers. She
gives them a new sense of word values.
Expression had been formulated and
cut TO precise patterns that were old
and without life and Gertrude Stein
comes along and jumbles words all up
and gives combinations of them new
emotional values and meanings | visit
ed her in Paris and expected to see an
exotic, slim creature reclining on q
divan and smoking perfumed cigarettes,
and found big husky, sensible and
aTniabie woman who might have been
the wife of an Iowa horse doctor. She
is so used to being made fun of and
kidded about her work that she laughs
about it and makes a joke of it herself;
but just the same she takes herself se
fiously and she believes in her soul
that her work is important. ] learned
tkis, when after ! told her how sim
cerely impressed and moved had been
by her work, she was Immensely
pleased. She showed me her unpub
ished work. There are piles of it. all
realty typed and arranged, all around
the room. She has published only a
small portion OF it. She has resigned
herself apparently to being made the
sutt Of joke but all the time she is
Ding work which will, some day, be
Aown TO have a tremendous influence
gpon literary expression. thousand
ears from now writing will be vastly
ifserent from what it is now, and /
lieve that it will be seen that these
s8per ments by Gertrude Stein have
cen beck Of it all, Just as the expert;
enfs Cazanne made and threw or gave
way are back of the whole modern
oyeaent in painting"
AUGUST II
lily wife and went to the Palace to-
spht 10 SEQ Arnold DAILY in Schnitz-
RS THE Last SUPPER" 1t was not SO
I'd. even if DAILY did pad out the play
II with mach TAX and many gestures
bot were good enough DAILY, but bad
iehn tzler. What we liked best on the
III was LoDez'S jazz orchestra and
sex Boaahues nut monologue and
roll dancing. Donahue is gifted
median and further proof that there
more intelligent entertainment to be
cad IN the average vaudeville house
nan there is in the average so-called
rGitimate theater Red Mac
raig and Bunny Wilson were at the
b Nv also, and alter the theater we all
sent to Gelicasessen restaurant for
'ndwiches. At one of the tables, SIT
ing in solitary estate and in dinner
ifas5 was George Jean Nathan. There
g something OF the grand manner in
Nathan's eccentricities.
AUGUST IL
Seward Collins and Bunny Wilson
s'lled for us at noon and we motored
out to Stewards fathers estate, went
f's Ao"@ W.
Wooas, hao ainher ana got nome apout 8
!. m. al the way our sunny ana !,
%rahgleo hotiy aoout GaDeh ana
1oyse, an argument involving TASTE
falhsr IMAM disputaple matters ana, as
spch, rather fru,tiess. amounts
SIMPLY TO TINS That Cabell is anti
thetlc to Bunny taste and because
o. tnls sunny is nhWsiilng 70 grant
m mucn merit. FROM what ne salo
,tooot eapell WORK, l am certaln ne
Pas an entlreiy erroneous notlon Oh
SapsiI sftistic AIMS ana methoas, On
i,,e os w t,,o na,au canno. qulse ses
esnius he appears to Bunny. / find
him highly derivatiye an unusual
documentary sociologist a skilled
narodist ana excellent observation-disclosures OF
words, a writer of splendid comedy and
psychologist who is somewhat in.
ferior to Dostoievski. and vastly in
ferior. saw. to Frens Inng IaIar
Frinix or Watson. ne 4 T shouId Gov
one of tha most consI,,arsb,a a onras :,
contemnorarv literature. bn+ so also
to nv mind ;s Cahell Rv nrafsra,,ce
am certain I shall ra.repd cahal;
more freoman+ly thar = shaIl Ianea
- seward ,,sae s.1rroa,,,. s ~: :,
aeest hook by which ha ssnges Tho ~
ellieenco and mstbatie ans;tiv;4u - -
II aonIe Nc nos raad = S,,a H.; "
Conrad;ng that rana ;nta,i;ra,,t oin 1es
49,. ~ e - IL. PSA