Gertrude Stein's "The Making of Americans": Repetition and the Emergence of Modernism

Gertrude Stein's "The Making of Americans". Repetition and the Emergence of Modernism. By George B. Moore. New York: Peter Lang. 1998. 267 pp. $45.95.

In Axel's Castle (1931), the earliest critical assessment of Gertrude Stein's selfproclaimed masterpiece, The Making of Americans, Edmund Wilson wrote, "I confess that I have not read this book all through, and I do not know whether it is possible to do so." Few other works would inspire their critics to brag of such laxity and to expect indulgence on the part of their readers. Though modernism contains many monumental and monumentally demanding works (for example, Joyce's Ulysses and Proust's A la Recherche du temps perdu, which Stein thought were less revolutionary), it is safe to say that The Making of Americans remains the least read and studied. Since its publication by...