Paris France (novel) - Literary Style

Literary Style

Among her meditations on French character and “civilisation,” Gertrude Stein’s Paris France (1940) includes a quick dismissal of the “sur-realist crowd”: That was really the trouble with the sur-realist crowd, they missed their moment of becoming civilized, they used their revolt, not as a private but as a public thing, they wanted publicity not civilisation, and so really they never succeeded in being peaceful and exciting.

Gertrude Stein is considered to be an avant-garde of surrealism, so this statement may seem contradictory. But Stein employs two literary styles in order to make this claim and stay within the sur-realist crowd.

This first style, surrealism, is a style of art and literature developed principally in the 20th century, stressing the subconscious or nonrational significance of imagery arrived at by automatism or the exploitation of chance effects, unexpected juxtapositions, etc. The second style is where Stein detracts from surrealism for a while to raise her opinions. This “Steinianism” is like surrealism in that it embraces the role in creating literary history, but instead of obsessing over revolt and originality it is concerned with the ideal of “civilization.” Both of these styles enable Stein to maintain a surrealist backdrop while still voicing her own ideals.