Book//mark – The World is Round | Gertrude Stein, 1939

Gertrude Stein, The World is Round, 1939 / Pictures by Clement Hurd

“Once upon a time the world was round and you could go on it around and around.
Everywhere there was somewhere and everywhere there were men women children dogs cows wild pigs little rabbits cats lizards and animals. That is the way it was. And everybody dogs cats sheep rabbits and lizards and children all wanted to tell everybody all about it and they wanted to tell all about themselves.
And then there was Rose.
Rose was her name and would she have been rose if her name had not been Rose. She used to think and then she used to think again.”

Gertrude Stein The World is Round 1939 1

Gertrude Stein, The World is Round, 1939 / Pictures by Clement Hurd

“Everywhere she should see everywhere and she would sit on the chair, yes there.”

“There the mountains were and they were blue, oh dear blue blue just blue, dear blue sweet blue yes blue.”

“Nobody knows how the wild animals came there. If the world is round can they come out of the ground but anyway everybody had one and sometimes somebody sold one, quite often everybody sold them.”

“Was she awake or did she dream that her cousin Willie heard her scream.”

“When you are all alone alone in the woods even if the woods are lovely and warm and there is a blue chair which can never be any harm, even so if you hear your own voice singing or even just talking well hearing anything even if it is all your own like your own voice is and you are all alone and you hear your own voice then it is frightening.”

Gertrude Stein, The World is Round, 1939 / Pictures by Clement Hurd

“A rose is a rose is a rose.”

“She was all alone on the top of everything and she was sitting there and she could sing.”

“Oh dear oh dear oh dear I never did know I would be here, and here I am all alone all night and I am in a most awful fright.”

“Willie and Rose turned out not to be cousins, just how nobody knows, and so they married and had children and sang with them and sometimes singing made Rose cry and sometimes it made Willie get more and more excited and they lived happily ever after and the world just went on being round.”

Gertrude Stein, The World is Round, 1939 / Pictures by Clement Hurd

The book is dedicated “To Rose Lucy Renée Anne d’Aiguy, A French Rose,” who was the daughter of Gertrude Stein’s neighbors in Bilignin, France. This real Rose is the main character of the book, complete with the also real dogs Love and Pépé.