The Village Explainer
Gertrude Stein said remarks are not literature. But hers are. Wittgenstein’s are.
And the cases are related. Both are perverse. Perverse as anything. She, on purpose; he, not.
They exploit the incongruity between their coolly rational tones and the content of what they’re saying. She has play in view; he, clarity.
His sense of humor was stunted. He thought the British use of the expletive “bloody” was the most amusing thing ever. He sprinkles it in postcards. The effect is chilling.
Yet all his books are laugh-out-loud funny. Not on every page, but often.
Stein had a vast and all-pervading sense of play and pleasure. It touched her every move. She’d say anything, as long as it gave pleasure.
She discovered something. There’s a small set of operating principles that, if followed, result in aphorisms, stanzas, lectures, novels. Anything you like. The
