Spreading the Difference: One Way to Read Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons

Abstract

Whether she is known as the Mother Goose of Montparnasse, the mama of dada, the affectionate mother country called Gert by G.I.s in Paris, or Baby, as her companion Alice called her in private, makes little difference to our reading of Gertrude Stein's work. Yet the phenomena of Gertrude Stein's versatile selves-none and all and more than the above-and her perception of the differences between herself and the selves of others do. In Tender Buttons1 these differences are as important as the identifications. At least this is one way to read it, and the one I intend here, although of course there is no one way to read it that can fathom a final difference. The spaces are exceptionally wide