Overdue Podcast – Ep. 740: Three Lives, by Gertrude Stein
February 2, 2026 | Hosts: Andrew and Craig

Episode Overview

In this episode, Craig and Andrew dive into Three Lives by Gertrude Stein, analyzing her debut novel as a key early modernist text. Their conversation explores Stein’s unique narrative style, the structure and content of the three interlinked novellas, and Stein’s complex legacy as a writer and cultural figure. The hosts unpack the novel’s challenging approach to plot, repetition as a literary device, and the depiction of marginalized women at the turn of the 20th century. They also discuss the book’s historical context and the controversies surrounding Stein herself.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Three Lives?

• Craig picks Three Lives as an accessible entry point into Gertrude Stein's work, noting its reputation for being more conventional than her later, more experimental writings.
• Stein's modernist style is discussed—especially her use of repetition, incremental description, and a resistance to conventional linear narrative. (07:05–07:28)
• The novel consists of three novellas: "The Good Anna," "Melanctha," and "The Gentle Lena," each focusing on the life of a working-class woman.

2. Who Was Gertrude Stein?

• Andrew provides a comprehensive biography, highlighting Stein’s upbringing, education, and eventual move to Paris, where she became a key figure in the expatriate art and literature scene. (07:31–11:35)
  • Stein was born in 1874 in Pittsburgh, grew up in Oakland, and later hosted salons frequented by artists like Picasso and Matisse.
  • Her literary output often struggled for commercial success until The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas ignited “Steinmania.”
• The hosts discuss her connections to the art world and her efforts to create a literary equivalent to avant-garde art forms like Cubism and Impressionism.
• Notable: Stein was a student of psychologist William James, which influenced her psychological and consciousness-focused writing style. (09:53–10:20)
• Stein’s difficult legacy: Her WWII activities (friendship with Vichy collaborators, translating pro-Pétain speeches, ambiguous political stances) provoke debate about her place in the literary canon. (19:40–23:33)
  • "I think there are people who want to claim Gertrude Stein because of her... contribution to early LGBTQ literature. But they also have to square it with this stuff where she is... friends with Nazi collaborators...” – Andrew [21:15]

3. Stein’s Style: Repetition, Minimalism, and Epithets

• Craig describes how Stein’s writing employs repeated phrasing—“you see that Anna led an arduous and troubled life”—and compares it to poetic epithets in Homer. (17:10–17:34)
• The famous tautological quote, “A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose...” is referenced as emblematic of Stein’s focus on the essential qualities of language.
  • “She wrote exactly what she means, and she means what she writes. I think you’ll figure it out eventually.” – Andrew on Alice B. Toklas’s explanation of the “rose” quote [17:10]
• Hosts discuss how repetition builds meaning and feeling, rather than pushing narrative forward.

Segment-by-Segment Exploration

[23:46–27:09] Which Life is "Best"?—Ranking the Novellas

• "The Good Anna"

  • Inspired by Flaubert’s "A Simple Heart," it centers on Anna, a German maid in Baltimore. She exerts control over those around her, but is ultimately vulnerable and shaped by her deep (possibly romantic, but nonsexual) friendships with women.
  • “The widow Mrs. Letman was the romance in Anna’s life.” – [32:33]
  • Stein’s signature style: frequent returns to phrases, incremental layering of character detail, and resistance to traditional plot arcs.
  • The narrative is less about growth or plot resolution than about the ongoing patterns and power dynamics in Anna’s life.
  • Anna works herself to death—a story marked by cycles of dependency and failed agency.
  • “It's like, here are her three dogs. And... stuff like that will then be punctuated with, ‘You see that Anna led an arduous and troubled life.’” – Craig [30:05]

• "Melanctha"

  • The novel’s centerpiece, and most discussed in literary studies; considered the most "modernist" of the three.
  • Melanctha is a Black woman in fictional "Bridgepoint" (Baltimore), seeking both wisdom and excitement. Her complex relationships with Jane Harden (a friend struggling with alcoholism), Dr. Jeff Campbell (who may be a stand-in for Stein), and Jim Richards (a gambler) structure the narrative.
  • Hosts highlight the controversy and critique: Stein, a white woman, employs racialized language and tropes—both reflecting her attempt to write marginalized lives and exposing problematic, racist dynamics of her era.
    • "The simple promiscuous unmorality of the black people..." and "the wide abandoned laughter that makes the warm, broad glow of Negro sunshine." – both called out as unexamined and damaging (43:35–45:04)
  • The story’s style: dialogue is lengthy, stylized, repetitious, filled with name-and-title variations (“Dr. Jeff,” “Jeff Campbell,” “Dr. Campbell”), illustrating shifting emotional and social registers. (55:28–57:15)
  • “It is easier to appreciate than to enjoy.” – Andrew on the reading experience [65:48]
  • The theme: Melanctha’s never-satisfied searching, ephemeral happiness, lack of agency, and eventual isolation and death from tuberculosis.

• "The Gentle Lena"

  • The shortest and least thematically complex. Lena is an unassuming German immigrant pushed into marriage by societal pressure. She is neglected, bears children, and dies young.
  • “She would be perfectly content to live the life she was living if other people didn’t expect her to hit, you know, societal markers like marriage and children.” – Craig [48:09]
  • Functions as a grim counterpoint to the other novellas, illustrating social determinism and the crushing of individual will.

[45:54–49:14] Thematic Synthesis

• Common threads: All three women are lower-class, and their ability to determine the course of their own lives is limited by external, structural forces.
• The stories reject traditional arc in favor of “accounting a life,” letting cyclical experience and stasis replace transformation.
• Stein avoids portraying neat character growth, instead suggesting that personality and fate are set early and reinforced by social circumstances.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It does seem literally like it’s just trying to be like an accounting of a life, which means that she’s taking it as an excuse to like not have it have a through line, because...if you were just like, yeah, depicting all the stuff that happens in [a life], it’s probably just going to seem like a bunch of stuff that happened because that’s kind of what happens to all of them.” – Andrew [36:38]
• On Stein’s stylistic choices: “She’s interested in figuring out what language can do differently to portray psychology.” – Craig [66:47]
• “I don’t know much about that kind of love yet, Miss Melanctha. You see, it’s this way with me always, Miss Melanctha. I’m always so busy with my thinking about my work I’m doing... Ms. Melanctha, I really certainly don’t ever like to get excited. And that kind of loving heart does seem always to mean just getting all the time excited... And that certainly would never suit a man like me.” – (Reading a passage, Andrew as Dr. Jeff) [60:47–61:26]
• “It is easier to appreciate than it is to enjoy.” – Andrew [65:48]
• “Sometimes the talking about it makes it clearer what the strengths are... Now I understand why the people who like this do like it. I understand why it is taught...” – Andrew [57:26]
• “This book’s weird, man. I don’t know if I’m gonna do it right.” – Craig [23:36]

Style, Structure & Final Thoughts

• The hosts agree the book’s experimental style (repetitive, looping, sometimes monotonous or frustrating) is challenging for readers, but can create a powerful mood and rhythm when read aloud. Craig notes that some passages became “actually good—poetic” through the act of discussion. (63:09–63:39)

• They wrestle with the author’s distance from her material (middle-class, white, Jewish, writing about working-class Black lives), highlighting both the historic limitations and literary ambitions of Stein’s project.

• Craig ultimately characterizes the novella Melanctha as “too long for what it’s doing,” though he finds Stein’s methods more rewarding by the end of the episode.

Episode Timestamps for Key Segments

• About Stein’s Biography & Legacy: 07:31–13:49, 19:40–23:33
• On Stein’s Style & “Rose is a Rose”: 15:12–17:10
• The Structure of Three Lives: 27:09–28:20
• Discussion of the Novellas:
  • The Good Anna: 28:20–39:09
  • Melanctha: 39:17–65:48
  • The Gentle Lena: 47:38–49:22
• Style Discussion & Sample Passages: 54:49–61:26
• Thematic Synthesis: 45:54–49:14, 66:13–67:39
• Final Reflections: 65:48–68:17

Closing Note

Craig and Andrew find Three Lives more important for what it tries to do than for the pleasure it brings—using it as a springboard for broader discussions about what narrative can be, how language can work, and how literary history confronts the complexities and failings of its own icons.

Next week on Overdue:
Monk and Robot by Becky Chambers