View source for Ida: A Novel

{{Short description|1941 novel by Gertrude Stein}}
{{Infobox book
| name           = Ida A Novel
| author         = [[Gertrude Stein]]
| image          = File:IdaNovel.jpg
| caption        = First edition
| publisher      = [[Random House]]
| release_date   = 15 February 1941
| pages          = 154
| preceded_by    = [[Paris France (novel)|''Paris France'']] (1940)
| followed_by    = [[Wars I Have Seen]] (1945)
}}
'''''Ida A Novel''''' is a novel by [[Gertrude Stein]], first published in 1941.
== Synopsis ==
Following Ida from her birth into adulthood, the narrative describes her relationships with dogs, encounters with strangers, and her multiple marriages, probably five. (Many details of her life are left unstated.) The novel is structured in two halves, the first in six parts, and the second in eight parts. She moves around the United States, and in the latter part of the novel she may be living in Europe. As a young woman Ida becomes well known and therefore must constantly negotiate people's perceptions of her; her common response is to escape. When people try to find her she is often elsewhere.
== Themes ==
=== Publicity saints ===
Stein said that the novel was "about publicity saints. The idea of the book is that religion has been replaced by publicity. A 'publicity saint' [...] is a saint with a certain mystical something about him which keeps him a saint; he does nothing and says nothing, and nobody is affected by him in any way whatsoever."<ref name="Stein, ''Ida'' (Yale, 2012): xvii-xviii.">Stein, ''Ida'' (Yale, 2012): xvii–xviii.</ref> With the phrase "publicity saint" Stein was thinking about people who, because the media follow them obsessively, become [[famous for being famous]]. Their lives as famous people interest us more than what they might actually do. Among the models Stein used was the [[Duchess of Windsor]].
== History of composition ==
Stein began writing ''Ida'' in May 1937, shortly after finishing her second autobiography, ''[[Everybody's Autobiography]]''. Through the rest of 1937 she tried, unsuccessfully, to interest [[Thornton Wilder]], a close friend at the time, in a collaboration on the novel. Stein worked on the first half of the novel until early 1940, rewriting it twice, and wrote the second half in April–May 1940. The manuscripts are in the [[Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library]]. While working on ''Ida'' Stein also wrote ''Picasso'' (1937), ''[[Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights]]'' (1938), ''The World Is Round'' (1938), and ''Paris France'' (1939).
== Bibliography ==
=== Publication history ===
* ''Ida A Novel''. New York: Random House, 1941. (Reprinted as a Vintage paperback in 1972.)
* In ''Look at Me Now and Here I am: Writings and Lectures 1909–1945''. Ed. Patricia Meyerowitz. London: Peter Owen, 1967. 338–423.
* In ''Gertrude Stein: Writings 1932–1946''. Ed. Catharine Stimpson and Harriet Chessman. New York: Library of America, 1998. 611–704.
* ''Ida A Novel''. Ed. Logan Esdale. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012.
=== Translations ===
*''Ida Um Romance'' (Brazilian Portuguese). Translated by Luís Fernando Protásio. With texts by [[Badi Assad]] and [[Luiz Päetow]]. PONTOEDITA, 2019.
*Ида (Russian). Translated by Ilya Bass. Kolonna, 2016.
*''Ida'' (Swedish). Translated by Johanna Mo. Foreword by Ida Börjel. Modernista, 2018.
*''Ida'' (French). Translated by Daniel Mauroc. Points, 1997.
*''Ida : Roman'' (Norwegian). Samlaget, 1995.
*''Ida'' (Spanish). Alfabia, 1988.
*''Ida'' (Finnish). Gummerus, 1988.
*''Ida : ein Roman'' (German). Translated by Marie-Anne Stiebel. Suhrkamp, 1987.
*''Ida'' (European Portuguese). Translated by Ricardo Alberti. Ulisseia, 1979.
*''Ida'' (Persian). Translated by Fahimeh Zahedi. 1971.
*''Ida'' (Italian). With illustrations by Luigi Broggini. Mondadori, 1948.
=== Criticism ===
* Berry, Ellen. "Postmodern Melodrama and Simulational Aesthetics in ''Ida''". ''Curved Thought and Textual Wandering: Gertrude Stein's Postmodernism''. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992. 153–177.
* bpNichol. "When the Time Came". ''Gertrude Stein and the Making of Literature''. Ed. Shirley Neuman and Ira B. Nadel. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988. 194–209.
* Bridgman, Richard. ''Gertrude Stein in Pieces''. New York: Oxford University Press, 1970. 306–310.
* Chessman, Harriet. "''Ida'' and Twins". ''The Public Is Invited to Dance: Representation, the Body, and Dialogue in Gertrude Stein''. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989. 167–198.
* {{cite journal|last1=Esdale|first1=Logan|title=Gertrude Stein's twin|journal=Textual Practice|date=December 2011|volume=25|issue=6|pages=989–1014|doi=10.1080/0950236x.2011.618461|s2cid=161058158 }}
* Schmitz, Neil. ''Of Huck and Alice: Humorous Writing in American Literature''. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983. 226–239.
* {{cite journal|last1=Secor|first1=Cynthia|title=Ida, a Great American Novel|journal=Twentieth Century Literature|date=Spring 1978|volume=24|issue=1|pages=96–107|doi=10.2307/441068|jstor=441068 }}
* Sontag, Susan. "Performance Art". ''PEN America'' 3 (2004): 92–96.
* Watson, Dana Cairns. "Talking Boundaries into Thresholds in ''Ida''". ''Gertrude Stein and the Essence of What Happens''. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2005. 119–148.
== Footnotes ==
{{Reflist}}
{{Gertrude Stein}}
[[Category:Novels by Gertrude Stein]]
[[Category:Random House books]]
[[Category:1941 American novels]]