I just started book #756, Three Lives by Gertrude Stein. The book is broken up into three stories - The Good Anna, Melanctha, and The Gentle Lena. I finished The Good Anna and have started on Melanctha.
I really think The Good Anna should actually be The Meddlesome Anna, or The Exasperating Anna - something not so flattering. Anna is a stolid and stubborn servant who works for a few different people. She will only work for people that will allow her to control every aspect of their lives. She gets upset at any money her employers spend, yet wastes all of hers on friends who overspend on themselves. She is hostile and unreasonable when interviewed for a job. She scolds her friends when they do something she doesn't like and they are afraid of her wrath.
So far Melanctha is a much more affable character, but the writing is getting more and more repetitive. Stein finds phrases that she likes and uses them over and over, sometimes within the same paragraph. If the author's other books on the list are as repetitive (and I have read that The Making of Americans is more so and over 900 pages long), it may be a chore getting through them.
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