A Hurrah for the Long Sentence

I am once again teaching Gertrude Stein in Paris. Struck anew by the modernity of her sentences (of Ezra Pound: “She said he was a village explainer, excellent if you were a village, but if you were not, not”), I ran across this recent essay on the sentences of Rebecca Solnit. Solnit is by now a well-known feminist political writer, who originated, for many, the term mansplaining. But Neiman Storyboard’s analysis focuses not on her political views but on the length and shape of her sentences.

I’...