Gertrude Stein – The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
I had to read this for school, and put it off for ages owing to a vague sense of impending doom.
However, my vague sense of impending doom is often a little off (see The Mill on the Floss) Also, as a general rule, I love half-crazed eccentric women writers, so what was my vague sense of impending doom talking about? And when I got round to reading the preface, it described her as ‘one of the century’s least read but most publicised authors’. I thought that was truly sad. I was all ready to be all ‘forgotten classic’ ‘neglected women’ ‘righteous anger’ ‘blahblahblah’ on her behalf.
However, my vague sense of impending doom quickly became an overwhelming wave of WTF-ery.
It is exactly the sort of clever-cleverness that sets my teeth on edge. Gertrude Stein is writing Alice B Toklas’s autobiography, but it’s really her own biography. And by biography, I mean a list of all the famous people she met over the years and the dull as ditchwater things they talk about. You wouldn’t think that a book in which Picasso and Matisse and Eliot and Hemingway show up for a cup of tea and a chat could be so horrific would you? But its so dry and literal. And the sentences go on for months. Sample horror at random:
‘Eliot and Gertrude Stein had a solemn conversation, mostly about split infinitives and other grammatical solecisms and why Gertrude Stein used them.’
Really? That’s what you’d choose to talk about with TS Eliot?
So she complains and whines and moans about how no-one recognises her genius and how no-one will publish her for 257 pages. She is completely unable to recognise that hey, maybe its because you are boring and humourless and pretentious? And because you constantly refer to yourself as Gertrude Stein? And just writing down every single thing that happens to you and calling yourself is a genius doesn’t make you one?
I don’t normally have such a violent reaction to any book. I think it’s because Gertrude Stein is so pleased with being in this exclusive club of special people. And that, for an autobiography, it is so unrevealing of personality, or character, or emotional development. It is just a shopping list of dates and name-dropping. Also, her style is deliberately provocative. ‘To appreciate me’ she seems to say ‘you have to set aside everything you think you know or like or enjoy about writing. And if you don’t appreciate it you are just not clever enough, and I don’t care. I am Gertrude Stein and I am a genius.’
And yes, I get that it’s all experimental and innovative and groundbreaking. But is that worth it if no one reads it?
In an odd way, it reminded me of Alanis Morisette. All that repetition was highly original and exciting in One Hand in My Pocket – but by Thank You, I was thinking, lady, is repetition all you’ve got? Same goes for you, Gertrude Stein.
Posted on March 10, 2011, in Uncategorized and tagged alice b. toklas, autobiography, feminism, gertrude stein, international women's day, memoir, modernism, the autobiography of alice b. toklas. Bookmark the permalink. 4 Comments.
I had to read something by Gertrude Stein in college. Hated it. If you want some lovely, experimental writing from a female writer, I recommend Lyn Hejinian’s My Life. It was assigned for the same college class, and almost everyone in my class enjoyed it, including me. It’s not very long, and it might throw you at first, but once you get into it, it’s quite accessible.
Thanks for the suggestion – I’ll look it up!
I read this book in high school, which was kind of exciting. After all, there’s talk of marijuana brownies! It’d be interesting to see what my older self thought of it, but I’ve got better books to read.
The hash brownies were in ‘The Alice B Toklas Cookbook’ which we also had to read this week – and one of my classmates ended up making them. Though without the hash. So they were just squidgy green nutty things – not even brownies. Big let down!