The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas

Synopsis: For Gertrude Stein and her companion Alice B. Toklas, life in Paris was based upon the rue de Fleurus and the Saturday evenings and 'it was like a kaleidoscope slowly turning'. Picasso was there with 'his high whinnying spanish giggle', as were Cezanne and Matisse, Hemingway and Fitzgerald. As Toklas put it - 'The geniuses came and talked to Gertrude Stein and the wives sat with me'. A light-hearted entertainment, this is in fact Gertrude Stein's own autobiography and a roll-call of all the extraordinary painters and writers she met between 1903 and 1932. Audacious, sardonic and characteristically self-confident, this is a definitive account by the American in Paris.

Review: This one made my head ache, despite the blurb explaining all to me I really couldn't get the concept for ages. Eventually the penny dropped and I understood (eureka .. what's next .. Proust??) The books title is The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas but it's not about Alice, it's told from the viewpoint of Alice, but it's not by her either. It's a biography about Gertrude Stein written by her as if it's Alice (her friend and companion) talking .. oh my, my head hurts again thinking about it. This is a clever concept because of course you can get away with saying all sorts about how amazingly brilliant you are (as in 'The three geniuses of whom I wish to speak are Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso and Alfred Whitehead') and it looks for all the world as if someone else is saying it about you (though Gertrude does come clean in the last sentence.) Anybody who was anybody in Paris (or abroad) always wanted to be introduced to Gertrude, she drew artistic people to her like moths to flames.

The book went through phases for me of being really entertaining and a little dull, I like her style of writing (very spare with only essential detail) but sometimes there wasn't quite enough detail. Often a sentence you thought was leading somewhere ended up dead ended ... stuff like .. 'we thought she would go there but she didn't' .. 'we thought she'd like him but she never' ... Gertrude bought a lot of paintings, she also sat for a lot of painters and sculptors and was mixing constantly in their society especially Picasso, Apollonaire & Matisse, later it was writers such as Hemingway, Fitzgerald and some of the Bloomsbury Group writers but a lot of this was more or less just listed with little snippets that mischievously made you want to know more. There are times when she elaborates a little more and it's always very entertaining and funny. She's someone who speaks her mind so if she doesn't like a painting/sculpture/piece of writing then she'll say so, she'd see no point in flattery. Having said that I don't think she was fond of criticism when it was directed at her, but then who is? 'She reads anything and everything and even now hates to be disturbed and above all however often she has read a book and however foolish the book may be no-one must make fun of it or tell her how it goes on. It is still as it always was real to her.'

One of the paragraphs that I loved was (and the above sentence may give you a clue) ...'Haweis had been fascinated with what he had read in the manuscript of The Making of Americans. He did however plead for commas. Gertrude Stein said commas were unnecessary, the sense should be intrinsic and not have to be explained by commas and otherwise commas were only a sign that one should pause and take breath but one should know of oneself when one wanted to pause and take breath. However, as she liked Haweis very much and he had given her a delightful painting, she gave him two commas. It must however be added that on re-reading the manuscript she took the commas out.' .. I think I will use that forever more as an excuse for my atrocious punctuation. You should have known to put it in yourself I can't do all the work for you :o)

An insight into life in Montmartre, during the dawning of the Cubism/Surrealism art movement and the first world war and rather endearing in it's way, Gertrude has an uncanny way of getting straight to the point of every topic and furnishing it with her dry wit. She and Alice lived simple lives but moved in extraordinary circles. As you would expect, it's comma-lite.