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alciewms's review
adventurous
challenging
slow-paced
2.75
This was a tough one. Reading it was like listening to an old woman mumble to herself for way too long. There were interesting parts, but it was also over the top with unnecessary details, and without much in the way of engaging style.
lelia_t's review against another edition
1.0
I can’t say I enjoyed this book. Before reading it and after reading it, I had the impression of someone who’d co-opted her life partner’s voice for the purpose of self-aggrandizement. To make matters worse, the book is boring. Gertrude Stein writes about Picasso and Hemingway and Matisse and World War I and life in Paris - sounds intriguing, right? - in mind-dulling ramblings. Presumably she was imitating Alice B. Toklas’ voice, but the minutia is unbearable. For example, “We come in in the street car because it is difficult to get a taxi in Boulogne and we go back in a taxi. Well we came in as usual and didn’t notice anything and when we had finished our shopping and had had our tea we stood on a corner to get a taxi.”
Maybe people who knew Toklas and Stein would have smiled at inside jokes and speech patterns that are “so Alice,” but for someone outside that magic circle, it’s difficult to appreciate.
There were a few moments where I was struck by Stein’s cleverness at giving such an external view of herself when, in reality, she only knows herself from the inside. She writes of her theory of poetry and prose, “Nor should emotion itself be the cause of poetry or prose. They should consist of an exact reproduction of either an outer or inner reality.” And I suppose that’s what she’s given us, an exact reproduction of her outer reality without the clutter of emotion. But it makes for very dry reading. I also wondered if she was imitating Hemingway’s style, but Hemingway conveys powerful emotions in his short descriptions of outer reality.
Every now and then there was a sentence that made me smile - or kind of like Gertrude Stein: “She had little note-books full of phrases that pleased her…”
I’m glad I treated myself to the Maira Kalmon illustrated edition - the drawings are great - but I don’t share Kalman’s romanticized view of the Stein/Toklas relationship. Stein using Toklas’s voice to talk herself up seems self-centered and controlling.
To do Toklas justice, I want to read The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book. In the introduction, Ruth Reichl writes, “I can’t help wondering if the cookbook might have been a way for this unforgiving woman [Toklas] to get a bit of her own back.”
Originally published on brightwingswellness.com.
Maybe people who knew Toklas and Stein would have smiled at inside jokes and speech patterns that are “so Alice,” but for someone outside that magic circle, it’s difficult to appreciate.
There were a few moments where I was struck by Stein’s cleverness at giving such an external view of herself when, in reality, she only knows herself from the inside. She writes of her theory of poetry and prose, “Nor should emotion itself be the cause of poetry or prose. They should consist of an exact reproduction of either an outer or inner reality.” And I suppose that’s what she’s given us, an exact reproduction of her outer reality without the clutter of emotion. But it makes for very dry reading. I also wondered if she was imitating Hemingway’s style, but Hemingway conveys powerful emotions in his short descriptions of outer reality.
Every now and then there was a sentence that made me smile - or kind of like Gertrude Stein: “She had little note-books full of phrases that pleased her…”
I’m glad I treated myself to the Maira Kalmon illustrated edition - the drawings are great - but I don’t share Kalman’s romanticized view of the Stein/Toklas relationship. Stein using Toklas’s voice to talk herself up seems self-centered and controlling.
To do Toklas justice, I want to read The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book. In the introduction, Ruth Reichl writes, “I can’t help wondering if the cookbook might have been a way for this unforgiving woman [Toklas] to get a bit of her own back.”
Originally published on brightwingswellness.com.
casspro's review
1.0
Oh how I dislike Stein. I want to love her, I do! She stands for individuality, bohemianism, jazz age and all the things I like. But the writing! I can't do stream of consciousness. And while I understand its one of the quintessential jazz age works, I couldn't get more than 20 pages in due to mental collapse.
brannonkrkhuang's review against another edition
This book is about a bunch of famous painters and writers hanging out in Paris and I am not interested in this subject. This is perfect for Paris and art geeks, though! I’ll give Stein another try later - probably give Three Lives.
saxonnefragile's review against another edition
2.0
Au final, on s'ennuie beaucoup dans cette énumération des membres des avants gardes artistiques. Très anecdotique, dans tout les sens du terme.
lsparrow's review
2.0
Like many of the classics I am glad to have read it - not for any personal enjoyment or love of the story or the writing but rather because of an understanding of the cultural references an of the times that it was written in.
I find what Stein does with writing, her ideas of using words to paint portraits or landscapes, her resistance to set structures, her play on perspective interesting.
As much as this book makes me interested to know more about her and think about how interesting it would be to talk to her I did not enjoy this book. It was a book that I pushed through to finish.
I find what Stein does with writing, her ideas of using words to paint portraits or landscapes, her resistance to set structures, her play on perspective interesting.
As much as this book makes me interested to know more about her and think about how interesting it would be to talk to her I did not enjoy this book. It was a book that I pushed through to finish.
casparb's review against another edition
4.0
A smooth and lightly amusing piece of autobiographical (is it?) writing. I'm sure we're aware of Stein's Parisian popularity, but this book really shines a light on the extent of it. It is time to indulge in list-making. In the space of ten years, dinner-guests to Stein's house include Picasso (Stein and Picasso were close friends), Matisse, Juan Gris, Pound & Eliot, Mina Loy, Ford Madox Ford, Edith Sitwell, Guillaume Apollinaire, Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, Sherwood Anderson, Cèzanne, Wyndham Lewis, Joyce, Renoir, Daumier. There are many others - I forget, and one receives the impression that the book leaves out many. The bulk of this book is anecdotes of Parisian and wartime rompings with the above, so I suppose if that's of any remote interest to anybody then do look into it.
This is a work complicated by the title - Stein writes the autobiography of her wife/lover Alice (diplomatically described as 'companion' on the blurb of my 1960 edition). But it's not an autobiography of Alice. The book starts with Stein and ends with her. And I'm delighted by that.
This is a work complicated by the title - Stein writes the autobiography of her wife/lover Alice (diplomatically described as 'companion' on the blurb of my 1960 edition). But it's not an autobiography of Alice. The book starts with Stein and ends with her. And I'm delighted by that.
catarinalobo's review
3.0
Não é uma leitura rápida, mas é bem interessante ver como um casal lésbico viveu tudo isso há tantos anos atrás - até mesmo com clássicas distinções de papéis femmes x butches. Não tem como não se sentir em “meia noite em paris” vendo que o dia-a-dia da gertrude envolvia ter roles com picasso, matisse, hemingway, juan gris, man ray, etc e pensar como foi um período intelectualmente fértil pra esse inner circle. Foi especialmente divertido ver as fofocas sobre essas pessoas, ainda mais depois de saber que foi meio proposital porque era o livro comercial da gertrude.
Em termos de estrutura, muito interessante ver como ela usa a autobiografia da própria companheira pra fazer uma biografia de si mesma, nesse paradoxo primeira x terceira pessoa em todos os aspectos. Deixo registrado ainda que o possível título “vidas de gênios com quem me sentei pra conversar” é perfeito pra esse livro, e me lembra um momento engraçado em que “alice” fala que se sentava com as esposas dos gênios (e a gertrude com os gênios).
Em termos de estrutura, muito interessante ver como ela usa a autobiografia da própria companheira pra fazer uma biografia de si mesma, nesse paradoxo primeira x terceira pessoa em todos os aspectos. Deixo registrado ainda que o possível título “vidas de gênios com quem me sentei pra conversar” é perfeito pra esse livro, e me lembra um momento engraçado em que “alice” fala que se sentava com as esposas dos gênios (e a gertrude com os gênios).