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Alice
B. Toklas (1877
- 1967)
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 Autobiography
of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude
Stein
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas is
actually the autobiography of Gertrude Stein. With complete
self-assurance and audacity, speaking through the unassuming
persona of her companion Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein indulged
herself delightfully in this ode to Gertrude Stein and her
literary/artistic circle. Perhaps she was quoting Alice's actual
words when she wrote "I may say that only three times in my
life have I met a genius and each time a bell within me rang and I
was not mistaken." One of the geniuses referred to is, of
course, Gertrude Stein herself. Fortunately, her conceit is
leavened with irony and word-play, and the gossip is elevated to
the level of myth by the stature of its subjects. Gertrude Stein
wrote, and apparently lived, with self-conscious sensitivity to
her role among a generation of writers and artists in Paris who
were engaged in becoming legends. Although her characters were
"giants" of art and literature whose contributions she
considered with a discerning eye, her anecdotes of their behavior
could be small-talk taken to the point of farce. The Autobiography
offers glimpses of the dazzling and often baffling experimental
style for which the author is famous, but the guileless,
conversational tone of this book makes it one of her most easily
accessible works.
 Baby
Precious Always Shines : Selected Love Notes Between Gertrude
Stein and Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude
Stein, Kaye Turner (Editor),
Alice B. Toklas, Kay Turner (Editor)
Baby Precious Always Shines, a delightful
selection from the 300 love notes that Alice B. Toklas
accidentally deposited with the rest of Gertrude Stein's papers in
the Beinecke Library at Yale, would not have been possible before
the 1980s, when the locked cabinet in which they were kept was
finally opened to scholars. In her excellent introduction, Kay
Turner (whose other books include I Dream of Madonna: Women's
Dreams of the Goddess of Pop) explains that with their baby
talk and constant blessings, the notes provide "a tantalizing
mosaic of a marriage between two women that was built to
last." Composed in the "word-inverted, long-breathed,
rolling, repetitive, refluent style that Stein invented,"
they touch on everyday events in the Stein-Toklas household and
reiterate Stein's love and desire for Toklas. Many seem to have
been left for Toklas to find in the morning beside the manuscripts
that Stein had written during the night. A few were written by
Toklas to Stein. Turner also offers a convincing new reading of
Stein's famously obscure "cows" (in A Book Concluding
with As a Wife Has a Cow: A Love Story and elsewhere),
previously thought to signify female orgasm; she argues that Stein
and Toklas subscribed to the "cult of regularity" that
swept Europe in the first decades of the 20th century. Indeed, the
love notes, despite their Steinian verbal play, leave little doubt
that the recurring cows, "now sweet smelly and
complete," are bowel movements--further evidence, for Turner,
of the women's extraordinary intimacy, their love "express[ing]
itself daily in the rituals of bodily caretaking."
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Encarta
Excerpt:
American writer, born in San Francisco. She
lived most of her life in Paris as the companion of her compatriot
Gertrude Stein; together they presided over a renowned literary
salon...
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From Salon.com
Excerpt:
When Alice B. Toklas met Gertrude Stein,
she heard bells ring. They went on to have one of the happiest
marriages of the 20th century. By Amy Benfer The first time Alice
B. Toklas met Gertrude Stein, Alice believed Gertrude to be
speaking from her brooch: "She wore a large, round coral
brooch, and when she talked, very little, or laughed, a good deal,
I thought her voice came from her brooch. It was unlike any other
else's voice -- a deep, full velvety contralto's, like two voices..."
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From the Knitting
Circle
Excerpt:
Close friend and lover of Gertrude
Stein and writer of a cult cookbook. Alice B. Toklas was 30
when she first met Gertrude Stein who was then 33.
Toklas arrived in Paris in 1907 and soon moved
in with Stein. Toklas did the cooking and kept house while Stein
concentrated on her writing. They were together for 38 years.
After Stein died in 1946 Toklas continued to live in Paris and
became renowned for her cookbook.
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Read all about Alice's famous companion,
Gertrude Stein. Page includes annotated links, book reviews,
bibliography, essays, and more.
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Names Index:
A B
C D
E F
G H
I J
K L
M N
O P
Q R
S T
U V
W X
Y Z
| Authors
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Index |
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