morenowagain's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Minor: Racism and Racial slurs
shanviolinlove's review against another edition
2.0
This is Gertrude Stein's own autobiography, apparently told through the lens of her life partner Alice B. Toklas. While her life in Europe was intriguing -- hobnobbing with geniuses from Picasso to Hemingway -- and while her own literary genius shows in the influence she had with developing artists and writers -- I couldn't quite embrace the style of which she chose to deliver her autobiography. Stein is famous for confounding the literary conventions ("Tender Buttons," anyone?) and provoking the mind; she references her study of sentences and paragraphs several times in this book. But as far as narrativization, which I wonder if she is attempting, I withhold my praise. Unlike Virginia Woolf, who has mastered the technique of the telling of one character through a framing character, Stein's work, I thought, was blatantly missing the ego "I" necessary for an "autobiography." If she wanted to write her own autobiography and eclipse Toklas, she should have done so. By labeling her work as Toklas' autobiography, I was disappointed that a writer this creative could not have reached the potential of carrying through Alice's voice in the portrayal of life with a genius. Too often it was her own voice coming through the literary mask.
nicstar's review
3.0
Disappointed with this book. Totally lacked any substance - just a list of famous people they happened to meet during their lifetime.
foggy_rosamund's review against another edition
3.0
Gertrude Stein writes her own autobiography, from the perspective of her partner, Alice B. Toklas. A wealthy American in Paris, Gertrude Stein acts as a patron of the arts, as well as working on her own writing, and her dead-pan descriptions of various artists, as well as the creative process, are often very wry and amusing. I enjoyed most of this book, but at times became bogged down in the parade of artists, intellectuals, writers, and others. The narrative is an interesting mixture of chaos and hedonism, with wry asides about Paris, Americans, and various nationalities. I felt that Stein's narrative voice let her down when she was writing about World War 1: her deadpan style loses its charm, and the sense that the Americans are treating the War as a lark, of which they are disinterested observers, is strange and jarring.
This book is fascinatingly queer: though the partnership between Alice and Gertrude is never made explicit, it is written everywhere between the lines. Alice is written as Gertrude Stein's devoted wife, and Gertrude Stein depicts herself as a stalwart genius, whose name is always given in full. There is something daring and thrilling about a relationship between two women being given the same treatment as, for example, Picasso or Matisse's relationships with their wives. It's also frustrating, because Gertrude Stein is clearly the patriarch/matriarch of the situation, and there is no sense that there should be equality between two members of a relationship -- just that geniuses need wives.
This book has one of the best final paragraphs I've ever read.
This book is fascinatingly queer: though the partnership between Alice and Gertrude is never made explicit, it is written everywhere between the lines. Alice is written as Gertrude Stein's devoted wife, and Gertrude Stein depicts herself as a stalwart genius, whose name is always given in full. There is something daring and thrilling about a relationship between two women being given the same treatment as, for example, Picasso or Matisse's relationships with their wives. It's also frustrating, because Gertrude Stein is clearly the patriarch/matriarch of the situation, and there is no sense that there should be equality between two members of a relationship -- just that geniuses need wives.
This book has one of the best final paragraphs I've ever read.
sarasofraz's review
4.0
I really enjoyed reading this. It is a lot of name-dropping and whatnot, but in a very amusing and kind of lovely way? It's funny that Gertrude Stein wrote the autobiography of her love Alice B.Toklas and its even more funny that the whole book is really about Gertrude Stein herself. I love the way she writes and just, find it so nice to learn even more about the niche group of artists and authors that were active in the early 20th century in Paris.
_dunno_'s review
4.0
Hate to admit it, but I was never interested in Stein's prose (though after reading this, I am a little), but in her connections with the artistic/literature contemporaries, so choosing memoirs over other works makes sense. When it comes to style, I'm pretty judgemental, though I shouldn't be, she was merely trying to mimic Alice's conversational style, so I should take it as a joke. Anyway, I guess I prefer Hemingway's [b:A Moveable Feast|4631|A Moveable Feast|Ernest Hemingway|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1427463201l/4631._SX50_.jpg|2459084].