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Amazon.co.uk Review
"Twentieth century literature is Gertrude Stein". Or at least so thought Gertrude Stein, a sentiment she shared with few others, except of course Alice B Toklas. Gertrude and Alice met in 1907 in Paris and famously shared their lives from that day forth, souls in perfect complement; two magnificently eccentric and idiosyncratic women who became a legendary entity, photographed by Man Ray and Cecil Beaton, painted and fêted by Picasso and visited by writers such as Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Eliot. Theirs is a fascinating story, and they have found a wonderful and oddly sympathetic chronicler in Diana Souhami, whose book The Trials of Radclyffe Hall met with critical acclaim, and who proves the perfect counterfoil to the "Steins". Her own touch of genius is to barely consider Gertrude's grand oeuvre, sparing the rod to an already spoilt child and freeing her readership from the unpalatable fare she generally served up (by contrast, Alice was a dedicated and talented cook).
Literary success came late to Stein--she was 57 when The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas was published-- but like Edith Sitwell she became, to use a Leavis phrase, more a figure in the history of publicity, and the curious thing is that one senses that behind the rhetoric, she knew it. After her death in 1946, Alice became the classic devoted author's widow, finally dying just short of her 90th birthday. She was buried with Gertrude in Père Lachaise cemetery, though her inscription is on the back of the tombstone, as ever behind her lover. Souhami's two lives, refreshingly stripped of biographical dead wood, positively crackle with high-powered gossip and bristle with bitchy anecdotes, though her laconic touch is never asleep to the touching cadences as well as the wonderful absurdities. As a writer, a "literary cubist", who once tried to give up nouns, Stein is more to be admired than respected. As a life force, a mover and shaker, and as a partner for Alice, she was massively successful. Their life together, a third life so to speak, was their greatest creation, and it's done justice by the talented Souhami's glorious account. Gertrude and Alice would have hated it. --David Vincent --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
'A brilliant and witty chronicle of one of the happiest marriages in modern literary history. Not only star-studded but light-filled.' --John Richardson, author of 'A Life of Picasso'
'Perfect, deadpan, brief and witty' --The Independent
'Wonderfully entertaining ... not many biographies can make you laugh out loud. A real treat' --Time Out
'Perfect, deadpan, brief and witty' --The Independent
'Wonderfully entertaining ... not many biographies can make you laugh out loud. A real treat' --Time Out
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Gertrude Stein was certain of her own genius; I, sadly, have always found the thickets of her repetitive style too impenetrable to be certain whether a genius or a charlatan lived within. Beyond doubt, though, her earnest, yet zany, gift for the sound patterns of words helped to create two terrific operas with Virgil Thomson.
Diane Souhami manages a perfect mix of admiration, sympathy and detachment in her poised and witty double-biography of Stein and Alice B. Toklas, some ten years old, but a comparatively recent paperback. The near-40 year 'marriage' of Stein and Toklas was a marvellously batty affair as well as being artistically and aesthetically significant. Diana Souhami is not afraid to make the book downright funny at times, as when Cecil Beaton, lost in war-time Southern France, was pursued by Stein and Toklas driving up and down obscure lanes sounding their car's horn and lamenting, 'Who cares about war? We've lost Cecil Beaton.'
Souhami's style manages to be both elegant and simple, with the occasional teasing hint of Stein's (minus the obscurity) and a brisk narrative drive.
Diane Souhami manages a perfect mix of admiration, sympathy and detachment in her poised and witty double-biography of Stein and Alice B. Toklas, some ten years old, but a comparatively recent paperback. The near-40 year 'marriage' of Stein and Toklas was a marvellously batty affair as well as being artistically and aesthetically significant. Diana Souhami is not afraid to make the book downright funny at times, as when Cecil Beaton, lost in war-time Southern France, was pursued by Stein and Toklas driving up and down obscure lanes sounding their car's horn and lamenting, 'Who cares about war? We've lost Cecil Beaton.'
Souhami's style manages to be both elegant and simple, with the occasional teasing hint of Stein's (minus the obscurity) and a brisk narrative drive.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I couldn't warm to this book, for two reasons. Firstly, it's the sort of book that reviewers love, because it's about a writer. Correction, it's about Gertrude Stein, who thought she could write, and her amanuensis Alice, who typed up her repetitive compositions. Alice thought Gertrude was a genius, because when she first saw her bells went off inside her head. The same phenomenom occurred when she met Picasso. Had she realised they were alarm bells she might have saved everybody a lot of trouble. Instead Pablo was encouraged by Gertrude, and Gertrude was encouraged by Alice.
Leo Stein, Gertrude's brother, was far more clearsighted. He had some appreciation of art, and called both their efforts "Godalmighty rubbish" and "Cubico futuristic tommy-rotting". If only his judgement had prevailed. Instead Alice encouraged Gertrude to persist in her delusion, despite repeated rejections from prospective publishers whose job it was to make sound commercial judgements.
Boiling it all down, this is a book about two ladies who tried hard to make a success of writing, and failed. Not on the face of it promising material, but it could have been redeemed had Diana Souhami written a compelling narrative. Instead of which, one is subjected to a tedious prose, in which irrelevant details are scattered (one lunch attendee is described as having had double-jointed thumbs), but there is an irritating vagueness about the relationships between the principal characters.
In fact, the funniest part of the book (and, despite what the reviewers write, a barrel of laughs it ain't) is when Mr Fifield, of Clifford's Inn, London returned the 147-page manuscript of "Portraits" with a covering letter hoisting Gertrude on her own petard by mimicking her impenetrable prose, but far more wittily than she was capable of herself. If like me you've been misled into purchasing this Tale of Two Mittys, my advice is simply to read and enjoy page 148, it will save an awful lot of time.
Leo Stein, Gertrude's brother, was far more clearsighted. He had some appreciation of art, and called both their efforts "Godalmighty rubbish" and "Cubico futuristic tommy-rotting". If only his judgement had prevailed. Instead Alice encouraged Gertrude to persist in her delusion, despite repeated rejections from prospective publishers whose job it was to make sound commercial judgements.
Boiling it all down, this is a book about two ladies who tried hard to make a success of writing, and failed. Not on the face of it promising material, but it could have been redeemed had Diana Souhami written a compelling narrative. Instead of which, one is subjected to a tedious prose, in which irrelevant details are scattered (one lunch attendee is described as having had double-jointed thumbs), but there is an irritating vagueness about the relationships between the principal characters.
In fact, the funniest part of the book (and, despite what the reviewers write, a barrel of laughs it ain't) is when Mr Fifield, of Clifford's Inn, London returned the 147-page manuscript of "Portraits" with a covering letter hoisting Gertrude on her own petard by mimicking her impenetrable prose, but far more wittily than she was capable of herself. If like me you've been misled into purchasing this Tale of Two Mittys, my advice is simply to read and enjoy page 148, it will save an awful lot of time.
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