Talk to The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas like its author wrote you back.
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What it argues
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas is Gertrude Stein's most accessible book, and its central joke is that it isn't really an autobiography of Alice B. Toklas at all. Stein writes in the voice of her partner and companion, describing their life together in Paris from Alice's arrival in 1907 through the years when 27 rue de Fleurus became the gathering point for the most significant artists and writers of the early twentieth century. The conceit allows Stein to write about herself in third person while pretending to be writing about someone else, and she makes the most of the displacement.
The portrait that emerges — of Picasso visiting on Saturdays, of Matisse arguing about painting, of Hemingway arriving young and ambitious, of Sherwood Anderson giving letters of introduction, of Juan Gris and Apollinaire and Braque and Cézanne's canvases stacked against the walls — is one of the most vivid accounts of a cultural moment ever written. Stein positions herself at the center of all of it, a position that her contemporaries sometimes disputed but that the book's sheer conviction makes persuasive.
What it gets right
- 1.
Stein writes as Alice to write about herself — a narrative trick that allows her both self-promotion and a kind of plausible deniability.
- 2.
The salon at 27 rue de Fleurus was a genuine meeting point for early modernism: Picasso, Matisse, Hemingway, and dozens of others passed through.
- 3.
Stein presents herself as a central arbiter of modernist art before the term was coined, a claim that was contested at the time and remains debated by historians.
What it covers
Who wrote it
Gertrude Stein was an American writer born in 1874 who spent most of her adult life in Paris. Her salon at 27 rue de Fleurus became an important gathering point for modernist artists and writers, and she was an early champion of Picasso, Matisse, and the Cubist painters. Her experimental works include Tender Buttons and The Making of Americans, which remain difficult to read and fiercely admired. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, published in 1933, was her first commercial success. She died in Paris in 1946. Her partner Alice B. Toklas survived her by twenty-one years.
