Gertrude Stein (Critical Lives) by Lucy Daniel (PDF)

Description

You are, of course, never yourself’, wrote Gertrude Stein in one of her famously witty autobiographies. Since the 1920s Stein has been celebrated in many incarnations: as the embodiment of Left Bank bohemia, as a patron of modern art and writing, as a gay icon, as the coiner of the expression ‘Lost Generation’, and as the hostess of perhaps the most famous salon of modern times. Yet despite an immense and varied body of work and a writing life that spanned 50 years, she remains one of the most recognizable and yet least-known of the twentieth century’s major literary figures. With detailed reference to her works, to the many notable portraits and readings, and to Stein’s own entertaining anecdotes, Lucy Daniel discusses how the legend of ‘Gertrude Stein’ was created, both by herself and her admirers. The book tracks Stein’s work, from early efforts in automatic writing to late experiments in the art of autobiography, via her combination of continual stylistic rejuvenation and extraordinary personal charisma. It also takes in her involvement with turn-of-the-century feminism and psychology, her 40-year relationship with Alice B. Toklas, the cultural impact of her salon in the Parisian ex-pat scene, her many famous friendships, and the controversy surrounding her life in occupied France during the Second World War. A fresh and readable presentation of one of the major Anglo-American Modernists, Gertrude Stein will appeal to readers of Gertrude Stein and her circle, as well as specialists in the fields of literature, art, gender studies, Modernism and cultural studies.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from this book. Gertrude Stein has been so maligned and dismissed by so many critics over the years — due in large part to Hemingway’s feud with her — that to find something that was written about her life in a thoughtful and balanced way…. Well, you can imagine my surprise and delight. The author went to great lengths to correct many misperceptions about Stein and her writing. Which is about time as two of Stein’s novels are now available in Norton Critical Editions, which demonstrates the reconsideration that has been given to her work in the last thirty years.

⭐Much has been written about the life of Gertrude Stein, not least by Stein herself. 136 years after her birth, we still find it easier to grasp Stein as the “saloniste” who drew together influential artists and writers in her Paris apartment, and struggle to make sense of her work as a writer. That Stein herself became best-known for a work of “autobiography” just muddies the waters. Lucy Daniel brings a clear-eyed gaze to both Stein as the center of Parisian “Bohemian” culture, and a solid, non-polemical view of Stein’s achievements as a writer. Too much of what has been written about Stein focuses on her life, and leaves the work undiscussed. Daniels has clearly read Stein, and brings insight to her work, without feeling the need to judge either the woman or her writing. While Daniel’s book is unlikely to replace works like James Mellow’s “Charmed Circle” or Janet Malcolm’s recent “Two Lives” as accounts of the Stein/Toklas salon, I welcome it for its integration of biography and informed literary analysis.

⭐

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