Alice B. Toklas

Dragon Mood? -- vindicated

Check. Another book completed: The Biography of Alice B. Toklas by Linda Simon.

I've always been curious about Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Having read this biography, Toklas comes off as an incredibly loyal (most especially to Gertrude), but oddly discomforting person, given to jealousy and cutting off friendships. Gertrude sounds like she was a much more approachable and genial person. While Gertrude worked to secure her reputation as a 'genius' writer, her writing sounds rather repetitive, stream-of-consciousness-like and to my ears, a bit odd (the biographer offers samples in an appendix). What made Toklas and Stein truly interesting (to me) was the company they kept:  Matisse, Picasso, Thornton Wilder and many others.

Because these two women were more of the Victorian era than a 20th-century mindset, they led very circumspect lives. I wish the biographer had had more to work with relative to their relationship as 'modern day' lesbians. I kept finding myself wanting to know more.

I did learn that the phrase, "a rose is a rose is a rose" originated with Gertrude Stein. I feel curiously happy at that and vindicated that I spent the time reading the book.