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series highlighting the best gay and lesbian authors from the
20th century (with a few before and after that period)
who have recorded in fiction, and nonfiction, the history of gay people
telling what life is, and was, during an important time of history.
Is
Gertrude Stein remembered today? And if she is what is she rembered
for? "A rose is a rose is a rose"? Her writing? Being an out lesbian
before it was chic? Her 39 year affair with Alice Toklas? Her salon of
the rich and famous in Paris? Her mentoring of future artists? For
Alice's weed laced brownies? What do you remember Gertrude Stein for or
don't you know who she was?
The
following are just some of the notes from wikipedia, the free Internet
encyclopedia--for the complete story on Gertrude Stein go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Stein
Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American
writer who spent most of her life in France, and who became a catalyst in the
development of modern art and
literature. Her life was marked by two
primary relationships.The first being her working relationship with her brother
Leo Stein, from 1874–1914, and
the second being her romantic relationship with her life partner Alice B. Toklas, from
1907 until Stein's death in 1946. Stein shared her salon at 27 rue de Fleurus,
Paris, first with Leo and then with Alice. Throughout her lifetime, Stein also
cultivated significant relationships with well-known members of the avant garde artistic and literary world.
Stein was gregarious and had a wealth of friends and modern paintings that
attracted many to her Paris salon.[1] Her personality also
allowed her to transform her social outlets, by focusing on new friendships,
members of the youthful generation of the time. For example, Stein was friends
with "up and coming" artists Matisse and Picasso in the early 1900s, writers Thornton Wilder and Ernest Hemingway in
the 20s, and with the American GIs in the 40s.
Each period marked Stein's connections with young, and artistic people at the
center of contemporary developments and events. Her writing reflects, or in the
case of The Autobiography, reflects upon each decade.
In the 1920s, her salon at 27 Rue de Fleurus, with walls
covered by avant-garde paintings, attracted many of the great writers of the
time, including Ernest
Hemingway, Ezra Pound, Thornton Wilder, and Sherwood Anderson.
While she has been credited with coining the term "Lost Generation" for some of these expatriate American writers, at
least three versions of the story that led to the phrase are on record, two by
Ernest Hemingway and one by Gertrude Stein (Mellow, 1974, pp. 273–74). During the 20s, she became
friends with writer Mina Loy, and
the two would remain lifelong friends. Extremely charming, eloquent, and
cheerful, she had a large circle of friends and tirelessly promoted herself. Her
judgments in literature and art were highly influential. She was Ernest
Hemingway's mentor, and upon the birth of his son he asked her to be the
godmother of his child. In the summer of 1931, Stein advised the young composer
and writer Paul Bowles to go
to Tangier, where she and Alice had
vacationed.
In the 1930s, Stein and Toklas became famous with the 1933 mass market
publication of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. She and Alice took
an extended lecture tour in the United States during this decade. They also
spent many summers in Bilignin,
France, and doted on a famous poodle named "Basket" whose successor, "Basket
II", comforted Alice in the years after Gertrude's death.
Quotations
- "I do want to get rich, but I never want to do what there is to do to get
rich." - "A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his
ears". - "Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common
sense". - "Hemingway, remarks are not literature".
- "I've been rich and I've been poor. It's better to be rich".
- "America is my country, but Paris is my hometown".
- "You are all a lost generation".
- "It is extraordinary that whole populations have no projects for the future,
none at all. It certainly is extraordinary, but it is certainly true". - "A rose is a rose is a rose is a
rose". - "To write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to
write". - "Out of kindness comes redness and out of rudeness comes rapid same
question, out of an eye comes research, out of selection comes painful
cattle". - "There is no there there." [re: Oakland, CA]
- "I really do not know that anything has ever been more exciting than diagramming sentences."
- "I have made it [white electric light] but have I a soul to pay for
it." - "Affectations can be dangerous."
- "Everything is so dangerous that nothing is really very frightening."
- "If it can be done, why do it?"
- "It is natural to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our
eyes to that siren until she allures us to our death."
love the list of quotes, thanks for sharing this is a fun read.
But the information here was informative.Thanks.Fredo