Inception of G.S. - Part Two (Enter Gertrude)

My awareness of when and how I learned about the genius Gertrude Stein is not as clear to me as my discovery of George Sand on PBS.

I do know that when I was still in my teens, I wrote several poems inspired by Stein's life.

One, I recall, was entitled "Eat the Matisse."

Gertrude was an avid collector of art. She befriended a group of young artists in Paris before they were famous, including Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. She both bought and was given their work. When Gertrude and her companion Alice B. Toklas needed cash to travel into the countryside to escape the Nazi invasion during WWII, Gertrude said, "We shall simply eat the Matisse." (Meaning they could sell their most famous and valuable painting at the time on the black market for cash.) In actuality, they wrapped their most prized paintings in brown paper and string, threw them into the back of a roadster and drove out of Paris together!

Another poem, which I can still recite, was called "The Need for Alice B. Rap", part of which went thusly (although one really can't get the full syncopatin' rhythm of it without hearing it spoken aloud) :

"I was walkin' down the street
without
gainful employment
when I thought of Gertie S.
in her
Pair-S apartment
Didn't worry both the cash flow
Or the dust in her salon
She posed for Pablo P.
While Ernie H. sipped tea
Which was served by Alice B.
in their
Pair-S apartment
and a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose

Now there's nothin' Gertie S. done did
I couldn't do myself,
If she'd only send old Alice B. by
For a week to help..."

Once again, the theme of the daily, necessary routine vs. the creative urge rears its ugly head. Gertrude was able to focus on her work because Alice B. took care of everything else (the "obligatory nuisance" as the poem goes on to say). Every creative person longs for an Alice B. at one time or another.

Stein's most enduring work is entitled "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas", which is - in fact - her own autobiography written in Alice's voice. By framing her own memories and recollections as if viewed through the eyes of her companion, Stein grants herself an objectivity. She also made her companion as culturally well-known (if not more so today, thanks to that hashish brownie recipe!) as herself. I can't help but think that "The Autobiography..." was an acknowledgement of Alice's contribution to her work.

Most of Stein's work is difficult to wade through. You don't read a Stein novel because she holds your interest with a fast-paced plot. Her over-riding subject is language itself: she creates a dizzying collision of words whose meanings are hard, if not impossible to discern. Someone - I think perhaps it was Sherwood Anderson - said that Stein was necessary for the evolution of modern writing, but that she's virtually impossible to read.

That didn't stop me from reading her - with my voracious appetite for words.

However the book about Stein that affected me most was a collection of letters written by Alice after Gertrude died. It was entitled: "Staying on Alone" and was infused with a hearfelt, bittersweet poignancy. Alice - the person on the sidelines - coming into focus.

Alice's overwhelming grief was something I could feel rising off the page...but something I wouldn't understand until I was much older.

Still: more information filed away for future use.