Autobiografia di Alice B.Toklas by Gertrude Stein edited by Alessandra Sarchi

 Autobiografia di Alice B.Toklas by Gertrude Stein

edited by Alessandra Sarchi is a wonderful book  if you want to understand the dynamics and atmosphere breathed in Paris during the  two first decades and more of the last century. 

Gertrude Stein's writing-style is not encouraging, or beautiful, let me write this: no. 

Her writing is hard, cold, and mainly autoritative and auto-celebrative. She mentions herself 760  times  in 285 pages! It's a continuous: Gertrude Stein, miss Stein, Stein met...etc etc.

This experience, the one of an auto-celebration passing through the idea of writing the biography of her companion is an escamotage for a promotion of herself and her vision, telling us who were the artists, painters, people of letters, or friends like Sylvia Beach and Monnier, passing through painters like Matisse, Picasso and many more, who visited their house. People still without fame, as Ernest Hemingway, who searched for Gerteude Stein once in Paris because a thing was more than sure: if Gertrude Stein loved your work, probably you would have become someone. For this reason, but also for passing some time together, in this fertile house, Gertrude and Alice organized constantly art exhibits. Whoever could stop by; it was maybe necessary a little introduction but for the rest, no one was excluded in this circle of creatives. The two brothers Stein were very well known in the environment and Leo was indispensible like the sister in the creation of a new idea of painting; not only; this place of aggregation that was Stein's house avoided the possible dispersion that in opposite case maybe would have characterized these beautiful minds without a guidance. Sometimes luck happens and in their case they found in Gertrude Stein and her brother a great shoulder for going on and becoming who they became now: Picasso, Matisse, Hemingway... What I appreciated the most of this particular historical period in Paris was the mutual help that surrounded them all thanks to the Stein

Only for this reason you should read this book.

Highly recommended.

I thank Marsilio for the physical copy of the book.

Anna Maria Polidori