Gertrude and Alice

Yes, I have to admit that two lesbians were my first real literary heroines. Early in my reading life, someone (and thank you whoever you were!) gave me a copy of Gertrude Stein's, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. How could I not be enthralled by two women who, in the early 1930s publicly called one another Lovey (Gertrude) and Pussy (Alice)? The Autobiography introduced me to both women but most importantly turned me on to Gertrude Stein, her literary style, and her incredible life. What a hero for a gay boy who not only loved to read but loved art and history?

Reading about Gertrude and Alice's association with the likes of Paul Cezanne, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso revealed all sorts of new subjects to explore and absorb. Stein's exploration of automatic writing and her experiments in recreating the grammatical rules for writing were fascinating and offered hours of new reading experiences albeit often difficult and obscure. Nonetheless, reading books on and by both women gave me a great deal of pleasure for many years.

The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook, which Alice published in 1954 even offered up some rare delights in the culinary arts. Ostensibly published as a cookbook, in reality it was a memoir of her life with Gertrude Stein. Let's face it, however, the Alice B. Toklas Cookbook became famous in the 1970s for its now signature recipe for marijuana brownies. The truth be told, for anyone who actually read the Cookbook the recipe was for "haschich fudge" and it wasn't even one of her own recipes.

The most revealing book on Gertrude and Alice, and for me the most emotional was Alice's own memoir Staying on Alone: Letters of Alice B. Toklas. To live for so long after the death of her true love was difficult, and I learned first hand about the vacuum that can be left by the death of your life-partner. Their's was a true love-story.

One negative issue did appear early in my exploration of the life and times of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Spelled out in James Mellow's extensive biography of Stein, Charmed Circle: Gertrude Stein & Company, Gertrude did not particularly like what homosexual men did in bed. She felt that homosexual men were "disgusted" after sex where women making love had nothing to be "disgusted" about.

To be a saint, one must sin; to be a hero, one must have flaws.