Today in Literature, March 7

File Under: Modern Love, Modern Literature, Pot Brownies, Random Editorializing

Alice B. Toklas, lifelong companion of writer Gertrude Stein and the person who is somewhat responsible for the popularization of the pot brownie, died today in 1967 at the ripe old age of 89.

She and Stein hosted a salon in Paris that attracted U.S. expatriates including (but certainly not limited to) Ernest Hemmingway and Thornton Wilder, as well as artists such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse.

But her other claim to fame is a little fudge recipe that found its way into “The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook” which chronicled both standard and inventive recipes for French cuisine, as well as the adventures of herself and Stein – such as picnics with Picasso in the French countryside.

The two most probably had an intimate relationship—considering they lived together and each referred to the other as “husband” and/or “wife”. And they wrote incredibly sweet and beautiful, though at times vague (but hey, they were hanging around some of the most talented avant-garde minds of their time…) notes and whatnot to and for one another, such as Stein’s sexy poem, “Lifting Belly”.

And Alice said witty things about her companion such as, “This has been a most wonderful evening. Gertrude has said things tonight it will take her 10 years to understand.”

But I’m not trying to write a sexual orientation dissertation here—I really just want to point out how much each cherished the another and experienced a lifelong love that was devotedly romantic and erotic—a beautiful and rare thing, especially in Modern times – or our own damn time, lol.

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, actually a memoir written by Stein, is a fascinating work that got Stein in the pages of the Atlantic Monthly. It also pissed some people off (ie, Matisse, who didn’t like the depiction of his wife, Georges Braque who felt it misrepresented Cubism, and Stein’s own brother Leo…who was prolly just jealous).

But, the book is noteworthy in and of itself from a literary/philosophical viewpoint, because, ok, how can I explain this? Stein wrote the whole thing as really seen through Toklas’ eyes. I mean, damn, she loved this lady so much and knew her so well that she wrote an entire book basically as her.

Virgil Thompson summed it up quite well when he said, “...the book is in every way except actual authorship Alice Toklas's book; it reflects her mind, her language, her private view of Gertrude, also her unique narrative powers. Every story in it is told as Alice herself had always told it....Every story that ever came into the house eventually got told in Alice's way, and this was its definitive version."

And then, after Stein's death, Toklas converted to Catholicism because she believed that was the best way to ensure she'd go to heaven and be with Gertrude in the afterlife.

Now, wouldn't ya say that's love?

On this day in 1941 Sherwood Anderson became one of the earliest candidate’s for Spike TV’s 1000 Ways to Die when he swallowed a three-inch tooth piece of toothpick from the olive in his martini and passed away a few days later at his home in Panama due to complications from peritonitis.

For a guy who, as a kid, worked so hard to support his family that he earned the nickname “Jobby”, gave up twice on the drudgery of successful white collar positions in exchange for a prolific writing career, married a grand total of four times, once bought and edited two competing newspapers in the same town (a Democrat and a Republican one), “successfully expressed the theme of conflict between organized industrial society and the subconscious instincts of the individual” (thanks, Columbia Encyclopedia!), inspired the likes of Faulkner and Steinbeck, and still found the time to mentor Ernest Hemingway—who later repaid the favor by satirizing him in not one, but two works (Torrents of Spring and To Have and To Have Not ) that’s quite an anti-climactic way to go, IMHO.

Best known for the short story collection Winesburg, Ohio, Anderson’s other works include Windy McPherson’s Son, Marching Men, Poor White, Triumph of the Egg, Many Marriages (hmmm…aptly titled?), Horses and Men, A Story-Teller’s Story, and about forty more novels, nonfiction works, and collections. From the publication of his first novel (Windy McPherson’s…) in 1916 to his death in 1967 he cranked out about thirty books. Then there were all the collections of correspondence, lost works, and etc. From a math flunkee’s rough estimation, that comes out to roughly a book’s worth of writing a year.

His epitaph reads, "Life, Not Death, is the Great Adventure." Is that ironic – or oddly appropriate?