<![CDATA[Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice]]>

false <![CDATA[Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1180272094m/1017699.jpg 1017699 5 “How had the pair of elderly Jewish lesbians survived the Nazis?” Janet Malcolm asks at the beginning of this extraordinary work of literary biography and investigative journalism. The pair, of course, is Gertrude Stein, the modernist master “whose charm was as conspicuous as her fatness” and “thin, plain, tense, sour” Alice B. Toklas, the “worker bee” who ministered to Stein’s needs throughout their forty-year expatriate “marriage.” As Malcolm pursues the truth of the couple’s charmed life in a village in Vichy France, her subject becomes the larger question of biographical truth. “The instability of human knowledge is one of our few certainties,” she writes. The portrait of the legendary couple that emerges from this work is unexpectedly charged. The two world wars Stein and Toklas lived through together are paralleled by the private war that went on between them. This war, as Malcolm learned, sometimes flared into bitter combat. Two Lives is also a work of literary criticism. “Even the most hermetic of [Stein’s] writings are works of submerged autobiography,” Malcolm writes. “The key of 'I' will not unlock the door to their meaning—you need a crowbar for that—but will sometimes admit you to a kind of anteroom of suggestion.” Whether unpacking the accessible Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, in which Stein “solves the koan of autobiography,” or wrestling with The Making of Americans, a masterwork of “magisterial disorder,” Malcolm is stunningly perceptive. Praise for the author: “[Janet Malcolm] is among the most intellectually provocative of authors . . .able to turn epiphanies of perception into explosions of insight.”—David Lehman, Boston Globe “Not since Virginia Woolf has anyone thought so trenchantly about the strange art of biography.”—Christopher Benfey 2926734 book 27 9 2007 Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice total:162|5:26|4:57|3:52|2:20|1:7| 162 561 331 66 4 2 false false Fri Mar 21 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Jan 19 12:16:26 -0800 2008 Fri Mar 21 16:13:15 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 1 false false Sat Sep 29 15:35:01 -0700 2007 Mon Sep 24 13:29:29 -0700 2007 Sat Sep 29 15:34:42 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Aug 01 18:10:19 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 01 19:04:14 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Feb 05 09:53:18 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 09:53:18 -0800 2009 Janet Malcolm, a writer for The New Yorker and an accomplished biographer, recognizes the limitations inherent in her chosen medium: "The instability of human knowledge is one of our few certainties. Almost everything we know we know incompletely at best." Malcolm consulted many scholars, ...

more...]]> 2 0 false false Fri Aug 14 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 10 13:52:14 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 14 22:45:18 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Jul 17 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 17 13:14:35 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 17 13:22:48 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Feb 11 15:07:37 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 05 11:48:47 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 11 15:07:37 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Mar 04 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Mar 06 11:30:16 -0800 2008 Thu Mar 06 11:43:16 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 16 19:17:40 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 16 19:17:40 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Jan 07 19:08:13 -0800 2008 Mon Jan 07 19:08:13 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Tue Dec 25 11:28:48 -0800 2007 Tue Dec 25 11:38:01 -0800 2007 more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Nov 05 05:22:30 -0800 2007 Mon Nov 05 06:15:22 -0800 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Aug 12 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Aug 05 06:17:06 -0700 2008 Tue Aug 12 13:09:02 -0700 2008 The Making of Americans reveals how biographical her works are.

...more...]]> 2 0 false false Fri May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Feb 13 13:53:00 -0800 2008 Wed May 13 05:58:50 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Sep 02 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 28 07:13:47 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 02 21:35:40 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Mon Dec 31 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Sun Apr 26 15:12:10 -0700 2009 Sun Apr 26 15:14:02 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri May 29 22:41:41 -0700 2009 Fri May 29 22:44:12 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Sat Dec 22 14:24:21 -0800 2007 Sat Dec 22 14:30:20 -0800 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Jan 04 10:35:12 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 04 10:39:10 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Fri Dec 12 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Dec 12 09:04:20 -0800 2008 Fri Dec 12 09:06:23 -0800 2008 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=1017699