Gertrude and Alice Book

This is the third of the voyeuristic readings I've been doing on these gay lovers of long ago, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. After reading "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas" (by Gertrude) and "Staying on Alone: Letters of Alice B. Toklas" (by Alice) I got the impression that it was more of a platonic, literary partnership between the couple. I was mistaken. They did have lots of sex. Gertrude was the "husband" and Alice called her "lovey"; while Alice was the wife and Gertrude's term of endearment for her was, well, "pussy."

One enduring literary mystery in the lives of these two great lovers is what "caesars" were. "Cows" are easy--they were orgasms. "Cows are very nice. They are between the legs," wrote Gertrude. Cows made both of them very pleased:

"A cow has come he is pleased and she is content as a cow came and went...And now a little scene with a queen contented by the cow which has come and been sent and been seen. A dear dearest queen."

"Caesars" seemed to be what cows need. Gertrude wrote in one of her stories:

"Have Caesars a duty. Yes their duty is to a cow. Will they do their duty by the cow. Yes now and with pleasure."

Could Caesars be the fingers and the tongue? In another piece, Gertrude wrote:

"All of us worship a cow. How. By introducing and producing and
extension.
How.
You know about pipes. A shepherd has pipes. So he has. And so
have I.
I do mention this and that, it is true of a pussy and a cat, that
this is that and that is this and you are sleepy with a kiss. Who
miss, us.
Why misses us, who dismisses us.
We kiss us.
Very well.
She is very well.
And as to cow which is mentioned anyhow. A cow is
mentioned anyhow.
Thank you Romans Caesars and all.
I say it to you and I say it to you I say it to you how I love my
little jew. I say it to you and I say it to you. I say it to you and I
say it to you. I say it to you."

Those of you who have not read Gertrude Stein yet, or has read only her "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas" would wonder what kind of writing is that. Well, that was the way Gertrude wrote. Before "The Autobiography...", in fact, she had had no success as a writer, getting rejection letters from publishers one after the other. One publisher even wrote back, mimicking and mocking her strange repetitive prose:

"19 April 1912
Dear Madam
I am only one, only one, only one. Only one being, one at the same time. Not two, not three, only one. Only one life to live, only sixty minutes in one hour. Only one pair of eyes. Only one brain. Only one being. Being only one, having only one pair of eyes, having only one time, having only one life, I cannot read your MS three or four times. Not even one time. Only one look, only one look is enough. Hardly one copy would sell here. Hardly one.

Many thanks. I am returning the MS by registered post. Only one MS by one post.
Sincerely yours..."

Even Gertrude's brother Leo, with whom she was quite attached when they were young, considered her as a "fake intellectual...who write in Jargon because (she) can't get enough effect with decent English." The siblings died hating each other.

After I read and reviewed "The Autobiography..." [the novel which made Gertrude famous, ironically written not in her usual style, but in the style she imagined Alice would have written her (Alice's) autobiography] I was so excited to read next her "The Making of Americans" and I asked my brother, who has a copy, to lend it to me. First, he said he'll read it first (as was his practice). After some time, however, he suddenly said he can't find the book anymore. That, to me, was another literary mystery. How can such a thick volume which no one has borrowed be possibly missed or misplaced? Is it not likely that he started reading it and got stranded in its infuriating Gertrudisms like the above?

Indeed, how to read an unreadable book like this? Find someone who had praised it or its author. Do we have one for Gertrude? Yes, author Edmund Wilson. He had written that although Gertrude wrote NONSENSE:

"One should not talk about 'nonsense' until one has decided what sense consists of...Most of us balk at her soporific rigmaroles, her echolaic incantations, her half-witted sounding catalogues of numbers. Most of us read her less and less. Yet remembering especially her early work, we are still always aware of her presence in the background of contemporary literature...And whenever we pick up her writings, however unintelligible we may find them, we are aware of a literary personality of unmistakable originality and distinction."

Ah, how sweet it is to be nonsensical and unintelligible and yet be praised!