Baby Precious Always Shines: Selected Love Notes Between Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas

by Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Kay Turner (Editor)

A collection of the love notes Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas wrote to each other during the time they were together paints an intimate picture of the love these two woman shared.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Queer, Lesbian, LGBT

165 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Gertrude Stein was an American writer who spent most of her life in France, and who became a catalyst in the development of modern art and literature. Her life was marked by two primary relationships, the first with her brother Leo Stein, from 1874-1914, and the second with Alice B. Toklas, from 1907 until Stein's death in 1946. Stein shared her salon at 27 rue de Fleurus, Paris, first with Leo and then with Alice. Throughout her lifetime, Stein cultivated significant tertiary relationships with well-known members of the avant garde artistic and literary world of her time.

Reviews

[michaela · Rating 1 out of 5]

genuinely some bullshit

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am so in love with this book. Intimacy is one of my favourite things in the entire world and this book is purely that - the little love notes and poems and written thoughts shared between Stein and Toklas. To be able to peek into the world of two people so close, so in love - to see pain, misunderstanding, apology, reintegration and simple daily events in addition to the playful eros - is a little slice of heaven to me as a voyeur of humanity.

[Elisa Berry · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating glimpse into the intimate world of a most enigmatic author/artist and her lady love. Stein requested these remain private during her lifetime, sadly due to the world's view of her brand of love, and so we almost missed one of the great, and real, love stories of the modern era. Thank you Kay Turner, a woman I was thrilled to meet last happy new year, for revealing and reflecting upon these lovely, loving, in love women.

[Kelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely adore this collection of selected notes that Stein & Toklas left for each other throughout their long marriage (I don't care, to me it's a marriage). While part of me felt slightly guilty for reading a glimpse into someone else's relationship, each letter brims with so much love, affection, and concern for the recipient that you can't help but get drawn in.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh love that makes fools of us all. An interesting look at an interesting couple.

[Carl · Rating 4 out of 5]

A review concluding with "As a Wife Has a Cow: A Love Story."

[Arrobarsandias · Rating 2 out of 5]

Como bien dijo la filóloga más brillante del s.XXI (mi amiga), No todo merece ser publicado

Mi acercamiento al libro nace de mi interés por asomarme a la intimidad de dos escritoras a través de una correspondencia muy poco común: una correspondencia donde no hay distancia, ambas se envian estás notas conviviendo bajo el mismo techo. Circunstancia muy poco común que me despierta una gran curiosidad. Pero cual es mi sorpresa cuando termino de leer la introducción de Kay Turner y me encuentro con unas notas que no contienen ni un poco de lo que se me estaba anticipando.

La repetición, la simpleza, el infantilismo, etc no son rasgos literarios menores, merecen nuestra atención, y pueden ser recursos narrativos muy contundentes. Pero no es el caso. Si Gertrude, a la hora de escribir estas notas, lo hacia con las mismas pretensiones artísticas que cuando escribia sus novelas y sus poemas (como quiere demostrar Kay Turner), me parecen unas pretensiones muy vagas y perezosas, poco ambiciosas. Como digo, la repetición puede ser un recurso muy virtuoso, pero no si se aplica insistentemente y sin una intención más allá de la musicalidad, lo cual es muy vago porque cualquier repetición resulta musical por definición.

Por ejemplo, esta nota: Baby precious you know baby you are/ my precious you know how precious/ you are all precious and you/ know baby you are the only precious the/ precious only precious to your hubby, / bless the baby precious all precious all/ all precious every bit precious and always/ precious to her hubby


Considero que el valor del libro se encuentra en los análisis y conclusiones de Kay Turner, los cuales, a mí entender, se deberían de haber quedado en un artículo académico: la lectura queer de sus motes cariñosos que dan cuenta de como entendían ellas su propia cotidianeidad y domesticidad, las conjeturas en torno al significado de "cow", las notas como reflejo de las cotas de intimidad, cuidado y sensualidad que alcanzó la relación, la constatación de que Gertrude cuantificaba su producción artística como medida de su amor por Toklas, etc... Todo ello seguramente esté en sus notas, y evidentemente que sus notas deben considerarse parte de la obra literaria de Gertrude, pero mi discrepancia es que sean de una gran calidad a la altura del resto de su obra (la cual desconozco, y no creo que sea de mi gusto por lo extraído de este libro), y seguramente no lo sean porque no estaban pensadas para publicarse.

[Rae · Rating 3 out of 5]

annotations:

-When you come to feel the whole of anyone from the beginning to the ending, all the kind of repeating there is in them, the different ways at different times repeating comes out of them, all the kinds of things and mixtures in each one, anyone can see then by looking hard at any one living near them that a history of every one must be a long one.

-Do you really think I would yes I would and
I do love all you with all me.
Do you really think I could, yes I could
yes I would love all you with all me.
Do you really think I should yes I should
love all you with all me yes I should
yes I could yes I would.
Do you really think I do love all you
with all me yes I do love all you with all
me And bless my baby.

-My dearest wife,

This little pen which
belongs to you loves to be
written by me for you, its
never in a stew nor are
you my sweet ecstacy.

-knows that his blessed baby wifey is all here and he
is all hers, and sticks to her like burrs, blessed baby

-Baby precious my own delight, my
sweet my tender my always right, my
love my wifie, my all and all my sweetest
baby my little ball, my everything always,
my just like that, just everything always

-Here is a lovely new note book to
fill full of notes
A lovely new note book to fill
full of hopes,
And notes and hopes and
baby's dotes, I dote on she
She dotes on me, we dote on each other oui oui oui.

*-I don't obey
Do this you say
Well do it together and
Thats the way we obey

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lesser-known gem of a book full of sweet, repetitive, soothing love notes.

[Carter Fife · Rating 5 out of 5]

based in like a super carnal and grotesque way