I was not able to finish this book, for which I take full responsibility. I was surprised because I love that time period, saw the Stein art exhibit at the MOMA a couple of years ago, and read/look at most of the artists & writers active then. I never much liked Hemingway's works (except "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place") and Stein makes my head hurt, even though I love what she was doing in theory. So I read what I could and sent the book to my friend Laura, who's a Stein fanatic, and she absolutely raved about it. I'll get it back from her and try again. ( )

I received a copy of this book from Library Thing as an Early Reviewer in exchange for a review.

Before I read this book, I read Sister Brother: Gertrude & Leo Stein by Brenda Wineapple, The Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway and The Paris Wife by Paula McLain and I watched Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris movie which depicted both these personalities.

Lyle Larsen is an author who brings to life the relationship between two very strong individuals. Because he is an English professor from Santa Monica College and a founding member of the Hemingway Society, we have the pleasure of reading many details about Stein and Hemingway through the 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s that may not have been shared before this book. This concise narrative outlines the ups and downs of a very volatile association that moves from mentor-student…to friendship…and then to competitors and adversaries.

In their own way, both supported each other in their writings as well as the publishing of their works. You can sometimes wonder if either would have succeeded, if they didn’t have each other.

Larsen style of writing is easy to read as he chronically a time when American artists were learning their craft in Paris and the years following. He looks at them stretching their wings and understanding how to soar. Larsen looks for reasons why both reached unbelievable heights in different ways and analyzed what each predicted for one another and what turned out to be true. Stein and Hemingway maybe have understood each other better than anyone else did.

Read this book and learn more about the turbulent relationship of two American authors who are still remembered and respected today. ( )

First off, who selected the photos for the cover art for this book? Seriously, it sets the mood immediately: Gertrude Stein looking mean and shrill and Ernest Hemingway with an amiable Dos Equis half-smile, his cap at a jaunty angle. Would I have perceived the book differently had she looked a bit more congenial?

In any case, this is a fascinating read full of gossip and name-dropping of just about every major literary figure in the US and UK in the early 20th century. The book covers more than just the friendship between Stein and Hemingway, as Eliot, Pound, Fitzgerald and others (Picasso!) are interspersed in the stories. Somehow it surprises me to see just how catty and vindictive many of these authors and poets were, especially that they seemed to focus a great deal on revealing the faults of each other rather than promoting the writing art.

Stein seems to have all the great lines. In one case, the book explores the numerous times writers came to visit Stein at 27 rue de Fleurus. One night, Ezra Pound stopped by. "Gertrude Stein liked him but did not find him amusing. She said he was a village explainer, excellent if you were a village, but if you were not, not." Ouch! Another night T.S. Eliot shows up: "Eliot and Gertrude Stein had a solemn conversation, mostly about split infinitives and other grammatical solecisms". Stimulating! But when Hemingway came to see her, their conversations and subsequent friendship became a random mixture of mutual admiration and dismissive gestures, mind games and begrudged respect.

Stein's opinion of Hemingway thereafter, and her part in his success is revealed in a conversation she had with Sherwood Anderson. As Larsen writes, "Hemingway had been formed by the two of them, and they were both a little proud and a little ashamed of the work of their minds."

William Carlos Williams got a knock in when he remarked on her endless piles of manuscripts, asking her "are you sure that writing is your metier?....things that children write have seemed to me so Gertrude Steinish in their repetitions." Score WCW. Naturally, she refused to see him again.

Hemingway, once matured and successful on his own, looked at Stein as lazy and disagreeable. He felt that she theorized more than she actually created. He was harsh and overly worked up about a new way she wore her hair, closely cropped, "like a Roman emperor". That her haircut was tied into her sexuality was obvious to Hemingway, and it could that he didn't like this "unambiguous statement of her sexual alignment." In any case, their friendship was pretty much over. As he explains, "But I could never make friends again truly, neither in my heart nor in my head. When you cannot make friends any more in your head is the worst."

Another character in this real-life soap opera is Alice Toklas, Stein's companion and to all accounts, a troublemaker eager to separate Stein from her literary peers. Larsen offers insight into why she may have been so controlling.

It occurred to me that much of the friendship between this pair (as well as the other authors and artists mentioned) was dependent so much on face to face interaction...they made efforts to seek out each other's company, often staying for long periods of time in each other's homes. Alternatively, they'd write extensive letters documenting their thoughts. Given our technological excesses, it makes me wonder if modern authors would even interact in such ways today. Maybe firing off a Facebook post or a Tweet in response to another's work, but does the same 'peer-review' sense of conversation about artistic works still occur? Has globalization made it easier to come together, so much so that everyone takes it for granted and remains distant? ( )

I was intrigued by this book because of a lifelong appreciation of Hemingway. He is my father's favorite author and I grew up hearing my dad talk not only about his works but his life.

Unfortunately, I think my interest is more tinged by my FATHER's love of Hemingway than in my own desire to know more. For that reason, this book didn't hold my attention. It's a fine exploration of the time and the influences on these two great writers, but I just couldn't stay interested.

Lyle Larsen’s “Stein and Hemingway: The Story of a Turbulent Friendship” provides an overview of each author’s background before tracing their up and (largely) down relationship. There is an extensive and interesting bibliography and the 186 page work is well sourced. In all, an interesting addition to the large corpus of work on Hemingway, the Lost Generation, and early 20th century culture and literature.

Gertrude Stein, sadly, is less well known to present day readers. As Larsen makes clear, she was convinced utterly of her own genius. To focus merely upon her “A rose is a rose is a rose” is to underestimate her influence and pioneering spirit. Many wouldn’t know but, in addition to her novels and poems, she also wrote opera libretti, ballets and children’s books. She was an early collector of Pablo Picasso – among others -- and his portrait of her is rightly famous. Much like her favored modernist artists, she left ‘representational’ writing behind, focusing not on meaning and plot, but on word play (sound, evocations of present sensation.) These theories influenced writers, poets, musicians and artists alike. Those who dislike her work, probably also dislike abstract expressionism or John Cage. Admittedly, her work is difficult to read. I do find her work far more effective when spoken. I recommend searching out recordings of Stein reading her own works on the internet. Stein herself said “You are accustomed to see with your eyes differently to the way you hear with your ears, and perhaps that is what makes it hard to read my works for some people.” As Larsen notes, her contemporaries spoke repeatedly and admiringly about her speaking ability. This is not to say that Stein could not effectively write in more conventional terms. Her “Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas” was, and is, both a critical and commercial success. As noted by Larsen, it was serialized in the Atlantic Monthly and landed on the cover of Time magazine.

Stein herself is seeing a resurgence. As of this writing, an exhibit of her (and the Stein family’s) art has just left San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art for Paris before finishing at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Also, “Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories” is presently on view at the Smithsonian Museum, Washington DC.

Of course, Ernest Hemingway is the more well known of the two. Larsen, an English professor and a founding member of the Hemingway Society, knows his stuff. We follow Hemingway through his early years alternately brash, eager and insecure. We follow his rise and mounting success, multiple marriages, endless feuds and slow sad decline. From Larsen’s view, young Hemingway was quite happy to sit at the feet of Stein, participating in her salon and absorbing all she had to share. Conversely, she equally enjoyed her pedantic role shepherding the younger writer. Once Hemingway had a bit of early success, he chafed at the dynamic, leading to the inevitable rupture. There remained a lifetime of sniping and criticism from one to the other. Admittedly, this rupture wasn’t new to either. Stein was known to drop friends, purportedly at Alice Toklas’ instigation. Hemingway, hoping to prove himself when younger, aiming to maintain supremacy when older, lit out on a string of public betrayals and brawls with just about anyone who ever assisted him or advanced his cause.

According to Larsen, Hemingway’s grandiosity was entrenched in insecurity, Stein’s in enormous self-confidence. If criticized, Stein was uncaring – the critics merely misunderstood. Larsen notes that Hemingway cherished grace under pressure, but exhibited little grace under criticism. He bristled under even the most benign of comments and carried grudges due to perceived slights to years’ long extents. His typical reaction to men was to punch their lights out --the pen being mightier than the sword only going so far. Smarting from Stein’s denigration of his later work and questioning his courage, fisticuffs were not an option. He was left to stew and snarl. His snide attack of Stein’s having changed due to “the menopause” was a continual theme. Larsen makes note that other intellectually equal women in his life – his mother and third wife, Martha Gellhorn – get similar treatment.

“Stein and Hemingway’s” back cover heralds Larsen’s use of unpublished material from the Hemingway Collection at the John F. Kennedy Library as shining “new light on this famous friendship.” Larsen does not highlight the new material in his text -- one is left to searching in the footnotes. This is unfortunate. The new material doesn’t break new ground, but is well worth noting. I particularly like the reference to Hemingway’s spoof “The Autobiography of Alice B. Hemingway.”

Both Stein and Hemingway seem to have mellowed as years passed. I like to imagine them both ensconced in some literary Valhalla, laughing, arguing and denigrating this latest crop of authors. Isn’t it pretty to think so? ( )