V826 EVERYBDYS AUTOBIO

By Gertrude Stein

Book Overview

Everybodys Autobiography is among the very best of Gertrudes writing--[it] speaks with the true and original voice of Gertrude Stein, without apparent art or bravado. --Janet Hobhouse~In 1937, Gertrude Stein wrote a sequel to The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, but this darker and more complex work was long misunderstood and neglected. An account of her experiences as a result of writing a bestseller, Everybodys Autobiography is as funny and engaging as The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, but it is also a searing meditation on the meaning of success and identity in America. Posing as the representative American, Stein transforms her story into history--responding to the tradition of Thoreau and Henry Adams, she writes: "I used to be fond of saying that America, which was supposed to be a land of success, was a land of failure. Most of the great men in America had a long life of early failure and a long life of later failure." Everybodys Autobiography is Stein at her most accessible and her most serious, and may yet prove to be among her most popular books.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394718267
• ISBN13: 9780394718262
• Release Date: February 1973
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 328 Pages
• Weight: 0.48 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Funny, brilliant, playful, and of course, interesting

This is a fascinating account of Stein's travels in America following the success of "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas". Stein finds many things interesting about America, and through her descriptions, so does the reader. Her descriptions of the habits, manners, lifestyle, and thoughts of Americans are very simple but profoundly accurate. Being a Gertrude Stein work, Everybody's Autobiography also features amazing prose that is often challenging but always rewarding. Surprisingly, Everybody's Autobiography is very approachable once one adjusts to Stein's style. This was the first Stein work I read and I've already begun reading The Making of Americans. I just can't recommend this book [and Stein in general] enough.