"Hemingway, remarks are not literature."
It seems to me that the strength of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas lies in the power of its remarks - on Gertrude Stein herself, on the writers and artists she came in contact with, and on the nature of writing and its relationship with conversation. Remarks may not be literature, but this book seems to be an attempt to make them precisely that. Stein's genius lies in her ability to create complexity and poetry by exploring the interplay between conversational and written English. The story unfolds like a conversation between Toklas and Stein, and is all the more rich and dynamic for it. The style is a variant of Stein's own vernacular, and while the observations of the text may not be merely "remarks" without substance, there is a definite relationship between casual conversation and the commentary that exists within this pseudo-autobiography. At one point Stein (speaking as Toklas) maintains that "Stein said commas were unnecessary, the sense should be intrinsic and not have to be explained by commas and otherwise commas were only a sign that one should pause and take breath but one should know of oneself when one wanted to pause and take breath," once again creating a parallel between the spoken and written word.
How are we to understand this discrepancy between Stein's words of advice to Hemingway and her own writing, and how does it influence our interpretation of the text?
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