There Is No There There Trivia Quiz

Answer: Oakland, California

Gertrude Stein lived in Oakland from age six to seventeen. Upon returning in 1934, she commented on Oakland's inferiority complex with San Francisco across the Bay. Stein considered the United States her country but Paris as her hometown. The phrase has been used by others to describe a place that lacks culture, soul, life, and identity. A closer look at the context of the phrase might be interpreted as Thomas Wolfe said "You can't go home again" as Stein was troubled by the many changes to the Oakland of her memories.

Through these years Oakland has tried to accept its description with humor. It is not unsual to see a flag or sign reading "There".

Answer: Allegheny, PA

Gertrude was the youngest of five children. Her father was an entrepreneur who had wide investments. Shortly after her birth the family settled in Vienna, then Paris, then back to Oakland where her father part-owned a transportation system. She attended a Hebrew school there. Having the wealth to do so, the Steins were frequent European travelers, believing that such visits raised the cultural values of their children.

Much of Allegheny was later absorbed by greater Pittsburgh.

Answer: Radcliffe and Johns Hopkins

Radcliffe at that time was a sister campus to Harvard and was an all-women's college. Moving on then to Johns Hopkins to do graduate work, she had academic experience that would shape the nature of her literary career.

Answer: William James

His classic book "Principles of Psychology" (1890) made William James the "Father of American Psychology". Part of his wide range of interests was 'stream of consciousness', which in general terms says "-- [that] everyone will affirm to belong to his inner experience is the fact that consciousness of some sort goes on. 'States of mind' succeed each other in him. If we could say in English 'it thinks,' as we say 'it rains' or 'it blows,' we should be stating the fact most simply and with the minimum of assumption. As we cannot, we must simply say that thought goes on."

Stein was one of his students who aided in researching the theory of 'stream of consciousness'. James encouraged her to take up medicine as a background to becoming a psychologist, but Stein was an indifferent medical student. However, much of her later writings were clearly influenced by James. Just as it was directly or indirectly influenced James Joyce, William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf and others.

Answer: Painting

From 1902 through 1914 Leo and Gertrude became two of the leading art collectors of the most promising and dramatic paintings. Among the collection were Gauguins, Cézannes, Renoirs, Matisses and Picassos and, from an earlier peiod, works by Delacroix. After an acrimonious separation in 1914, Leo moved to Italy and the collection was split between the two. It is said the separation was so bitter that neither spoke to the other for thirty years.

When Stein had difficult financial times, she sold many of the paintings.

Answer: Alice B. Toklas

Alice Babette Toklas was the life partner of Gertude Stein. She had many roles.
At times she was a confidante, lover, cook, secretary, muse, editor, critic, and general organizer. Together they co-hosted the Saturday night salons at which the cultural genius of Paris at that time concregated. The main attraction was Stein and Alice was often on the fringe.

Alice wrote of her first meeting with Stein: "She was a golden brown presence, burned by the Tuscan sun and with a golden glint in her warm brown hair. She was dressed in a warm brown corduroy suit. She wore a large round coral brooch and when she talked, very little, or laughed, a good deal, I thought her voice came from this brooch. It was unlike anyone else's voice - deep, full, velvety, like a great contralto's, like two voices".

They lived together as man and wife and had several pet names for each other. "Alice was gay, kitten, pussy, baby, queen, cherub, cake, lobster, wifie, Daisy, and her little Jew. Gertrude was king, husband, hubbie, Mount fattie and fattuski." They scattered love notes to one another around their house, signed DD and YD (Dear Dear and Your Dear)."

In 1933 Stein wrote one of her more accessible books, "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas," which became Stein's most successful venture into commercial literature. When Stein died in 1946, her will left everything to Alice. The Stein family contested the will and claimed all the property. The house and the valuable paintings were confiscated and she was left penniless. She did publish "The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook"(1954). The book was more reminiscences of her life with Gertrude Stein but did contain her recipe for hashish laced brownies. She died in 1967, penniless and largely forgotten.

Legend has it that inhaling maijuana or hashish is sometimes referred to as a 'toke'.

Answer: Pablo Picasso

It was not a high priority to have her portrait painted, but Picasso was a close friend and she at the time was an admirer of his work and a collector. It was reported that Stein posed ninety times for him. Many of these times Picasso just had her sit in a rickety chair where he studied line, light, shadow, and perspective. Although the figure was to his satisfaction, he had difficulty with the face and repainted it several times. When told that the painting did not look like Stein, he replied "She will".

Gertrude Stein and Pablo Picasso maintained a lifelong friendship and correspondence. They wrote each other from 1906 to 1944 in French. These have been collected into a single volume.

So respectful of Picasso was she that she wrote a poem dedicated to him. The poem reflects the influence of William James' stream of conciouness upon her writing and is typical of her blunt repetitive style. Here is a brief quotation:

"If I told him would he like it. Would he like it if I told him?
Would he like it would Napoleon would Napoleon would would he like it?
If Napoleon if I told him if I told him if Napoleon. Would he like it if I told him if I told him if Napoleon. Would he like it if Napoleon if
Napoleon if I told him. If I told him if Napoleon if Napoleon if I told him. If I told him would he like it would he like it if I told him.
Now.
Not now.
And now.
Now."

Answer: John Steinbeck

One can add James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Thornton Wilder, and Sherwood Anderson to the list. Her weekly Saturday soirées allowed for the exchange of ideas among these writers. Stein was generally with the men while Alice Toklas entertained the wives and girlfriends.

Perhaps her stormiest relationship was with Hemingway. The critics are in agreement that both Stein and Hemingway were disciples of William James. But while Stein was blunt, repetitive, and ethereal, Hemingway was also blunt but direct and spare in the use of adjectives and descriptive narrative. What started as a muse and pupil relationship evolved into a professional rivalry and jealousy. In Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast", a memoir published three years after his death, he is unkind to Stein and Fitzgerald in particular and others as well.

Steinbeck was not a part of Stein's inner circle, confining himself to the Dust Bowl and California.

Answer: Won the Pulitzer Prize in 1933 for "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas"

Although she had acclaim from many sources, Gertrude Stein was not honored with a Pulitzer. But she and Alice did drive ambulances during the Great War. Neither Radcliffe nor John Hopkins conferred a degree upon her. At Radcliffe it was because she had moved on to Johns Hopkins. And not at Johns Hopkins, as she dropped out due to her indifferent attitude toward medicine, although she always claimed that she quit.

In 1934 Stein publicly endorsed Adolf Hitler for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Answer: As a means of self-protection and survival

One of Gertrude Stein's friends was Bernard Fay. He worked his way into a powerful position in the Vichy government. Stein volunteered to work as a propagandist for Marshal Pétain, chiefly as a translator of his speeches, writings, and public statements. The logic here was to 'hide in plain sight'. They were able to survive and got a pass. Their precious art collection was not confiscated and they had relative freedom during this time although Stein's name did appear on a later list of enemies of the Nazis.

In regard to her endorsement of Hitler for the Nobel Peace Prize, it was a statement taken out of context. Here is the actual quote:

"I say that Hitler ought to have the peace prize because he is removing all elements of contest and struggle from Germany. By driving out the Jews and the democratic and Left elements, he is driving out everything that conduces to activity. That means peace." One critic said that it was a piece of high satire akin to saying Mel Brooks glorified Hitler in "The Producers"(1968).

Nonetheless, Stein made other statements endorsing a slew of right wing ideologies. For instance, she endorsed Francisco Franco in Spain and detested Franklin Roosevelt in the United States. She seemed to favor leaders who promised to make change from the status quo with new ideas and the force to implement them.