The Myth of Modernism Revisited: Gertrude Stein as the Symbol of Modernism in Contemporary Fiction

Abstract

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) was one of the most important figures of Modernism. Her texts, as well as her personality, attracted the attention of her contemporaries and continue to inspire researchers and authors. The aim of the article is to outline the steps of revisiting the myth of Modernism (Gertrude Stein). This article focuses on two contemporary novels that discuss the life of this significant modernist author: Monique Truong’s The Book of Salt (2003) and Hassan Najmi’s Gertrude (2014). Both novels directly and indirectly relate to Gertrude Stein’s The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1932). The social context of the contemporary novels is based on the theme of the “otherness,” a significant issue in the Stein-Truong-Najmi paradigm, which involves the readers in the game of allusions. Both contemporary authors pay tribute to Gertrude Stein, her literary salon and her “myth” by emphasizing the importance of Stein’s influence on modernist culture. Literary, historical and social determinants that have been chosen for this comparative analysis provide the discussion points on the effect of modernism on contemporary fiction, which very often displays rather turbulent coexistence of different cultures and civilizations.

Keywords

• modernism
• contemporary fiction
• transtextuality
• modernist culture
• fact-fiction paradigm