Cook Book:
Gertrude Stein, William Cook, and Le Corbusier
by Roy R. Behrens
Bobolink Books, Dysart, Iowa, 2005
96 pp., illus. 40 b/w. Paper, $17.95
ISBN: 0-9713244-1-7.
Reviewed by Dene Grigar
Texas Womans University
dgrigar@twu.edu
Picking up Roy Behrens Cook Book:
Gertrude Stein, William Cook and Le Corbusier,
one is immediately reminded of The
Alice B. Toklas Cook Book. But unlike
Toklas work, the Roy Behrens Cook
Book does not offer recipes. Rather,
his book, whose title is actually a pun
on the name of little-known artist William
Cook, provides a very well written "biographical
sketch" (7) of Cook and an account of
the relationship between Cook and Stein,
as well as Cook and the architect Le Corbusier.
As Stein scholars and fans would expect,
Toklas does, however, figure in among
its many pagesalthough sans
culinary advice.
Those unfamiliar with William Cook and
his art should know that Behrens describes
him as a "minor participant in what Gertrude
Stein called the lost generation"
(7), an American from Iowa who moved to
Europe and lived in France, Spain, and
Italy. His work never achieved the level
of greatness of that of his many colleagues
(like Picasso), but he did much in his
later life to promote modernism on the
island of Majorca. He is best known for
his long, unwavering friendship with Stein
(he is credited with teaching her how
to drivewonderful trivia for
Stein fans to know) and for having had
the foresight (and insight) to hire a
young Le Corbusier to design his Paris
homewhat has come to be known
as "Villa Cook."
While any review of Behrens book
should dwell at length on the well written
prose and well-researched information
he gives readersand, indeed,
this reviewer does further down in this
essayit would be a grave error
not to talk first about the artifact of
the book itself, for it is too wonderfully
conceived and executed to ignore. That
the author is himself an artist and professor
of art comes as no surprise to anyone
who looks at and inside the book:
The frontispiece, a "digital collage"
produced by Behrens, belongs to the series
called "Visual Poems for Gertrude Stein."
In fact, each of the seven chapters is
introduced by one of the works in the
series. Inside, each page offers images
and photos extending the details provided
by the text. The fragmented reading experience
they provoke evokes the modernist experiment
Stein and Le Corbusier both engaged in.
And next to the main text on each page,
readers will find marginalia comprised
of anecdotes, sayings, and remarks by
prominent or pertinent people related
to the subject Behrens presents. Readers
will be sorely disappointed that both
Cooks and Behrens works appear
in black and white, though will understand
the economic reasons why. A companion
website that provides readers with a more
optimal viewing of Behrens work,
however, would be most welcome. This reviewer,
whose habit of marking up books for future
reference unnerves most her family and
friends, merely underlined a few passages
and dog-eared the most important pages
so as not to mar the books beauty.
Even with its colorful jacket removed,
the book exhibits style: A fragment of
Cooks signatureonly
his last nameruns across both
the back and front covers, the white inscribed
by black ink reminiscent of the white
house Le Corbusier created for him.
The book, likewise, pleases with the quality
of writing and content it offers. Highly
readable, Behrens style is more
like storytelling than scholarship. But
readers should not be fooled by this tactthe
book establishes Cooks reputation
as loyal friend to Stein and a well-connected
figure among the ex-pat community of artists
living in Europe in the early twentieth
century.
Each chapter plays with the notion of
courses like one would see at a fine restaurant.
Chapter one, for example, is entitled
"Lentil Soup: When Good Americans Die
They Go to Paris." Found here are comments
by Wallace Stevens, Colette, and others
about Paris, French culture, and those
who lived there. Chapter two, "Mirrored
Eggs: America Is My Country But Paris
Is My Hometown," introduces Cook and his
friendship with Stein, Picasso, and other
ex-pats in Paris. Chapter three, "Cold
Ham with Lettuce Salad: The Man Who Taught
Gertrude Stein To Drive," establishes
Cooks close relationship to Stein
and accords much attention to the writer
and her longtime companion, Toklas. Chapter
four is called "Purée of Spinach
with Croutons: Returning Home But Not
To Roost" and tells of Cooks brief
return to Iowa for the purpose of attending
to his parents estate. Chapter five,
"Cheese: The Proprietor of a True Cubist
House," leads us to Le Corbusier and the
Villa Cook. Chapter six, "Berries and
Fruit: Almost Thou Persuadest Me To Be
A Picassoite," reveals that Cook believed
that it was due to Stein that Picasso
found fame as an artist. Behrens cites
a letter Cook wrote Stein in which he
asserts, "You have made Picassoism
in the same sense that St. Paul made Christianity"
(77). Chapter seven, "Liqueurs: The Past
Is Not Gone Nor Is Gertrude," ends the
book as it had startedwith
anecdotes, sayings, and remarks by famous
peoplethis time Stein, T.S.
Eliot, and even Dan Rather. Art historians
and literary scholars will be happy for
the detailed notes found at the end of
the book as well as Behrens list
of works consulted and cited.
That Cook, Stein, and Le Corbusier are
bound together in this book makes a lot
of sense considering todays complete
disregard for Cooks art, lack of
attention paid to Steins literary
output, and controversy surrounding Le
Corbusiers designs. All three come
to us with reputations never soundly attained,
or lost, or tarnished. What notoriety
they still enjoy is derived from, ironically,
not their own work but the collective
consciousness of the heady time and place
that was Modernist Europe.