The L Word: Janet Malcolm tackles Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas

Given her belief in the instability of knowledge, Janet Malcolm is, on principle, always at a loss for clear answers. Instead, she has mastered the finely honed question. In The Silent Woman, what interested Malcolm -- and the happily implicated reader -- was whether Sylvia Plath had been treated fairly by her biographers. In The Journalist and the Murderer, Malcolm untangled an ethical dilemma: When has a reporter abused his subject's trust? (Always, it turns out.) These books are little case studies in how to think about tough questions. Narrow the focus, read closely, consult some smart people, consider their prejudices, accept the limits of what's knowable.

But what happens when no one question grabs Malcolm, when her interest is more generalized? In Two Lives, her new study of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, there are too many questions, and what emerges is a scrapbook of short, insightful essays, not a coherent treatment.

Read the rest of my review of Two Lives here.