Excerpts from the London Literary Salon News
September 11, 2011
Highlights To the Lighthouse Salon starting Sept. 19
A potent day…a day that deserves reflection and some understanding of how we can be human together. So many days carry within them the history of suffering and struggle- one event should also ripple out to the others…how can we learn? How can we hear each other? How can we break through the boundaries that divide?
This past Friday a dynamic group gathered to consider Frankenstein over five hours…and we went miles: Many thanks to the voices that came together in the light of that amazing book. Some wonderful Salons ahead:
September/October Salons:
• To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf starts week of September 19; runs for five weeks: £65
o Monday afternoons 12:30- 2:30
o Tuesday Evenings 8-10 PM
• Paradiso by Dante starts week of September 12; runs for five weeks: £70
o Thursday afternoons 1-3 PM (celebratory dinner to be scheduled in October)
• Midnights Children Three sessions: Thursday evenings Sept. 22, 29 October 6 7:30-10 PM £60
• Young Writers’ Workshop for Writers 12-16 years old: Wednesdays 4:30-6 PM runs five weeks: £70
• Measure for Measure Intensive Sunday October 9th & October 16th 7-10 PM £50
To the Lighthouse **Starts NEXT WEEK*** space remaining in both afternoon and evening studies
– by Virginia Woolf
In this exquisite work, Woolf seeks to break through the restraints of language to access the interior voice of passions, fears, unspeakable thoughts and human dynamics. By employing stream of consciousness narrative and the early stirrings of the modernist aesthetic, Woolf gives insights into the nature of relationships and the formation of self in relation to others that will be recognizable – and revealing to each reader. Eudora Welty writes in her forward to To the Lighthouse: “Radiant as [TtL] is in its beauty, there could never be a mistake about it: here is a novel to the last degree severe and uncompromising. I think that beyond being about the very nature of reality, it is itself a vision of reality.”
And a poem that evokes the sound of the waves…
Lake Song
Colette Inez
Every day our name is changed,
say stones colliding into waves.
Go read our names on the shore,
say waves colliding into stones.
Birds over water call their names
to each other again and again
to say where they are.
Where have you been, my small bird?
I know our names will change one day
to stones in a field
of anemones and lavender.
Before you read the farthest wave,
before our shadows disappear
in a starry blur, call out your name
to say where we are.
*****************************************************************
There is something there I think about the idea of infinity and the importance for us in our humanity to see our place in time…and it would not be indiscreet for me to mention at this point that waves and movement of water are essential elements to this work.
For those who want to go further, here is an excerpt of a review of Hermoine Lee’s wonderful biography. I encourage you to use the link here to read the whole review as it offers a good & brief summary of Woolf’s life and writings. The book, Virginia Woolf is a great read.
From ‘This Loose, Drifting Material of Life’ by Daphne Merkin
“Ms. Lee documents the evolving perception of her subject from ”the delicate lady authoress of a few experimental novels and sketches, some essays and a ‘writer’s’ diary, to one of the most professional, perfectionist, energetic, courageous and committed writers in the language.” She does this without recourse to the politicized agendas of the academy or special pleading (all of Woolf’s flaws are on display here); this account sets itself above the fray, the better to home in on the glittery and elusive creature at its center — the prize catch in what one critic has described as the Bloomsbury pond.
From its very first page Ms. Lee’s book is informed by current thinking on how to approach the writing of someone’s life: ”There is no such thing as an objective biography, particularly not in this case. Positions have been taken, myths have been made.” But it is also infused with a very personal passion for her subject, which enables the author to cut crisply through the labyrinth of theories that have sprung up…”
Although To the Lighthouse is not autobiographical, many critics & readers have found close parallels between Woolf’s early life and the world presented in the book. It may help you to have a sense of Virginia Woolf and her precarious position as a visionary on the edge of violently changing world, as we go into the read. I will have more biographical notes for you when we start.
