Why Civil Discourse Matters

…And Why the Salon Matters

This is a tough moment for those who value human rights, cross-cultural communication, global partnership and progressive political movement. Like many, I was devastated to learn of Trump’s election. There are many reasons for rejection of Trump for any public office—but the foremost and defining feature of Trump’s rhetoric is divisiveness and bigotry. It represents the least generous and most dangerous qualities of the human psyche.

The Salon has always offered a space for a diversity of opinions and experiences. Discussions about various forms of belief, values, heritages and political persuasions have flourished—and I am so deeply appreciative of that. The works we study often present outdated attitudes—about men and women, people of color, Jewish people, Muslim people, gay and transgender people. The Salon gives us a place to consider these representations, their origins, the possibility that well-meaning people could cling to them, the distance between then and now.

It is so tempting, especially in this moment of chaos and public uncertainty—to cling fiercely to one’s own views, to live in our self-made bubble. But I know that growth comes when my ideas are challenged, when, through respectful discussions, I am forced to truly attend to new perspectives—and I learn again that I may be wrong. That learning expands my mind.

I look back on many recent Salon discussions—from Proust to Dante, Eliot to Rushdie and Joyce, Woolf, Rhys—and embrace anew the opportunity offered in communal consideration of great art to embrace difference and deepen compassion. I truly celebrate the experience in the Salon of divergent ideas that respectfully encounter each other—all of us learning from each other.

—Toby

2017 Salon Survey Results

Toby and I want to thank everyone who filled out our survey about studies for 2017. We had a robust response, and results have been very helpful—especially your write-in comments. We’re still sifting through all the ideas, but you’ve already helped us decide on several of the studies we’re scheduling for January. We’ll have our January 2017 studies posted and open for registration in just a couple days, so keep an eye out for those!

In the survey, we asked about your interest in a dozen studies we’ve been considering. In order of popularity, the results came back like this:

Virgil’s Aeneid
Virginia Woolf’s The Waves
Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man
Elizabeth Smart’s By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept
The Five Books of Moses
Plato’s Republic
George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda
Stories and Plays of Anton Chekhov
Toni Morrison’s A Mercy
Herodotus’ Histories
Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose
Halldor Laxness’ Independent People

You’ll see much of this reflected in our 2017 schedule. In fact, the Aeneid  received so many requests that we’ll be offering it twice in the new year, once starting in January, and again starting in March.

Of even more interest to us were all the write-in suggestions you submitted. We received requests ranging from Cervantes, Tolstoy, Melville and Chaucer to Phillip Roth, Flannery O’Connor, Derek Walcott, Sylvia Plath, Kate Tempest and Bob Dylan. Henry James was the most frequently mentioned author in the write-in votes. We also saw a number of requests for poetry studies, and for weekend studies. We won’t be able to offer studies for all of these, but they have definitely set our imaginations in motion for late spring and the rest of 2017!

Below, in no particular order, are the write-ins. Which of these catch your fancy? Let us know and add some more in the Comments section.

–Mark

LIT SALON 2017 SURVEY COMMENTS

  • Toni Morrison’s ‘Paradise‘ – even better than ‘Beloved‘ and very difficult.
  • Any Henry James, but if possible ‘The Ambassadors’
  • I also like the idea of a Henry James novel or two.
  • I’d be an enthusiast for a Middlemarch study and I see that Philip Roth was mentioned. Thomas Hardy would also interest me.
  • I would be interested in studies on Saramago, and Javier Marias.
  • So hard to choose! Following The Waste Land, would love to do some more poetry. The Romantics? Or W.B. Yeats. Elizabeth Bishop. Emily Dickinson!
  • Derek Walcott ‘Omeros’. Cervantes ‘Don Quixote’. All of your complete list above is tempting!
  • William Faulkner – Henry James – TS Eliot
  • Philip Roth or Cormac McCarthy
  • Hermann Broch: The Death of Virgil; Robert Musil: The Man Without Qualities; Jose Saramago; Javier Marias; Joseph Conrad
  • Philip Roth, John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates, Flannery O’Connor
  • Middlemarch please. Also, I have loved previous poetry salons where you have covered multiple works by the same poet rather than one huge poem (Emily Dickinson was brilliant). Would you consider Larkin, Plath, Hughes, Berryman…?
  • The work of Jeannette Winterson, Zadie Smith or Sarah Waters
  • Anthony Powell: A Dance to the Music of Time; Kazuo Ishiguro: The Unconsoled; Henry James: The Golden Bowl
  • I would be game for Wallace Stevens
  • The poetry of Matthew Arnold. Brazzaville Beach by William Boyd
  • Paradise Lost; War and Peace; King Lear
  • Moby Dick
  • Shakespeare’s plays or sonnets; Vanity Fair; Modern poets—Carol Ann Duffy, etc.
  • I would love to read Milton’s Paradise Lost and Dante’s Inferno. Like the Proust, I never will alone. Also Tristram Shandy, I’ve failed several times at that – as I did Proust before starting the salon.
  • Henry James?
  • I like a topic which is covered in several books eg the Imaginary homelands idea. Maybe slavery, or family breakdown – and other topics about which much has been written. Or the work of a particular author – not just one book but a few showing how the author has developed.
  • Canterbury Tales
  • Kate Tempest, Bob Dylan – not sure I should put those two together. And, Seamus Heany with the Aeneid as well .
  • Marlon James – A Brief History of Seven Killings
  • I would love to study Ford Madox Ford
  • The Odyssey, myths

Corruption’s Cruel Path

 

So stay stuck there, for you are rightly punished,

And guard with care the money wrongly gained

That made you stand courageous against Charles

 

And were it not for the reverence I have

For those highest of all keys that you once held

In the happy life—if this did not restrain me,

 

I would use even harsher words than these,

For your avarice brings grief upon the world,

Crushing the good, exalting the depraved.

–Dante Alighieri, Inferno
Canto XIX, lines 97-105

tr. Mark Musa

1002pope

Reading Dante in the 21st century is challenging for many reasons—we must negotiate multi-leveled allegory, update ourselves on Florentine politics—the Ghibelines vs. the Guelfs and resultant splinter groups, the Holy Roman Empire vs. Papal authority, 14th century Catholic liturgy, the evolution of Troubadour style. All of these aspects challenge the modern reader as we try to enter into the work sufficiently to empathize with the arduous spiritual journey of the narrator.

Yet, over the course of our current study of the Inferno, Dante has drawn me in—despite his sharply defined system of justice that is shaped by medieval Catholic values. He has drawn me in through his outrage at a corrupt leadership. In Dante’s time, Florence—and the greater tribe of what we now call Italy—was torn with local and empire-wide factional fighting. Dante found himself exiled from his beloved Florence as a result of shift in the party in control; the election went against Dante’s party and his return to Florence meant his death.

In the quote above, Dante the pilgrim addresses the feet topped with flame of Pope Nicholas III who is forced upside down into a hole in the rock of the 8th circle for his selling of church offices for his own benefit. Dante’s rage at the corruption of the highest church leader renders him inarticulate. This is one of the moments when the empathy sparks for me: there are moments when I am talking about Trump’s latest outrages when I literally have no words left for the grotesque absurdity of his candidacy.

Corrupt leadership is not simply destructive to the political system. The civic spirit in each citizen is denigrated when leaders behave badly. It is so tempting to turn cynical and disengage—to write off all the candidates as corrupt and lacking in dignity therefore not deserving of our support. In this way, the corrupt leader results in a flood of toxicity reaching across society. By gazing into the Hell of human corruption, we each have travelled to a kind of Hell—the worst parts of human greed are showcased and offered for public support. This makes one want to turn away in disgust from the realm of civic performance—sickened to the soul at the worst examples of human behavior. I found an echo to this urge in the following commentary on Dante’s Inferno:

“. . . In the moral-spiritual sense, there is another reason why the return from Hell is rare and difficult. It takes a special and resolute intelligence to experience the depths of a culture without being rocked by that revelation. Robert Frost, who certainly understood his own and his culture’s depths, called it a mind  ‘too lofty and original to rage.’ Yet, one can understand the rage of those who go to the depths and do not return, who have had their minds turned and are lost forever. . .”

–Ricardo Quinones, “The Plot-line of Myth,” pp. 357-8 in Dante’s Inferno, The Indiana Critical Edition.

Many years ago during a late-night philosophical discussion in Berkeley, California, a dear friend stopped our wine-tinged ramblings with a simple question: “It comes down to this: do you think people are essentially good or essentially evil?”

My outrage at the public figures trading in on fear and prejudice is stoked by how these voices highlight the worst aspects of the human mind. I think Dante’s outrage—and the epic poem that resulted—shares a similar source. Dante wrote towards human salvation in terms he understood. He gazed into ‘the depths of (his) culture’ and refused to be rocked by that revelation.  It is tempting to be lost forever—to witness the bombast and insanity of Trump and his ilk and draw one’s circle close against the world of degenerate souls. But Dante kept climbing—past Hell and the corrupt popes, he discovered penitent sinners and further along, those whose virtues matched their actions. Those are the voices we need to hear now—either through narrative art or in the public sphere. Instead of stoking my daily outrage at Trump’s behavior, I will keep turning to voices that discover and develop human goodness.

Early Fall Highlights

From the madness of the final days of courses to the shift towards travel and pause of the summer days, moments of time shape and shift even as I try to hold them—wanting the possibilities of summer expansion to always be anticipated—not past. I hear the echo of Gatsby’s ever-receding green light—the human reaching towards that never seems quite satisfied with fulfillment.

But contemplation is one of summer’s gifts—and I have been thinking strongly about the challenges in human communications and how we negotiate differences in opinions, beliefs, world-views. The Salon conversations explore these dynamics and test out clashing perspectives—and how these can be used—if thoughtfully & respectfully held. I found this article by Benjamin Mathes useful to continue thinking about difference and engaging disagreements.

The literature we study—some subtlety, other works more directly, such as transgressive fictions by Nabokov & Smart—exposes boundaries and limits of behavior that we may not even be aware we maintain. The poem, ‘Kindness’, by Naomi Shihab Nye offers another approach to loss or challenge in relationships.

You will find details below on the coming works being offered in the Salon. Some studies are at or near capacity so please register soon so you can plunge into the readings.
—Toby

From New Facilitator Mark Cwik

I am very excited for the opportunity to lead studies with the London Literary Salon and to be part of the Salon community. My wife Johanna and I relocated to England this past spring from Chicago, where I have been leading Salon-style Great Books discussions for the last two decades.

I’ve known of Toby’s wonderful work with the Salon for a couple years now, and when the opportunity to move to London came along for Johanna and me, one of the first items on my must-do list was to get in touch with Toby. I am very grateful to her for the warm welcome she has given me.

I am absolutely passionate about discussion-based learning. What happens in the Salon and in Great Books discussion groups is a very rare thing these days. The Salon is one of the few places I know of where we can have meaningful conversations about things that matter—about the big questions that confront us as we go through life, about love, duty, faith, justice, beauty, work, and death.

One of our chief challenges as human beings, I think, is to understand ourselves and the world into which we have been born. The desire to understand, in this broad sense, is what drives me as I lead a discussion. Each time we open a new book, we are confronted with something unknown. It makes sense to me that we shouldn’t immediately understand much of what’s going on; after all, not knowing is the place from which we all naturally start. So, in our discussions we work together to try to make sense of the story or the ideas an author has put before us. We ask what kind of work this is, what is the author trying to say and why does the author say it in this manner; we look at our experience and reactions as we read; we fit in this author’s ideas with what other writers and artists have said and shown; and, ultimately, we ask ourselves how this work fits with and enhances our own understanding of the world.

Building answers to these questions is often difficult going. Many, if not most of the books we study in the Salon are quite challenging, both intellectually and emotionally. Again and again, though, I have been amazed at the insights made by participants in group discussion.

A friend in the US who trains teachers to lead discussions recently sent along a link to an article in the Utne Reader that captures what is so special about good discussions:

“. . . (M)ost people have ideas that matter, ideas that would make a difference if they could be developed fully. People, regardless of their position or status, can think of things that move discussions to whole new levels of sparkle and resolution. Individuals you would never suspect of being interesting have absorbing stories to tell and disturbing insights that would humble even the most long-winded of us right out of our self-importance and rush. If the conditions are right, the huge intelligence of the human being surfaces. Ideas seem to come from nowhere and sometimes stun us. 

“The best conditions for thinking, I assumed for years, were hypercritical, competitive and urgent. Schools, organizations, governments and families convince us of that. But in fact it is in schools, organizations, governments and families that people do some of their worst thinking. That is because the conditions for thinking there are usually appalling. 

“The best conditions for thinking, if you really stop and notice, are not tense. They are gentle. They are quiet. They are unrushed. They are stimulating but not competitive. They are encouraging. They are paradoxically both rigorous and nimble.” 

I know that Toby creates those best conditions, and they are what I strive to create in discussion, as well.

I will be starting off at the Salon with a couple of short studies this fall: a two-session Hamlet study and a Plato taster (keep an eye out for that). I’ll also be co-facilitating a section of the Daniel Deronda study with Toby.

I look forward to meeting more members of the Salon community, and I welcome your suggestions for other studies we might add. Is anyone interested in any of my favorites: Homer’s Iliad, perhaps, or some Darwin? Or maybe Herodotus, the Greek tragedies, or the great Icelandic novelist Halldor Laxness’ masterpiece Independent People?

What do we do now…Now?

 

July 5th, 2016

Whoosh—where did June go? And more importantly, where did this beautiful country go? Since June 23rd, I have struggled (as many have) to continue with the rhythms of regular life in the face of the waves of political madness and social upheaval. We are tempted to vilify those who see the world differently—in my case, those who voted for the UK to leave the EU—and to decry those voters as xenophobic or ignorant. Tempting—but where does this leave us?

 

The anger and outrage felt by so many in the face of Brexit—and elsewhere in the rise of nationalism as embodied in horrific figures like Marie Le Pen or Trump—needs some place to land, some direction to go. In the face of my anger, I have sought to understand how those others see the world. Mike Carter at the Guardian gives witness to the parts of England that have struggled and been broken in his walk from Liverpool to London—what he found meant he was not surprised, as so many of us were, by the Leave vote ( well worth reading: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/27/liverpool-london-brexit-leave-eu-referendum). People who feel as though they have nothing left—nothing to offer their children nor a future of possibility – won’t weigh the complicated pros and cons but will vote for change.

 

Even as I am trying to understand the forces that would lead one to close borders, add rigor to the us vs. them categories, I am appalled and frightened by the racist & xenophobic attacks that have been unleashed on anyone perceived as foreign—even when they are demonstrably British. In our study of literature, the complexities of identity are a constant theme and this continues to be at the heart of so many struggles. From the realm of the personal and domestic to the larger political and national arenas, who we are and how we are perceived—how others perceive us—is at the core of every relationship.

 

I have been wondering how to be more actively present in this time of upheaval. It is tempting to suggest that one of the key areas for positive change—locally, globally—is education. Those who feel disempowered or left behind in the global economy have not been given the luxury of education I have had; it is that education that allows me to be flexible in work possibilities, giving me confidence to try new configurations and move to different places. A good education that teaches young people to speak up, to think for themselves, critically & thoughtfully question and discover also leads to compassion as one recognizes the possibilities in others with different perspectives and ideas. Otherwise, one greets the other with fear and the sense that this unknown being threatens one’s own precarious hold.

 

In the midst of the despair and agony of the present moment, I seek glimmers of hope. Marching with tens of thousands of others last Saturday celebrating diversity and European culture, wearing a safety pin to openly express a rejection of racist behavior and promise a safe place to anyone experiencing an attack, listening to Bee Rowlatt as we discussed the power of feminism traced back to the incredible Mary Wollstonecraft and hearing the local voices of activism and challenge to our still unequal roles—these are ways to be fed.

 

And even more closely, the incredible discussions I have had the pleasure to be part of in the Salon: engaging Joyce, Proust, Faulkner, Woolf, Transcendentalists, Sophocles in such profound and generous ways: the Salon community feeds hope. I wish I had the brain capacity to translate some of the gems that have been offered in discussions in the past months—perhaps a few weeks of quiet will give room for some necessary reflection. I want my words to reflect the incredible gift of the Salon community and the work we do together. These discussions speak to the best aspects of human possibility: curiosity, openness, sensitivity and community.

 

 

8.7.16 After I wrote this & before I published—two more black men, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile are shot dead in the USA. More people are shot- including active duty police—in a demonstration against racial violence in Dallas.

 

 610_baldwin_intro

“Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated, and this was an immutable law.”

James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

Skeleton Salon Schedule starting late August 2016

IMG_2506This is still in progress– feedback is most welcome!! In a time when hope needs to be kindled, turning to significant literature may be a salve– certainly this is a way out of the narrowness of our own experience….

All studies unless otherwise stated start week of 19.09
Monday 2-4 PM Daniel Deronda  seven week study
               Midnight’s Children 7-9  PM @ SAP (start date 31.10)
Tuesday 12:30-2:30 Divine Commedia- Vol. I: Inferno   (3 six-week studies *starts 13.09**)
                6- 7:30 Imaginary Homelands @ City Lit (13.09)
                8:15- 10:15  Divine Comedia  Vol. I: Inferno   (3 six-week studies *starts 13.09**)
Wednesday 13:30- 15:30 Dubliners/ Portrait of the Artist (9 week study– start 21.09- 11.23)
                     6- 7:50 Proust (on going)
                     8-10 PM Dubliners/ Portrait of the Artist (9 week study– start 21.09- 11.23)
Thursday 7-9 PM Daniel Deronda  seven week study
In the same slot as Daniel Deronda — possibly starting in Nov? DH Lawrence Women in Love
In same slot as Divine Commedia starting Feb– Finnegans Wake
One meeting Salon Intensive: By Grand Central Station I Lay down and Wept– Thursday 8th September
Two Meeting Wasteland Intensive….Tuesday August 30th &  Monday September 5th evenings, 7-9:30 PM
Plato taster facilitated by Mark Cwik — Monday 26th September
Hamlet Two meeting study facilitated by Mark Cwik Mondays 3rd & 10th October

 

The Joyce Girl book launch — conversation with Annabel Abs

JG 9781907605871

London Literary Salon exclusive

21st June 2016 7-9 PM  at The Pineapple Pub
RSVP  litsalon@gmail.com to secure a place….
We will be continuing to celebrate Bloomsday with a launch of  the Joyce-themed novel by Annabel Abbs exploring the story of Lucia Joyce. Annabel and I will discuss the book and the Joyce family with an opportunity for participant questions and comments– interactive in  the Salon tradition.
There will be images of the Joyce family, books for purchase, and an atmosphere of celebration of our work together.  In memory of Lucia Joyce, all Annabel’s profits from book sales are going to a charity called YoungMinds which helps children and young people with mental health issues.
The Joyce Girl is a prize-winning debut novel that tells the story of Joyce’s only daughter, Lucia.  A dancer in 1920s Paris, Lucia had affairs with Samuel Beckett and Alexander Calder, before her father sent her to Switzerland for  pioneering  psychoanalysis with Carl Jung.  Considered by some scholars to be a Muse for Finnegans Wake, she spent the next fifty years, until her death, living in a Northampton mental asylum. The novel, which has been sold to publishers across the world, can be pre-ordered at https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-joyce-girl/annabel-abbs/9781907605871. Read more at www.annabelabbs.com.

Faulkner study starting Monday; Hamlet next Tuesday evening- Proust too!

Light in August cover “Faulkner tackles complex and universal human questions through mesmerising and unforgettable characters. The brilliance of this book emerges in the Salon study group, where you have the liberty to dive deeply into Faulkner’s work, question and discuss with others. Not many novels will stand up to 20 hours of discussion, but it felt we could have continued for another 20 hours. The Sound and the Fury was one of the most difficult books I have ever read, but through the Salon study it was also one of the most rewarding and impactful.”

This is how a recent Faulkner study was described by a participant. Our next study starts Monday afternoon — we will be reading Light in August. I hesitate from describing any great book with a few pithy statements– it is reductive and loses all the subtle craft of the writer’s art. This is an incredibly important book to read– even as it is a hard book to read: we have not finished talking about nor understanding how racism continues to daily impact all of our lives– nor do we understand how to eradicate racism from our social structures. Reading this book may not tell us how to do so– but my experience has taught me that reading and discussing a text that explores the wounds and tragedy of racism in good faith offers each reader an opportunity to examine their own understanding of the history and impact of race divisions, resulting in greater openness and recognition of the humanity of all. There is still time to register and start reading– we will consider the first three chapters in our meeting on Monday–reading approx. 55 pages per week.

Light in August by W. Faulkner  Seven-week daytime study starting April 18th “It is just dawn, daylight: that gray and lonely suspension filled with the peaceful and tentative waking of birds. The air, inbreathed, is like spring water. He breathes deep and slow, feeling with each breath himself diffuse in the natural grayness, becoming one with loneliness and quiet that has never known fury or despair….”

 

Hamlet Tuesday April 26th  Evening Intensive study:  Celebrating the 400 year anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, there are many events including the Complete Walk sponsored by The Globe– 10 minute presentations of all the plays: http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/theatre/whats-on/special-events/the-complete-walk . To really enjoy any of the plays, a careful study is essential to spend time with the language, trace the developing imagery and notice the irony, rhetoric and gorgeous presentation of the characters in lyric rhythms. This one-meeting study of one of Shakespeare’s greatest works will give participants useful tools for attending other Shakespeare plays with a deeper understanding.  There are spaces available– but sign up now to receive opening notes and preparation.

Hamlet Intensive April 26th— One meeting study of the extraordinary play in honour of Shakespeare’s 400 year anniversary

“What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?”

The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust Wednesday early evenings 6-7:50 PM seven week study starting May 11th

A wonderful group has started the exploration of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time on Wednesday evenings. If you have read the first two volumes, you would be welcome to pick up the third with us. I was describing my recent discovery of Proust (after being a Joyce gal for much of the Salon history–seems you are one or the other–but I can never definitively choose) : Proust makes me think and read differently. I am more careful in my observations, more aware of competing impulses in human relationships, more able to negotiate sentences built like cathedrals with patience. And then there is the recognition of self-deception, the struggle between desire and intellect, the oppression of habit, the juice of jealousy–Proust draws it all.

Here is a more objective description of the third volume:

After the relative intimacy of the first two volumes of In Search of Lost TimeThe Guermantes Way opens up a vast, dazzling landscape of fashionable Parisian life in the late nineteenth century, as the narrator enters the brilliant, shallow world of the literary and aristocratic salons. Both a salute to and a devastating satire of a time, place, and culture, The Guermantes Way defines the great tradition of novels that follow the initiation of a young man into the ways of the world. This elegantly packaged new translation will introduce a new generation of American readers to the literary richness of Marcel Proust.  (quoted from GoodReads)

Making Meaning —Reflections on the weight words may carry

by Barbara Brothers
by Barbara Brothers

The trouble with the BIG life moments is that when I attempt to capture & contain them in language, I hear my own clichés rolling out like chicks and bunnies at Easter. Knowing this doesn’t stop me—although I have in my head Proust’s disgust at the weakness of language re-played—the way this disrespects the moment you are trying to revere.

 

A dear friend and Salon participant died a few weeks ago—died terribly fighting cancer in the vigor and passion of living. I am stuck trying to spin out words to contain this moment and our response to it: how sharply life shows in reflection of death, how the simple moments I hold of him suddenly become precious, easily lost gems, the rage of inequity, the meaninglessness that sneaks into the narratives I attempt to weave around his death.

 

My head is full of words—full of offerings of the best minds around the humbling moments of life and the meaning we seek in spite of the inexplicable horrors and random tragedies– those next to us, or in Lahore, Brussels… I am honored to read at the celebration of my friend’s life- and I choose a favorite passage from Ulysses that is deeply sensuous—infused with  hope in the first passion of new love against the years of living that threaten to diminish those fresh, wild explosions of the heart.

 

I offer Joyce’s beautiful images in a voice strained through tears—and when I have made it- barely- through the reading—I am left choking and empty. How can we shape meaning in the vortex of dying?

But the words continue to hum in my mind, wrapped in the image of my friend—it was a strange choice perhaps for a funeral reading—but the passage evoked my friend’s incredible love for his life partner—and that ultimately was what I wanted to hold against the void.

Below are some quotes that speak to me just now as I move through the aftermath of the rituals of burial, of a weekend bursting with friends visiting from across time, from the daily struggle to wrest meaning from the simple and necessary acts of living in the blast of tragedy, the transcendent recognition of human connections and rituals– and the power of language in literature to try– against the odds– to say what we mean.

 

From Reflections on the Novel as Tool for Survival by Arthur Krystal

 

There is something “primitive” in the great issues that have traditionally concerned writers, Lionel Trilling submitted in “The Meaning of a Literary Idea.” Questions about the nature of thought and man “match easily in the literary mind with the most primitive human relationships. Love, parenthood, incest, patricide: These are what the great ideas suggest in literature, these are the means by which they express themselves.” Completing the thought, Trilling went on to write, “Ideas, if they are large enough and of a certain kind, are not only not hostile to the creative process, as some think, but are virtually inevitable to it. Intellectual power and emotional power go together.”

 

–from http://chronicle.com/article/The-Novel-as-a-Tool-for/235565

 

“Meaning is a shaky edifice we build out of scraps, dogmas, childhood injuries, newspaper articles, chance remarks, old fillms, small victories, people hated, people loved; perhaps it is because our sense of what is the case is constructed from such inadequate materials that we defend it so fiercely, even to death.”

And…

“Go for broke. Always try and do too much. Dispense with safety nets. Take a deep breath before you begin talking. Aim for the stars. Keep grinning. Be bloody-minded. Argue with the world. And never forget that writing is as close as we get to keeping a hold on the thousand and one things–childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves–that go on slipping , like sand, through our fingers.”

― Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991

Item added to cart.
0 items - £0.00