At the London Literary Salon we offer a special blend of great literature, great ideas and great conversation. We also know that our weekly studies are sometimes hard to fit in among the demands of everyday life. If you’re looking to add more meaningful conversation into your life, without another 100 pages a week to read—our Spontaneous Philosophy Study has the answer!

Each month we meet—with no prep necessary—for an on-the-spot close reading of a short passage from the great authors that we read elsewhere in the Salon. This study might also be called Short Works, Big Ideas. We read concise and provocative passages from the likes of Plato, Kant, Marx, Mill, Dewey, James, Confucius, Kafka and lots more.

To add to the fun, the author and reading each month are a surprise: everyone will be seeing the text for the first time, with all the excitement of encountering the ideas fresh together. Together we work our way through one to four pages each time, mostly from the giants of philosophy, but with the occasional short story, poem, or even a fairy tale tossed in—you won’t know until you show up. The emphasis is on close reading and a shared inquiry to build understand of new ideas.

Meetings are on the third or fourth Tuesday of the month, 6:00pm to 8:30pm, at the lovely Rudolf Steiner House just below Regent’s Park.

Registration is £15, which covers our room charge and a bit for the facilitator. After you RSVP, all you’ll need to do is show up and be ready to think! Seats are limited, so be sure to RSVP by registering via Paypal below. If you prefer, you can send an email to facilitator Mark Cwik, as well.

Spontaneous Philosophy is a low-advance-commitment way to practice some intellectual self-care, with a bit of hard thinking and a lot of good discussion.

SALON DETAILS

• Facilitated by Mark Cwik
• Tuesday evenings 6:00 pm – 8:30 pm
• Ongoing monthly study, next meeting 29 October
  
• Meetings in Rudolf Steiner House, Marylebone — 35 Park Road, London, NW1 6XT
• £15 per month, registration via Paypal below
  

TO REGISTER for the Spontaneous Philosophy study, please use the secure Paypal payment button below to pay £15.

The London Lit Salon Book Club is a monthly book discussion group in South London that reads the finest 20th and 21st century literature from around the world (with the occasional classic thrown in the mix for good measure).

The Book Club’s monthly schedule offers the same serious discussion and professional facilitation as the Salon’s other studies, while providing the opportunity to explore a world of literature for which we might not offer one of our multi-week, in-depth studies. Like all books we read at the Lit Salon, the book club selections speak to basic and enduring questions of what it means to be human.

The Lit Salon Book Club meets on Sunday evenings from 6:30pm – 8:30pm in the comfortable West Norwood (SE27) bungalow of our discussion facilitator Mark Cwik. Meetings for 2018/19 are scheduled for:

07 October 2018– William Trevor’s Two Lives: Reading Turgenev and My House in Umbria.

18 November 2018 — Michael Ondaatje’s Warlight

06 January 2019 — Olga Tokarczuk’s Flights

03 February 2019 — Sjón’s The Blue Fox

03 March 2019 — Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses

07 April 2019 — Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita

28 April 2019 — Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go

26 May 2019 —  Paul Auster’s The Music of Chance

28 July 2019 — Bridget Collins’ The Binding

08 September 2019 — Tessa Hadley’s Late in the Day

03 November 2019 — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah

01 December 2019 — TBA

Our book for 03 November will be Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 2013 novel Americanah, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Chicago Tribune‘s Heartland Award, was shortlisted for the 2014 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, and was a New York Times Book Review Best Book of the Year.

Eugenia Williamson in the Boston Globe says: “Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has written a scintillating, funny, and heartfelt novel, not least because of Ifemelu, a Nigerian transplant whose 13-year tenure as a resident of the United States has come to an end. She is a complex and unforgettable character . . . The journeys of these characters, their brush-ups with race, class, politics, literature, family on three continents result in a cerebral and utterly transfixing epic . . . Among its many strengths, Americanah is superlative at making clear just how isolating it can be to live far away from home. . .”

And, Michael Peed of the New York Times Sunday Book Review writes: “Adichie is an extraordinarily self-aware thinker and writer, possessing the ability to lambaste society without sneering or patronizing or polemicizing. For her, it seems no great feat to balance high-literary intentions with broad social critique. . .”

Registration for the Lit Salon Book Club is in six-month subscriptions of £90. You can also try us out with a one-month payment of £15. See below for payment options.

SPECIAL OFFER: if you’ve not attended before but would like to try us out, we invite you to attend your first meeting free of charge. Please email facilitator Mark Cwik to RSVP and we’ll provide you with location info.

With our friendly atmosphere of collaborative inquiry, high quality and challenging readings, professional facilitation and focused discussions, we are confident in calling the Lit Salon Book Club the best book discussion group in London.

SALON DETAILS

• Facilitated by Mark Cwik
• Sunday evenings 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
• Ongoing monthly study, next meeting 03 November 2019
• Meetings in South London (West Norwood SE27)
• 03 November recommended edition: Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; Fourth Estate (2014); ISBN-13: 978-0007356348
  
• £15 per month, registration in six-month subscriptions, or as one-month trial.

TO REGISTER for this ongoing study, please use the secure Paypal payment button below to pay £90 for a six-month subscription:

OR, for monthly payment, use the Paypal button below to pay £15:

November 15 – 17  2019, Valencia Spain

About A Heart So White

Javier Marías is a Spanish writer steeped in the literary canon, and particularly influenced by Shakespeare, Sterne, Proust and Faulkner. Our initial study of ‘The Infatuations’ in Valencia was so enriching that a second Marías novel has been selected for a salon in Valencia in November.

‘I did not want to know, but I have come to know’ is the famous first phrase of ‘A Heart so White’ (the title is a highly apposite quotation from ‘Macbeth’).  What the narrator did not care to investigate was the death, before he was born, of his aunt which led to his own existence as his father then married his deceased wife’s sister. As in many of his closely interlinked novels, Marías begins with an account of a violent episode; its repercussions form the highly discursive ‘plot’ of the book, an underlying structure which allows Marías free rein to dissect, in Proustian sentences, human behaviour,  our relationships, our loves, our jealousies, our dissimulations, our betrayals, our need to know what sometimes we might more comfortably ignore, the power of language to inform or confound.

Marías writes at a time when Spain is at last confronting its civil war and the repercussions of a policy, post-Franco, of ‘forgetting’ the horrors committed on both sides in order to avoid further bloodshed and to democratise the country:  no ‘truth and reconciliation’, no accountability, and therefore no justice. And democracy was swiftly adopted, but every Spanish family carries the effects of that war, and Marías, with others of his generation, explores in his fiction the ambiguities of memory, the question of guilt, the need to enter the narrative and to take responsibility for one’s action – or inaction.

—by Elspeth Ferguson

About Valencia:

Land of paella and palm trees, Beaux Arts buildings , Moorish influence , exotic and joyously authentic… the third largest city in Spain, Valencia is still largely unspoiled and  literally has everything: a vibrant food scene (and oh, the wine!), a pristine Mediterranean beach, cultural attractions including the architecturally stunning City of Arts and Sciences, churches galore (this is Spain, after all) and, for foodies, the glorious Mercat Central – at 8,160 sq. meters, the largest covered fresh food market in Europe.  But what really shines through is the juxtaposition of the general atmosphere of ‘joie de vivre’ – Valencians love a fiesta- and the soul of the city, concealed amongst cobbled alleys and hidden squares, magnificent and crumbling and lit by a most extraordinary light… every stroll an adventure, every vista a revelation, so much to discover.

Ooh- this just in from Forbes magazine:

Five Reasons Why Valencia, Spain Should Be Your Next Holiday Destination

Valencia on the east coast of Spain is the country’s third largest city (after Madrid and Barcelona) and offers many of the same attractions of these two better known cities. If the birthplace of paella with its seven kilometers of sandy beaches and virtually year-round sunshine wasn’t already on your radar, it might be now due to a major exhibition by Spain’s best known impressionist artist Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (born in Valencia in 1863) …

About the writer:

It is an intellectual journey to consider literature outside of my own cultural view…not realising how limited my understanding of Spanish writing is until pressed to come up with a title other than Don Quixote or Lorca. I have been turning over ideas about the category of national identity for writers: how much is a writer’s voice a product of a particular time & culture, how much does the reader need to understand (or gain an understanding of) a culture’s history and unique concerns through a novel? Contemporary Spanish writers share the global genre evolutions of realism and modernism; their country’s history of violent upheaval, fascism and a re-born democracy imprint the literature. Yet the shared struggles around love, loss, jealousy, betrayal move me into this lesser-known world.

And this:

“Once you’ve finished a novel, what happened in it is of little importance and soon forgotten. What matters are the possibilities and ideas that the novel’s imaginary plot communicates to us and infuses us with.”  From Infatuations by Javier Marais

SALON DETAILS

• Dates: 15-17th Nov First discussion @ 5:30 Friday afternoon; last discussion Sunday 12- 2 ending with Paella meal on the beach
• 6-8 hours of discussion spread over three days
• Participants organise flight and accommodations; our host Robin will provide suggestions (overall, Valencia is quite affordable)
• We will share some meals (Robin is offering to prepare a grilled feast Saturday evening with fresh market offerings—we will share cost); Friday eve & Saturday morning is open for you to discover the city for dinner and wandering
• Cost for the Salon study is £130—includes supporting notes & introductory materials

Please use the Paypal button below to pay £130 and  register for this study. Price includes six hours of discussion and supporting materials.

If you have any questions about this study, please contact us.

Great Ideas, Great Books is our ongoing, monthly Salon where you will encounter the core texts and core ideas in the western intellectual tradition. Each month, we read a key work by authors such as Homer, Sophocles, Plato, Dante, Shakespeare, Machiavelli, Milton, Marx, Austen and Eliot. Through these works, you will wrestle with the basic and enduring questions of what it means to be human: What is right and wrong? How do we come to know things? What do we owe to our families, our society, ourselves? What is happiness? What is a good life? What is a good society? We will talk about justice, morality, beauty, love, honor, death, government, society, goodness, community.

To encourage careful reading, and to fit our discussions into busy lives, we keep each month’s selection to a manageable length. For longer works, we read the book over two or more months, or we read substantial selections that present an author’s most important ideas.

During our discussions, we examine a reading from many different angles, puzzling over difficult passages, exploring the intricacies of a plot line, the layers of meaning in a poetic phrase, the subtleties of an argument or the implications of a thesis. We examine the ideas an author has set out, and consider them seriously.  We also step back from the details to see whether what an author has to say makes sense and is relevant to us or not.

You don’t need any specialized knowledge or background in classic literature to join Great Ideas, Great Books. It is our expectation that most participants will be reading many of the authors for the first time. All you really need is a willingness to read carefully, listen thoughtfully and entertain new and sometimes-challenging ideas.

In our first year since starting in September 2018, Great Ideas, Great Books has dwelt in the ancient Greek world, with Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Sophocles, Plato and Aristotle. As the program progresses, we will move to later works including those from the Roman world, from the Judeo-Christian scriptural tradition, the middle ages and enlightenment, up to modern thought. Great Ideas is structured as a  long-term project, with the flexibility to direct our focus to differing topics and time periods according to the interests of the group.

Our readings so far:

September 2018—Homer, The Iliad, Books 1 – 12

October 2018—Homer, The Iliad, Books 13 – 24

November 2018—Herodotus, The Persian Wars, selection

December 2018—Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, selection

January 2019—Plato, Meno

February 2019—Sophocles, Oedipus Rex

March 2019— Sophocles, Antigone

April 2019—Aristotle, Poetics

May 2019—Plato, Apology, Crito, Phaedo

June 2019—Euripides, Medea

17 September 2019—The Epic of Gilgamesh

22 October 2019—Plato, Republic, Books 1 – 5

19 November 2019—Plato, Republic, Books 6 – 10

The Great Ideas group currently has two seats available. Registration for Great Ideas, Great Books is in six-month subscriptions. The £25 per month registration includes introductory notes that set the context for each reading, and questions to help focus your reading and prompt your thinking about key aspects of the text.

SALON DETAILS

• Facilitated by Mark Cwik
• Tuesday evenings 6:00 pm – 8:30 pm
• Ongoing monthly study
• Meetings at The Mug House, London Bridge  SE1 2PF
• October/November recommended edition: Republic by Plato, translated by G. M. A. Grube, revised by C. D. C. Reeve; Hackett Publishing Co, Inc (1992); ISBN-13: 9780872201361
• £25 per month, registration in six-month subscriptions
  

TO REGISTER for the study, please use the secure Paypal payment button below to pay £150. Opening notes will be sent shortly after registration.

Dubliners: Between Paralysis and Epiphany in ‘The Sisters’ and ‘The Dead’

“My intention was to write a chapter of the moral history of my country and I chose Dublin for the scene because that city seemed to me the centre of paralysis. I have tried to present it to the indifferent public under four of its aspects: childhood, adolescence, maturity and public life. The stories are arranged in this order.”—James Joyce as quoted in Herbert Gorman’s James Joyce (NY, 1939)

Dubliners is characterised by a sense of paralysis. The moral centre of these stories is not paralysis alone but a recognition of that static state. Joyce loved Ireland but could not remain there—part of his critique of his culture and its people is imaged in these stories—in people caught in patterns and prejudices that they cannot escape. In many of the stories collected in this early publication, a clang of awareness or self-realization marks the climax. Often these moments reveal Joyce’s fascination with epiphanies- that moment of sudden and intense illumination when a profound truth is/may be revealed.  In Stephen Hero, a character suggests the recording of epiphanies is one of the most important functions of writing: ‘they are the most delicate and evanescent of moments’ and offer ‘a sudden spiritual manifestation, whether in the vulgarity of speech or of gesture or in memorable phase of the mind itself’.  For Joyce, these moments did not occur at the height of the heroic or dramatic gesture, but in the ordinary acts of life.  Are there moments in the readings that fit this description? More importantly, what is revealed?

“I did not know whether I would ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration. But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.”
― James Joyce, Dubliners

SALON DETAILS

• Facilitated by Toby Brothers
• Monday evenings 5:30 pm – 8:00 pm
• Two meetings: five hours total
• Meetings in Kentish Town
• Recommended edition:  Penguin Classics (Feb. 2000) ISBN-10: 0141182458
• £60 for the two sessions
  

TO REGISTER for the study, please use the secure Paypal payment button below to pay £60. Opening notes will be sent shortly after registration. The study is limited to 10 participants. Please contact us if you have any questions.

We will discuss the opening and closing stories of Dubliners: “The Sisters” and “The Dead”. These are the book-ends of Dubliners and have structural and thematic resonances. This comparison will also allow us to consider the development of Joyce’s craft as he prepares the ground for his later experimentation.

In both works, Joyce is driven to find that moment of illumination, the epiphany, when clarity is suddenly attained. He was convinced this was not a moment of great victory or apparent importance, but often a mundane moment when pieces fell into place.

The style of this study will reflect the traditional Salon format: I will offer a structure for our discussion and particular passages and ideas for us to grapple with, but I encourage and support your contributions to the discussion.  I have no expectations in terms of preparation nor previous Joyce study:The Salons typically have a broad spectrum of participants from the simply curious to literature teachers or lecturers—and some who have spent years reading Joyce. Each person brings their lived experience to the study whether it is a knowledge of the Catholic tradition. Irish history, love of music or intrigue with language: all contribute to our understanding as a group.

Joyce can be…intimidating. Please approach the reading with a sense of play. Much may remain unclear on your first reading; after our work together and if you are able to complete a second reading, you may find the pattern and weave of Joyce’s art singing for you. In his writing, he experiments with language and relies less on narrative logic than on the connections and synchronicity of words and events.

“You should approach Joyce’s Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith.”
—William Faulkner

There is a strong argument for studying this huge and intimidating text—book list chart-topper of 100 greatest books of all time, critics’ darling, most lauded/least read, the book that many literary academics dedicate their lives to studying—but you will only know for yourself by diving in. I believe the only way to study it is with a group of hungry, curious readers who all contribute to evoking meaning, through their questions as well as their insights.

The good news: reading Ulysses is fun. And I don’t mean in a frustrating, overly-analytical see-how-much-you-know-way. The language is amazing—even when I don’t understand it. Perhaps, especially when I don’t understand it, because meaning sneaks in through more than my critical faculty. Meaning slides in through sound, through the lushness of the language, through the filmy and substantial images, and suddenly I find myself transported from a walk on a beach to a contemplation of the origins of man—thanks, James Joyce.

Any time spent studying Joyce leaves one a better reader—a broader thinker—even if all the references, repetitions, epiphanies and allusions are not immediately understood.

“Joining the Ulysses salon was one of the best things I have ever done. This was a book I had wanted to read for years but never got past the first section. I had no idea what the salon would be like and was very apprehensive about joining up. But Toby so skillfully guided us through it, her knowledge of the text seemingly inexhaustible, that with her warmth and generosity and sensitivity she got everyone involved and the satisfaction of participating in the salon and in getting an understanding of this marvelous work was immense.”

—Ulysses Salon participant
See more participant feedback here…

SALON DETAILS

A) DAYTIME: Tuesdays 12-2 PM
B) EVENINGS : Tuesdays 7:30-9:30 PM 

• Both afternoon and evening studies start January 14th and finish June 23rd ; there will be a few special Sunday evening meetings for both afternoon & evening groups to address the longer chapters.
• We will meet for 21 meetings; there will be a few breaks around school half-terms
• Please purchase these editions in preparation for our study:
  • Ulysses, by James Joyce, Annotated Students’ Edition; (Penguin Modern Classics), ISBN-10: 0141184434. (There are many editions of Ulysses — I find this edition is most coherent and the notes and introduction by Declan Kieberd very helpful; as we will constantly be referencing particular passages, having the same edition will be extremely useful.)
  • The New Bloomsday Book: A Guide Through Ulysses, by Harry Blamires, ISBN-10: 0415138582
• The total cost for the 20-meeting study, with all notes and resources materials, is £400

TO REGISTER, Please use the Paypal button below to pay for the study; upon receipt of payment, you will receive opening notes and loads of resources to start the study.

For the daytime study on Tuesdays :

If you have any questions about this study, please contact us.

“You should approach Joyce’s Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith.”
—William Faulkner

After wandering through these rich pages with many wonderful readers, I am keen to offer a study of Ulysses for those who have already passed through once (or more) and are ready to dig deeper. The reading schedule will be the same, but we will approach with an understanding of the structure already in mind. This will allow us to flesh out the themes from the start of the work and engage more thoroughly the historical, social and aesthetic structures that Joyce inhabits and overturns. Hopefully this will also give seasoned readers the opportunity to feel grounded in the text and discover motifs, connections and explorations that they may have missed in the madness of the first reading.

If you have not previously read Ulysses, please join the afternoon study.

“Joining the Ulysses salon was one of the best things I have ever done. This was a book I had wanted to read for years but never got past the first section. I had no idea what the salon would be like and was very apprehensive about joining up. But Toby so skillfully guided us through it, her knowledge of the text seemingly inexhaustible, that with her warmth and generosity and sensitivity she got everyone involved and the satisfaction of participating in the salon and in getting an understanding of this marvelous work was immense.”

—Ulysses Salon participant
See more participant feedback here…

SALON DETAILS

A) DAYTIME: Tuesdays 12-2 PM
B) EVENINGS : Tuesdays 7:30-9:30 PM 

• Both afternoon and evening studies start January 14th and finish June 23rd ; there will be a few special Sunday evening meetings for both afternoon & evening groups to address the longer chapters.
• We will meet for 21 meetings; there will be a few breaks around school half-terms
• Please purchase these editions in preparation for our study:
  • Ulysses, by James Joyce, Annotated Students’ Edition; (Penguin Modern Classics), ISBN-10: 0141184434. (There are many editions of Ulysses — I find this edition is most coherent and the notes and introduction by Declan Kieberd very helpful; as we will constantly be referencing particular passages, having the same edition will be extremely useful.)
  • The New Bloomsday Book: A Guide Through Ulysses, by Harry Blamires, ISBN-10: 0415138582
• The total cost for the 20-meeting study, with all notes and resources materials, is £400

TO REGISTER, Please use the Paypal button below to pay for the study; upon receipt of payment, you will receive opening notes and loads of resources to start the study.

For the evening study on Tuesdays:

If you have any questions about this study, please contact us.

Drawing on the success of the LLS, we are excited to expand the studies by offering retreats that place participants in locales that reflect and expand the literature. By taking participants to beautiful places, the LLS retreat offers a more intensive immersion in the book while opening the mind to a part of the world illuminated through the beauty of the language.

The Greek Odyssey study for May 2020 will use Homer’s epic poem to consider closely the guest-host relationship, the defining struggle of humans against overwhelming nature, the struggle to know ourselves in foreign spaces, our understanding of the heroic and the role of myth and epic in lived experience. Actor Jane Wymark and Poet Caroline Donnelly will be assisting Salon Director Toby Brothers in this week-long study, sharing their insights into the spoken word, metre and translation.  In an era where the epic poem is in eclipse, the novel and film having taken over as the preferred vehicles for  complex narratives, we will explore aspects of the Odyssey as a work in the oral tradition.

We have found the perfect site to host this study providing the ideal combination of a local space run by someone who understands our mission & can provide us room & board that has some cultural and adventure offerings — and is easy to access. We will be staying at Rosy’s Village on the stunning Island of Agistri. The study is scheduled for the 3rd (arrival) to the 11th (departure) of May 2020.

SALON DETAILS

• Facilitated by Toby Brothers, Jane Wymark and Caroline Donnelly
• May 3rd-11th 2019; program will run approx. five to six hours per day (one day open) leaving time for other activities (optional kayaking adventure and trip to The Pidavros theatre or Temple of Aphasia
• Preparatory meeting April 27th 7:00-9:30 in London (Skype option available)
• Recommended edition: The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Robert Fagles AND the Emily Wilson translation
• £475 for the Salon study includes preparatory meetings, background materials and opening notes

Room and half board (two meals per day) will be paid directly to Rosy’s; after you register, you will receive details on payment.

Room Prices for seven night stay: (including Breakfast & Dinner)

• 574 euro  Single  (approx. £510)
• 413 euro    Double      (approx. £365)
• 392 eruo  triple/family room

Other costs: Flights (Right now can be found for £120-200 r/t British Air), ferry to Agistri (usually 14 euro each way but may be 30 euro for arrival if the group chooses private water taxi), one meal a day and extra trips. For flight purchase, please make sure you can be in Piraeus by 3 PM for May 3rd to make the ferry.  We will not be meeting on the 11th so you have choices about your return; ferry are frequent (one hour travel from Agistri to Piraeus).

To register and pay for the study or if you would like further information, please contact us . Opening notes will be sent after registration.

Participant reflections May 2019:

“And it was such stirring stuff! It transformed The Odyssey from ever so slightly a form of homework, the better to get to grips with Ulysses, into an unexpectedly powerful, truly immersive and poetic experience – a fascinating study in its own right.”

“The facilitators were great, particularly Jane, who is wonderful, for the readings. That was memorable, for me.

About the epic…      

The Salon has certainly been a place to re-discover- or discover for the first time- the works that form the cornerstones of Western literary tradition. The Odyssey is a root for our understanding of ourselves as well as the words and ways of the ancients. How does it continue to shape our idea of the heroic? What do the dilemmas that Odysseus faces offer to us today? Can we still appreciate the lyric and narrative quality alongside a violent story filled with the suffering and death of nameless servants, slave girls and soldiers?

Many artists have used The Odyssey as an inspiration for their work as Joyce does with Ulysses and the Coen brothers did for their film(winning an Oscar for the best screenplay adaptation from Homer’s original)…the epic struggle to return home and exploration of the guest/relationship remain relevant across time.

David Denby, in his work Great Books, describes his engagement with The Odyssey as an essential exploration of the formation of the self for the reader as well as for Telemachus and Odysseus: “Even at the beginning of the literary tradition of the West, the self has masks, and remakes itself as a fiction and not as a guiltless fiction either. . .

The Odyssey is an after-the-war poem, a plea for relief and gratification, and it turns, at times, into a sensual, even carnal celebration.”

Further reading : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10833515/Alice-Oswald-how-to-read-Homer.html

And here, from Jane, a brief summary of some of the contemporary novels inspired by the Homeric epics….

“All of these books contain major spoilers of the plots of both The Iliadand The Odysseyand so are to be avoided if you’d rather approach the Homeric Epics completely innocent. On the other hand, without some background knowledge of the Greek Pantheon you will soon be at sea so you might consider sacrificing surprise for context…”

Silence of the Girls

Pat Barker

 ‘An important, powerful, memorable book that invites us to look differently not only at The Iliadbut at our own ways of telling stories about the past and the present, an invitation to listen for voices silenced by history and power.’

Emily Wilson

Pat Barker is the author of the much respected award-winning Regenerationtrilogy set during the First World War and is thus very well qualified to retell the story of TheIliadin a style that displays its mythic universality. The first time that Achilles says ‘OK’ it lands as a shocking anachronism, but as you read on you realise that Barker is deliberately showing that the Trojan War has similarities to all wars in all times. Her central character, Briseis, is mentioned no more than a dozen times in Homer: she is an enslaved woman regarded simply as plunder.

The Song of Achilles

Circe

Madeline Miller

 The Song of Achilleswas Miller’s first book and was a major bestseller, published in 23 languages. It retells the story of the siege of Troy from the point of view of Patroclus, whose death Achilles avenged by the killing of the Trojan hero Hector and defiling the corpse by dragging it around the city walls behind his chariot. The book was less popular in some quarters: the NYT described it as having ‘the head of a young adult novel, the body of The Iliadand the hindquarters of Barbara Cartland’ and there’s some truth in that criticism, despite its irritating snobbish tone. It’s certainly a very engaging read and Miller’s second book, Circe, is even more so. Circe is a nymph and witch whose island home Odysseus and his men land up on. The book manages to weave in an enormous amount of Greek myth and legend in palatable form.

A Thousand Ships

Natalie Haynes

 ‘This subversive reseeing of the classics is a many-layered delight’.

Elizabeth Lowry

This is the most recent of the current crop of Homeric retellings. It is written in short chapters and covers the stories of many of the female characters, most of whom get fairly short shrift in Homer. Some are given more than one chapter – especially Penelope and the group Haynes calls The Trojan Women. Penelope’s chapters are written as letters to the absent Odysseus, a device taken from Ovid’s Heroides, but the dry witty tone echoes The Penelopiad written by the great Margaret Attwood fifteen years ago which is definitely worth a read.

If you have any questions about this study, please contact us.

Salon Weekend Retreats

Building on the success of our London-based studies, we are excited to offer travel studies that place participants in locales that reflect and contextualize the literature. Journeying together to beautiful sites, the London Lit Salon retreat offers a more intensive immersion in the book while opening the mind to a part of the world illuminated through the beauty of the language.

A Portrait of  A Lady by Henry James

The book is a painted portrait or even a kaleidoscope.  We watch and guess what Isabel will do. But like a portrait, she is (perhaps) caught in a frame and frozen by the artistry –or the terms of her world.

Previous studies have included considerations of gender roles, the negotiated space between self and other, the corruption or freedom offered by privilege, the challenge of looking at nationalities in generalizations (and the tempting ease to do so), the ways in which humans reveal themselves…these Salon discussions are full of wonder: the meeting of the gathered minds and the provoking text is a powerful thing.

Ralph Waldo Emerson seems to echo in the lines and characters of Henry James, Isabel in particular: “You think of me the child of my circumstances: I make my circumstance…I—this thought which is called I, –is the mould into which the world is poured like melted wax. The mould is invisible, but the world betrays the shape of the mould. You call it the power of circumstance, but it is the power of me.” –from Emerson’s essay The Transcendentalist 

Our study of PoAL may include a consideration of this quote in light of Isabel’s life and choices: how much do we make ourselves? How does the world impose itself on the individual in the act of self-creation?

Salon Details and Registration

• Weekend Meeting :May 15th-17th 2020
• Meeting in Rye–The Mermaid Inn and (as weather permits) garden at Henry James House
• Facilitated by Salon Director Toby Brothers
• Cost £165 includes notes and critical resources; rooms at the Mermaid range from £90 per night to £125
• RECOMMENDED EDITION: Norton Critical Edition Oct. 2017; ISBN-10: 0393938530

To register for the Salon study, please use the Paypal button below to pay £165: (Please pay for the  room directly to The Mermaid Inn once your registration has been confirmed):

 

About the Mermaid Inn–

This famous and historic Inn is a real find– it is usually booked out but we were able to secure three singles for GBP 90 each per night including breakfast, and 10 double-for-single rooms for GBP 125 each per night for a total of 13 rooms (out of 31 total rooms in the hotel).  There are two lounges for meetings offered at no cost.  WJ’s historic house is 1 minute walk away.

See images and further details here: https://www.mermaidinn.com/about-the-hotel/

 

From J. Smiley’s 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel

“The question (could a novel be art) were…framed in terms of technique, but the ideal was no longer just to promote the novel’s ability to communicate more and more details about more and more things, but also to have an aesthetic shape or effect that would be intended by the author and felt by the reader as consciously graceful, beautiful or ‘right.’  Foremost proponent of these ideas was Henry James…” p. 134

“Everything that Isabel has learned about love and marriage growing up in the United States turns out to be wrong—in Europe, marriage is a pure commodity relationship, and it is the fate girls to be bought, sold, and dominated. Their only choices are to accept their fate knowingly or undergo it without understanding it. ..In Pofa Lady James does what he intended to do…uses intense psychological analysis and careful depiction of settings to fill the spots where the vulgar might have been. “ p. 135

“H. James …recognized that, as vital and satisfying as the English novel was, English novels were missing something that French novels possessed—psychological refinement and depth. …HJ wanted to write…important novels about the progress of the inner life, in which the climax might be only a silent recognition by the protagonist that she has made a commitment fatal to her happiness. Readers had to be educated to understand the weight of such subterranean drama…” p.136

Reading the Body Umbria Retreat: Mind & Body interplay

Providing space and material for thought and play towards greater connection to the world we inhabit-through expansion of the mind and body.

Jackie and Toby have both developed approaches to understanding the self in the world. Jackie’s work uses the body as a space of exploration & understanding, while Toby employs literature as a platform for discovery.

Each day will include two sessions of yoga and one to two sessions of literature study. This will leave hours across the day for down time: explore the local area, rest and resource, reading, swimming, hiking, stretching.

SALON RETREAT DETAILS

• Facilitated by Toby Brothers and Jackie Seigler
• May 31st- June 7th  2020; program will run approx. four to five hours per day (one day open) leaving time for other activities
• Recommended editions: The Portrait of A Lady by Henry James (Norton Critical Edition, ISBN-10: 0393938530);  The Silent Duchess by Dacia Maraini (Arcadia Books Jun. 2010 ISBN-10: 190641372X)

Fees: Includes all yoga and salon study, accommodation , 3 meals a day & tea/biscuits and fruit.

• £1,200 Single
• £875 Shared Double
• £785 Triple shared
• £750 for non-participating partners

  Not included: Travel to the retreat (flights to Rome)

Further queries and reservation instructions, please contact:  Jackie – Jackie@seigler.co.uk

Opening notes will be sent after registration.

 The Place– La locanda della Quercia Calante

In the heart of verdant Umbria, in Castel Giorgio, only hills and nature surround the Locanda della Quercia Calante, charming holiday farm in an old farm house, renovated according to natural architectural principles. 18 kilometers from Orvieto, in the province of Terni, it is the ideal spot for those who want a fully natural vacation, in an environmentally friendly atmosphere at a natural pace of life. Energizing water pool, holistic spa center with yoga room, restaurant with local and vegetarian cuisine, fourteen rooms without electromagnetic fields…

http://www.querciacalante.com/home-en/

• full board in single or double/twin rooms /triple rooms/ quadruple (family)rooms with services and private veranda on the park.
• two coffee-tea-herbal teas, fruit etc. Breaks each day.
• use of one of the large yoga studios
• free use of the large complex of two swimming pools (300 m2) and one large spa in the park (during the summer). Salt filtering systems without chlorine.
• excellent and fresh food, mostly organic, very well cooked. Possibility of traditional Italian, mixed, vegetarian or vegan food (one choice for the entire group).
• all the rooms are perfectly heated in winter and cooled during the summer.

In your free time you can visit the beautiful surroundings: art cities of Orvieto, Siena, Todi or Etruscan and medieval sites, Bolsena Lake and thermal springs.

The Yoga:

Jackie Seigler – Yoga teacher

Jackie’s teaching style is very much drawn from Ashtanga yoga.  Her practice is continually evolving; she describes her style of yoga modern postural yoga with an emphasis on core stability as well as flexibility. Her goal in teaching is for students across all ages and body types to establish a more regular and fulfilling practice.

Jackie continually reviews, investigates and modifies her self-practice to make her teaching practice more accessible to everyone.

When one becomes a yoga practitioner you become an eternal student.

The idea of our retreat together is ‘Reading The Body’:  our yoga and meditation practice in the morning will be a great place to begin that work.

The afternoon class will be a combination of Restorative yoga, yoga Nidra and technical alignment-based sessions so we can work and build on a specific pose.

Restorative yoga is all about slowing down and opening your body through passive stretching, the centring of your breath and body, and aligning the physical and mental by practicing stillness or gentle movement for extended periods of time. The props assist in helping you to hold poses longer. During the long holds of restorative yoga your muscles can relax deeply. It’s a unique feeling because props, rather than your muscles, are used to support your body. Restorative classes are very mellow, making them a good complement to more active practices and an excellent antidote to stress.

Yoga Nidra, a state of conscious deep sleep, is a simple yet profound technique that unwinds the nervous system and induces complete physical and mental relaxation with inner awareness.

The Literary Salon:

Toby Brothers – London Literary Salon Director

The London Literary Salon creates community around the study of great literature. The Salon offers unique and inclusive discussion-based studies of literature—weaving the ideas of participants with questions the books raise about what it is to be human. Carefully facilitated, each study is dynamic and expansive in scope.

Drawing on the success of the LLS, we are expanding the studies by offering retreats that place participants in locales that reflect and open up the literature. The LLS retreat offers a more intensive immersion in the book while opening the mind to a part of the world illuminated through the beauty of the language.

I am considering two works for this study: A Portrait of a Lady by Henry James and The Silent Duchess by Dacia Maraini. Both of these works consider Italy as both setting and cultural idea, and both explore the struggle for an independent mind to be authentic in stifling cultural roles and relationships.

A Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

The book is a painted portrait or even a kaleidoscope.  We watch and guess what Isabel will do. But like a portrait, she is (perhaps) caught in a frame and frozen by the artistry –or the terms of her world.

Previous studies have included considerations of gender roles, the negotiated space between self and other, the corruption or freedom offered by privilege, the challenge of looking at nationalities in generalizations (and the tempting ease to do so), the ways in which humans reveal themselves…these Salon discussions are full of wonder: the meeting of the gathered minds and the provoking text is a powerful thing.

Ralph Waldo Emerson seems to echo in the lines and characters of Henry James, Isabel in particular.

“You think of me the child of my circumstances: I make my circumstance…I—this thought which is called I, –is the mould into which the world is poured like melted wax. The mould is invisible, but the world betrays the shape of the mould. You call it the power of circumstance, but it is the power of me.” –from Emerson’s essay The Transcendentalist 

Our study of PoAL may include a consideration of this quote in light of Isabel’s life and choices: how much do we make ourselves? How does the world impose itself on the individual in the act of self-creation?

The Silent Duchess by Dacia Maraini

Finalist for the International Man Booker Prize, winner of the Premio Campiello, short-listed for the Independent Foreign Fiction Award upon its first English-language publication in the UK, and published to critical acclaim in fourteen languages, this historical novel by one of Italy’s premier women writers has mesmerized readers globally.

In luminous language that conveys both the keen visual sight and the deep human insight possessed by her remarkable main character, Dacia Maraini captures the splendor and the corruption of Marianna’s world and the strength of her unbreakable spirit.

Maraini paints a vivid and unflinching representation of 18th century Sicilian Italy. It is often shocking in its honest portrayal of the inequalities at the heart of that society. From the excesses indulged in by the nobility while the majority lived in abject poverty or were subject to the most barbaric punishments should they err, to the utter powerlessness and abuse of women of any class.

The silent duchess of the title, Marianna, is deaf and mute. Her muteness is symbolic of all women of her time who had no say in anything at all. In the patriarchal system which prevailed, all decisions and choices were made for them. Not that many choices were afforded them; they either ended up in a convent or were married off at an appallingly young age for paternal gain. It seemed the convent was preferable, as Marianna’s sister thrived in her role as a healing nun.  (from Jenny Lloyd, Goodreads Review)

If you have any questions about this study, please contact us.