Coming Studies…details below
The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot Monday November 19th
The Dead by James Joyce: Thursday November 29th
Bleak House by Charles Dickens: 4 week study starting 5th December
Walt Whitman Poetry Evening December 6th
Howards End Salon Intensive One night study December 13th
I live in determined optimism…although Salon participation patterns seem to be revealing that long Salons (anything beyond one meeting) are not viable, I continue to believe that reading a great work is worth the time and effort…and luckily, Salon feedback has supported this. But for the Salons to run, participant preferences and feedback is crucial…so for the following coming studies PLEASE respond in an email (litsalon@gmail.com or toby@litsalon.co.uk) to the following choices: if one of these is interesting to you but the dates do not work or you would prefer a daytime or evening or different weekday schedule, let me know.
Below you will find a combination of short and longer studies, poetry and prose. Details and descriptions for most can be found on the website, using the link to the events page for each:
The Wasteland Monday November 19th Salon There is still time to read through the gorgeous and sharp lines of T.S. Eliot’s Modernist masterpiece…the notes suggest a few audio versions that will also help immerse you in the poem before we meet. A close study of this work will guide you into poetry and the heart of the Modernist struggle for meaning in a world collapsed by war.
April is the crueelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
It is a big book, but a perfect winter holiday read and in my opinion, it is Dickens at his outrageous best. I am spreading this study out over four meetings in eight weeks to make room for the reading and the holidays. I would be happy to offer afternoon schedule as well if there is interest…
Proposed Dates (evening or afternoon schedule) Tuesdays, 05.12, 11.12, 08.01, 15.01
The Dead by James Joyce: Thursday November 29th 7:30-10 PM (afternoon option available if interested) 30 pounds
This longer short story is a rich feast through which one may taste the world of Joyce. Nothing- NOTHING in Joyce is casual. Each image, reference, description carries symbolic resonance. Career Joyce scholars may try to align all the references- but I like W. Tindall’s attitude: “The text is not a system of mathematical equations but a flexible relationship of possibilities…” Bearing this in mind, we will dig at some of these references to give a sense of the richness in the writing. This story also holds to Joyce’s fascination with epiphanies- that moment of sudden and intense illumination when a profound truth may be revealed. Joyce describes the epiphany as ‘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. What moments in ‘The Dead’ that fits this description? More importantly, what is revealed?
Walt Whitman ‘Song of Myself’ Selections Thursday November 6th
This is a writer of exuberance and breadth; working in the tradition of the Transcendentalists, Whitman sought to use the words he crafted to contain the multitudes of human character…here is an example from ‘Song of the Open Road’:
AFOOT and light-hearted, I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune—I myself am good fortune;
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Strong and content, I travel the open road.
The earth—that is sufficient;
I do not want the constellations any nearer;
I know they are very well where they are;
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.
(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens;
I carry them, men and women—I carry them with me wherever I go;
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them;
I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)
Howards End Salon Intensive December 13th 19:00-22:00 40 pounds
In this intensive three hour study, we will encounter the book as a whole, attending to Fosters’careful and profound understanding of human relationships. Forsters’ style is marked by grace, delicacy, and a pervasive sense of comedy. Each character is given a certain sense of dignity, and although critically considered, none of his characters can be simply categorized as good or bad: the writing is much more subtle than that. This work is deeply interested in how place and economic class impacts human identity—and how we are failed in our attempts to connect across distance and circumstance.
