Winter slides in and I feel hibernation urges and sun-hungry…what better time to lose my self in a good read?
BLEAK HOUSE SALON starting Wednesday December 5th
“In Chancery
London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor
sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As
much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from
the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a
Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine
lizard up Holborn Hill.”
These are the opening lines of Bleak House the delicious winter study starting on Wednesday. Something about this time of the year feels very ancient and primal…in the hands of Dickens, we dip into Victorian England but also journey into the world of poverty and madness that is an ever-present human experience. There is one remaining space; email me asap if interested.
James Joyce’s ‘The Dead Salon Intensive Monday December 17th This story of a party on the edge of the year, at the end of an era, on the edge of Modernity is a wonderful introduction to Joyce’s fluid style. His use of epiphanies and the richly resonant references that build over the course of this novella are carefully employed to evoke the layers of the characters as they gather in the holiday festivities, each carrying their own wounds and histories. For those still missing our work with Ulysses or if you would like to taste a bit of Joyce for the holidays, this is a wonderful study to join.
Coming Salons for the New Year
Starting the third week of January 2013
Ulysses by James Joyce
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 Ulysses Salon will commence with a close study of the first section. 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.
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
