So much is happening in the Salons at the moment: rich and startling conversations on the nature of love, loss, human relationships, power, art and identity… BIG Salons starting in January on Ulysses, One night-Intensive Salonss on Wide Sargasso Sea and the Alexandria Quartet, an evening at the British Psychoanalytic Foundation considering Ulysses through a Freudian lens; upcoming studies at City Lit in Black American Voices and at the Jungian Institute on Modernist Poetry…2015 looks to be epic– in a Joycean kind of way. Enjoy the coming holidays– and come join us for some mind work…
Starting third week of January: 20 week study of James Joyce’s Ulysses
*registration is open: the afternoon sessions are almost full…
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. TheUlysses 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. For more thoughts as to why do it, go to the event page...
Balthazar by Lawrence Durrell –2nd in the Alexandria Quartet: one-meeting Salon Intensive January 18th 5-9 PM
Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet has provoked a variety of responses from ‘astounding tour de force’ to ‘flawed masterpiece’. Transcending critique is appreciation for Durrell’s stylistic elegance– the gorgeous form with which he explores the sensual and dangerous world of Alexandria in aftermath of WW II. Our study will also consider how the a Western mind portrays the Eastern world–and how we are all outsiders looking in.
SALON INTENSIVE Wide Sargasso Sea:
Jean Rhys, an early Modernist writer, chose to explore Bertha Rochester’s history in her brief but crystalline work. In Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys confronts the possibility of another side to Jane Eyre. The story of Bertha, the first Mrs Rochester, Wide Sargasso Sea is not only a brilliant deconstruction of Brontë’s legacy, but is also a damning history of colonialism in the Caribbean.
Designed for those who are unable to commit to a longer study, the Salon Intensive provides a full immersion in a shorter work of literature in one 4 hour intensive study. Readers will want to read the work in preparation; we will share a potluck meal midway through the evening to feed our bodies while our minds are humming along…
In Search of Lost Time: Vol. 3 The Guermantes Way Monday evenings/ Wednesday afternoons starting first week of February 2015 –7 meetings … We have been enjoying the slowed-down reflection and deep consideration this masterpiece evokes. As one Salonista said:”This is a velvet jewel of a book that demands the attention of a lover full of enchantment and obsession ,we need not get impatient as all good lovers perfect their art in taking their time…”
