Nicky Mayhew

Campaign to protect views immortalised in Virginia Woolf’s ‘To the Lighthouse’

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Within the Salon community we count many devotees of the writing of Virginia Woolf and every year we offer a number of studies focusing on her work, some online and others based in some of the places she loved. This autumn we will run the seventh in our series of Virginia Woolf travel studies in the Cornish seaside town and fishing port of St Ives, where we will read two of her most celebrated novels: To the Lighthouse and The Waves.

Although these books are fiction, each one – as well as a third novel, Jacob’s Room – features vivid descriptions of the gorgeous views across St Ives Bay from Talland House, the childhood summer home for Woolf (then Virginia Stephen) and her family, looking out to Godrevy Lighthouse. The house was of enormous importance to Woolf, acknowledged worldwide as one of the foremost writers of the twentieth century, who wrote about it repeatedly in her memoirs, diaries and novels. According to her biographer, Hermione Lee, “Happiness is always measured for her against the memory of being a child in that house.”

Now the views of the sweeping seascape from the privately owned Grade II listed Talland House are under threat from construction of a block of twelve flats on a site below its grounds. Planning permission for the development was granted in 2009, but building works have only begun in recent weeks and the developers are now seeking permission from Cornwall Council to increase the height of the building, claiming that the overall scale and mass will remain “broadly the same”. As the council considers the application they face fierce opposition from Woolf enthusiasts – readers, writers and cultural historians – locally, nationally and internationally, many of whom have left passionate objections on Cornwall’s planning portal.

Opposition to the development is spearheaded by locally based heritage horticulturalist Polly Carter, who many Salon participants will know from her generous and knowledgeable contributions to our studies in Cornwall. Polly, who is developing the gardens at Talland House with plantings referenced in Woolf’s writings, is working alongside the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain to mobilise Woolf fans worldwide, including prominent scholars, authors and artists, to join local residents in campaigning to reject the developer’s current proposal and revoke the original planning permission.

Talland House and its history, together with Tate St Ives and the Hepworth Sculpture Garden form a significant part of Cornwall’s cultural heritage, attracting visitors from around the world. Best-selling local author Patrick Gale described the development as a “preposterous piece of cultural vandalism”, while our own Toby Brothers observes “the site for this proposed development is not only a national treasure; it is a global one. Thousands of people visit Talland House and its surroundings every year to experience the place where Virginia Woolf spent her youth and which inspired one of the most classical works of the twentieth century. This project would destroy an important part of British – and world – heritage. A building project of this nature benefits only a few – namely the owners – and disadvantages all who are drawn to it from near and far.”

According to the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain “The association of Woolf with Talland House is one of the UK’s major literary/house associations, akin to Charles Dickens with Doughty Street and similarly visited by hundreds of tourists. It would be cultural vandalism to destroy the view of Godrevy Lighthouse from Talland House.”

Find out more about this story on the BBC News website.

You can view comments about the development proposals and, if you feel strongly about this, add your own comment on the Cornwall Council Planning Portal (you will need to give a UK postcode).

If you wish to comment from outside the UK you can click on the same Cornwall Council Planning Portal link and use the postcode for Talland House: TR26 2EH

Reading James Joyce with the LitSalon

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Portrait of James Joyce by Jacques-Emile Blanche, 1934, National Gallery of Ireland, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

At the Salon we are huge admirers of James Joyce. For a long time we have featured at least one study of Ulysses every year, as well as – at various times – explorations of the arguably more accessible Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners, as well as the often bafflingly inventive Finnegan’s Wake. In all of these works Joyce shows us why he is so widely regarded as one of the most brilliant and influential writers of the twentieth (or any) century.

In January 2026 Toby will again lead a group of keen readers through the twenty-one meetings that follow Leopold Bloom’s Odyssean progress through Joyce’s native city of Dublin towards its concluding episode: Molly Bloom’s erotic and heartfelt soliloquy that touches on love, sex, marriage, desire, loss and so much more . . . Tackling Ulysses alone can seem like hard work, many stumble and fall in the early pages, but reading it as part of an engaged and curious group makes it so much easier and, believe it or not, great fun (Joyce IS a funny writer). As one Salonista explains: “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 . . . Toby so skilfully 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 marvellous work was immense.“

This autumn, as a prelude to reading Ulysses, we are offering a study focusing on the brilliantly illuminating short stories in Dubliners. The fifteen stories in the collection, first published in 1914, remain fresh and vivid more than a hundred years later. They serve as a seductive gateway for readers new to Joyce’s writing: some of the characters and much of the atmosphere portrayed reappear in Ulysses, albeit realised in a completely different and innovative literary style. As the title implies, the stories are particular to a time and place, yet in our very different twenty-first century world the characters – their emotions, the experiences hopes and disappointments that shape them – are universally recognisable as human, evoked by a humane and clear-eyed writer of genius.

Our next Dubliners study will be led by Karina Jakubowicz, who many Salon regulars will know best for her expertise on Virginia Woolf (she is, amongst other things, creator of both The Virginia Woolf Podcast for Literature Cambridge and the Woolf in the World Substack). As a graduate of Trinity College Dublin with a particular interest in modernism and modernist representations of space and place, Karina is ideally placed to introduce this extraordinary work.

Dubliners, with eight weekly two-hour sessions, runs from 16 September – 4 November 2025.

Ulysses, twenty-one two-hour meetings, will run from 13 January – 16 June 2026.

The enduring legacy of Japanese art

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Plum Garden in Kameido, woodblock print by Utagawa Hiroshige, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Inspired by the British Museum’s exhibition Hiroshige: Artist of the Open Road, Sean Forester – San Francisco-based artist and lecturer – has devised for us Hiroshige & Japanese Art, a study exploring the unique art and aesthetics of Japan and how a direct line can be drawn between the work on display and that of the French Impressionists. Born in 1797, as Japan was just beginning to emerge from the long isolation of the Edo period (1603-1868), Utagawa Hiroshige was an artist whose enormous body of work captured the people, life, landscape and nature of the country in vivid and compelling detail.

Over five meetings Sean will examine the hugely influential art and culture of Japan from the Heinan period to the Edo, looking not just at the work of master artists and printmakers, but also considering the significance of Zen temples and gardens, ceramics, tea ceremonies, haiku poetry, calligraphy, woodblock prints, and dress (kimonos and netsuke).

” . . . one cannot study Japanese art, it seems to me, without becoming merrier and happier, and we should turn back to nature in spite of our education and our work in a conventional world . . .

“I envy the Japanese the extreme clarity of everything in their work. It is never dull and it never seems to be done in too much of a hurry. Their work is as simple as breathing, and they do a figure in a few sure strokes as if it were as easy as doing up your waistcoat.”

Vincent van Gogh, writing to Theo van Gogh, September 1888

“If you absolutely must … find an affiliation for me, put me with the Japanese of old: the refinement of their taste has always appealed to me, and I approve of the suggestions of their aesthetic, which evokes the presence by the shadow, the whole by the fragment.”

Claude Monet, 1909

Pheasant with Chrysanthemums, woodblock print by Utagawa Hiroshige, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

The British Museum exhibition continues until 7 September (although it is currently closed until 4 July as they refresh the display). If you have not already visited then this Guardian review – “I could look forever at these passing moments in cosmic colours” – may tempt you, and there is more to read about the Japanese influence on Impressionism in this article in The Collector magazine.

Participants in the study can join Sean on an informal visit to the exhibition on Thursday 4 September. Buy your own ticket and meet inside the British Museum at the entrance to the Hiroshige exhibition at 12.00 noon (please email to let us know you are coming).  

The Odyssey continues . . . join us in Greece!

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Gods and monsters are notably absent from the first of two new films based on Homer’s Odyssey, which focuses on the end of the poem as Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca to find Penelope besieged by suitors. Out in the UK today (it was released in the US at the end of 2024) Uberto Pasolini’s The Return reunites Ralph Fiennes and Juliet Binoche for the first time since the multi-Academy Award winning dramatisation of Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient, and it’s hard to avoid reviews and comment in print, online and broadcast media. Here is a link to Peter Bradshaw’s Guardian review (which includes a brief trailer for the film).

Meanwhile, preparations are afoot for the 2026 release of Christopher Nolan’s “action fantasy” interpretation of the epic, apparently described by Universal Pictures’ US head of distribution as “a visionary, once-in-a-generation cinematic masterpiece that Homer himself would quite likely be proud of.” Aside from the Trump-style hyperbole, The Odyssey does seem to be having a moment more than two-and-a-half thousand years after it was first written, so we are taking the opportunity to remind the Salon community (and friends and family) that there are still two places available on our week-long study on the Greek island of Agistri. It will be an amazing trip, email us if you would like to know more!

Can’t read? Won’t read?

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Photo by Eugenio Mazzone on Unsplash

News from the US last month about growing numbers of students at elite universities who can’t read whole books (revealed in The Atlantic magazine) was immediately echoed by UK academics. Earlier in the year a report from UK charity the Reading Agency (whose mission is to empower people of all ages to read) found that half of UK adults don’t regularly read and almost one in four young people aged 16-24 say they’ve never been readers.

While some people find the prospect of reading literature simply overwhelming, others find it difficult to overcome barriers including lack of time, as well as competing distractions from electronic devices and bite-size chunks of instant entertainment. Fortunately, there are also many who remain convinced that reading is a unique way of expanding our understanding of the world and our empathy for others. Sharing the experience of individuals in different times, places and circumstances through reading expands our consciousness, our sensitivity and our imagination in unique ways.

We continue to offer opportunities to be part of a community reading wonderful books from authors writing originally in a range of languages, from places real and imagined, and covering milliennia from the ancient world to the present day. Already on the menu for 2025 are new studies of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time and James Joyce’s Ulysses starting in January. Also booking now are Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, not to mention travel studies reading Homer’s Iliad and Euripides’ Trojan Women in Greece, and Herman Melville’s Moby Dick on board a traditional sailing ship. Much more – poetry, drama, philosophy, history of art – will follow soon. Join us if you can!

If you are thinking about joining our Proust or James Joyce studies check out these lectures and discussions led by Toby Brothers and coming up in the next few weeks (the cost is redeemable against the study price if you decide to sign up):

Tuesday 26 November, Why read Ulysses?

Tuesday 3 December, Why read Proust in 2025?

You can also read Toby’s thoughts on ‘How we Read‘ for more about what the Salon experience offers.

Bloomsday 2024!

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“Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed . . .”

For many of us the opening lines of Ulysses, which usher in the one day (16 June 1904) on which Leopold Bloom takes his long perambulation around Dublin, are so familiar they scarcely need repeating. And yet, there are always people who have yet to read – or re-read – James Joyce’s monumental work of art. For anyone contemplating this journey through time we are planning a new Ulysses study starting early in 2025, details will be announced here on the website and in our newsletter soon (please make sure you are subscribed).

We have some incredible readers who are just in the process of completing Ulysses with Toby, after six months of what she describes as: “mad reading, struggling for understanding, deep probing of textual complexity, gender roles and identifications, the awful weight of history, antisemitism, the haunting of grief and the meaning of the lemon soap – a lovely group of readers have triumphed in their work with Joyce – their final meeting happens this week.” 

Unusually, we are not celebrating Bloomsday formally this year, BUT the gallery above is a reminder of Bloomsday and other Joyce-related events the Salon has enjoyed in recent years (and there will be more in the future). Meanwhile, here are a few things going on if you are keen to find a last minute opportunity:

  • The London Balloonatics, who can normally be found on Bloomsday re-enacting Bloom’s Dublin walk on the streets of London, are instead walking in Dublin this year (find them on the Bloomsday Festival website link below) but offer this audio for those of us who are not in Dublin with them!
  • Our friends at Audrey are offering a ‘listen-along’ Ulysses opportunity.
  • For anyone in Dublin the James Joyce Centre’s annual Bloomsday Festival has lots going on this weekend, as does the Derry-based YES Festival celebrating female creativity with a focus on Molly Bloom’s soliloquy.
  • In London the Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith is offering a play Norah & Jim and an art exhibition based on Ulysses.

Happy Bloomsday!

In Search of Mrs Dalloway!

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Karina, Toby & David
Sharon & Toby
Toby by the Pyports lawn
David describes the Lushington Archive

The inimitable Sharon Bylenga, long-time supporter of the London LitSalon and Virginia Woolf devotee, recently discovered the depth of the links between Woolf and the Lushington family, three generations of whom lived in Pyports, a handsome residence in Cobham, Surrey. Sharon introduced us to Cobham-based historian and archivist David Taylor, author of The Remarkable Lushington Family, and the idea for a unique ‘in-person’ event was born.

On a sunny June Saturday, a group of enthusiastic Woolf readers joined us in the main hall and garden of Pyports (a private house, generously opened to us by the current owners) to hear David Taylor and Karina Jakubowicz, Woolf scholar, LitSalon facilitator and presenter of the Virginia Woolf Podcast, ‘in conversation’ with the Salon’s founding director and lead facilitator Toby Brothers.

Virginia Woolf herself admitted that Mrs Dalloway, a recurring character in several of her works of fiction, most notably the eponymous Mrs Dalloway, was based on Kitty Lushington. Over the years there has been much speculation about the life of Kitty (who, on marriage to the writer and journalist Leopold Maxse, became a celebrated socialite) and her untimely death. The panel discussed the extent to which they believe Kitty’s life was accurately represented in Woolf’s writing and, more broadly, the differences between the approach of the historian and the writer of literary fiction. Thought-provoking questions and observations from the audience about historical record and works of imagination completed a fascinating exploration of life and art, followed by drinks on the Pyports lawn where Virginia Woolf and Kitty Lushington once gathered beneath the ancient cedar tree that remains standing today.

For information about forthcoming LitSalon studies (including reading Woolf in Cornwall this autumn) please make sure you are subscribed to our newsletter and do check out Karina’s wonderful Virginia Woolf podcast for Literature Cambridge!

Little Women: dreadful title, wonderful book?

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Anne Boyd Rioux

I recently had to confess to our new facilitator, Anne Boyd Rioux, author of the highly acclaimed Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why it Still Matters, that I have never really warmed to Little Women. This is in spite of its strong credentials as the archetypal feminist fiction and a book that has inspired countless women – many of them (including luminaries such as Simone de Beauvoir, Patti Smith, Coretta Scott King and Zadie Smith) celebrated for their talents and tenacity – to emulate the character of Jo March in forging their own brilliant careers.

On reflection I wonder to what extent my feelings are based on an instinctive distaste for the title (even as a child I thought it demeaning) and that of its sequel Good Wives. Anne patiently explained to me that in the US Little Women was first published in two volumes, the first in 1868 followed by Little Women Part Two in 1869, soon thereafter becoming a single book following its huge success. However, here in the UK (and the rest of the English-speaking world), the publishers – rather than the author – persisted in maintaining two volumes: Little Women and Good Wives.

Further confusion was caused in 1880 when the US publisher produced a new edition in which much of the language of the original text was ‘improved’ by, for example, amending the March girls’ use of the “ain’t” to “am – or is, or are – not”, in the process robbing the original prose of its vitality! For this reason Anne urges readers to seek out the original text and recommends the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition (ISBN: 978-0143106654).

All of the above (further encouraged by this New Yorker article) has led me to the conclusion that I should re-read Little Women (in its original form) with an open mind and, if my schedule allows it, join her Reading Little Women study starting on 29 March!

Away from it all . . .

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Photo by Mauricio Muñoz on Unsplash

Even though days are getting longer, mornings lighter and sunsets later, February can be a grind. As we await the arrival of Spring we’re looking forward to getting away from it all in the coming months, so here’s a reminder that this year we have more opportunities to read great literature in evocative locations than we’ve ever offered before.

Some of our travel studies – Jacob’s Room on the Sussex Downs, The Oresteia in Greece, ‘Reading the Body’ in Umbria – are already fully booked, but there are still a few places left to read Homer’s Odyssey on the gorgeous Greek island of Agistri, and Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse and Between the Acts in St Ives.

Some feedback from participants in previous travel studies gives an idea of what to expect:

The Odyssey on the island of Agistri, April/May 2022

“Discussing Homer whilst gazing out at the Aegean . . . heaven!”

“Rested? Not really, as there was simply so much to do, all of it interesting. Energised? Definitely . . . “

“Agistri and Rosy’s provided a wonderful setting which was both peaceful and invigorating. I so appreciated being surrounded by the beauty – bees buzzing in orange blossom – and being by, and in, the sea. This scenery that Homer would have known really enhanced the experience of studying the text.”

“The group was amazing and I loved your insights and questioning of the text. It was an amazing and enriching experience.”

“It was a wonderful trip . . . I think the landscape, especially around the islands, is so seductive that you can see how these wonderful texts were written.”

To the Lighthouse in St Ives, September/October 2022

“The collaboration between facilitators and participants was rich indeed and I wonder how it was accomplished that everyone in the group was so insightful and intelligent and I might even say soul-searching.”

“Wonderful . . . The studio where the discussion took place is a beautiful, extraordinary place, the participants were imbued with the light and landscape, creating a friendly and committed atmosphere. The two facilitators were wonderful – knowledgeable and sensitive, understanding in depth not just the book but the group as a whole.”

Meanwhile, if writing is your preferred route to escaping the February blues, your creative juices are stirring and you fancy some armchair travel, there is still time to register for Alison Cable’s ‘Writing for Wellbeing’ workshop Journeys beginning on 20 February.

Email us if you are tempted by any of our studies and would like to know more!

And, last but not least, although it’s not part of our own schedule, we’d like to mention Salonista Harriet Griffey’s Writers’ Retreat in Spain from 10-17 June. Harriet explains:

Writers’ retreat with Harriet Griffey at Las Chimeneas, Spain, 10-17 June 2023

Whether you are completely new to writing or are trying to begin, develop or complete a piece of work, this writers’ retreat facilitated by Harriet Griffey (ex-publisher and author of Write Every Day) offers creative space to do so, along with one-to-one feedback and optional group opportunities to share and discuss your writing progress.

Set in the peaceful village of Mairena in the beautiful Alpujarra region of Spain, prices including full board and airport transfer (excluding flights) for a week’s retreat range from €860-€1050. Further details and booking at:

www.writersretreats.org

The Brothers Karamazov – Vladimir Putin’s favourite novel?

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Earlier this month, when Ukraine’s culture minister called on the world to boycott Tchaikovsky and other ‘Kremlin-favoured’ works until the war in Ukraine is over, we were prompted to discuss whether we should be reading great Russian literature in the Salon at this time. The prospect of a new Brothers Karamazov study starting on 11 January made it an urgent question.

Co-facilitator of the study, Sarah Snoxall, expressed concerns shared by all of us that we should consider carefully the possibility of withdrawing it and the extent to which the proposed boycott might be relevant to our work. After much discussion, we agreed that we all oppose the idea of cancelling any kind of cultural activity unless it can be shown to be harmful. On reflection, we also concluded that reading what Freud described as “the most magnificent novel ever written” and examining, within the study group, the profound moral questions posed by Dostoevsky, would do nothing to flatter Putin’s regime or to undermine the right of Ukraine to resist invasion.

Much has been written about Russia and Ukraine since the launch of Putin’s ‘special operation’ earlier this year, but a 2014 article in the Los Angeles Review of Books, written in the aftermath of the annexation of Crimea, draws on images from The Brothers Karamazov of two intertwined and opposing abysses – the basest and the highest – to portray the essence of the Russian soul, underlining the political and moral relevance of this work to the contemporary world.

Dostoevsky is allegedly (with Tolstoy) Vladimir Putin’s favourite author, and The Brothers Karamazov is reputedly his favourite novel. Sarah’s co-facilitator, Keith Fosbrook, makes the point that the meaning of a work of art is always contestable and, as a result, art can always be used for the purposes of political propaganda . . . An article on Lit Hub, Dear Vladimir Putin: If You’ve Read Dostoevsky, You’ve Tragically Misunderstood Him examines this in more detail, the author, Austin Ratner, concluding: “Those who have read and understood The Brothers Karamazov know exactly how to measure Dostoyevsky—and how to measure Putin.”

If you would like to decide for yourself, there are still a few places left on The Brothers Karamazov, which promises to be an engrossing exploration of this extraordinary work of art.

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