Toby Brothers

Reading Virginia Woolf’s Between the Acts in Alfriston

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For this, our fourth year of offering Salon studies in Alfriston, Karina and I have chosen Between the Acts  as the basis of our second four-day long weekend spent in the East Sussex countryside – near Woolf’s beloved Monk’s House and Vanessa Bell’s Charleston – which offers the luxury of full immersion in a complex and lush book with a dynamic group of fellow explorers.

In this book, Virginia Woolf’s lyric prose and gorgeous vision combine to consider the sense of exhaustion that punctuated the Modernist period leading up to the Second World War. Edward Mendelson describes the book: “Everything comes to an end in Between the Acts, and then, as the book itself comes to an end, something unknowable begins.” The book includes a pageant composed of imaginary episodes from 1000 years of English history, and a close examination of the intricacies of village life in pre-war England. As always, it is Woolf’s penetrating consideration of intimate relationships and the places where language fails—but something else transcends—that lift this work from “the doom of sudden death hanging over us” as one of her characters describes.

Our sessions are conducted in the Lodge at the Wingrove House Hotel, a beautiful space in which to delve into the intricacies of language and ideas, with Alfriston Green in the background beckoning us outside. Might we create our own Pageant using Miss La Trobe’s script? We might! And we have on hand the brilliant Janet Minichiello as our creative project coordinator; Janet is working on a Book Art Project with local bookshop Much Ado Books that will give participants an opportunity to create a material response to the text.

In addition to exploring Woolf’s writing, there are opportunities for early morning dips in the sea at Eastbourne, walking to the beautiful Berwick Church (which features Vanessa’s murals), and a trip to either Monk’s House or Charleston. Wingrove House offers stylish and comfortable accommodation with a grand breakfast spread that prepares us for each day of discussions, reading, discoveries and adventures. There are a few places remaining for this study, do join us! 

N.B. Our first Alfriston study focuses on Flush, one of Woolf’s more playful creations that voices the relationship between a spaniel and his owner, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Combined with a reading of Woolf’s satirical play Freshwater, this four-day weekend (9-12 April) will also include a creative project and local adventures, as well as an invigorated discussion about the dynamic between animals and humans. We have a place reserved for the resident London Literary Salon spaniel (pictured above), who also plans to be present for the study.

Click on the links below for full information on the studies in Alfriston:

Flush & Freshwater (9-12 April)

Between the Acts (16-19 April)

In appreciation of Wendy Steavenson (19 February 1941 – 30 December 2025)

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I am very sad to announce that Wendy Steavenson — valued Salonista and graceful hostess of some memorable Salon gatherings — died peacefully in her sleep just after Christmas. Those who knew Wendy, or who did studies with her, will remember her as a strong voice of wit, intelligence and humour. She was also incredibly generous — with her words, her appreciation, her offerings to the Salon community — and her passion for art was reflected in her work in the Salon. 

Last year, Wendy joined The Sound and Fury Salon facilitated by myself and John Allemand. She threw herself into the challenging text, in spite of her struggles with both the narrative experimentation and Faulkner’s purpose.  In one of her emphatic emails she asked me: ‘Why would he choose to write about such terrible people?’  I pushed back, trying to explain the importance of understanding the evil nature of the human spirit as well as the good, arguing for Faulkner’s deep compassion for all people in the face of the tragedy of American Southern culture. I think Wendy’s question speaks to her desire always to see the best in people, and her resistance to the ugly things that humans can do to each other.

I will miss her. I will miss her courage to speak up when she did not understand or accept a premise we were floating. I will miss her advocacy for others, and her energy in bringing everyone along to the beautiful things in the world.

Appreciation from fellow Salonistas:

‘I made a brilliant friend at a stage in life when we don’t usually make them. Pure happenstance, which is a wonderful part of the Salon. Yes, Wendy was demanding and outspoken, but she was incredibly generous and a great hostess with enormous style. We were from different worlds but had many things in common — chicken soup being one of them! Wendy was a superlative cook.  Everything was joyous and perfect. She made a party for the Proust group and gave everyone gift-wrapped madeleines. Only Wendy would have come up with that! She was so courageous over serious illness and surgery a couple of years ago. Always up for lunch with me and Diana, always beautifully dressed “Armani, decades old” she said once! Edwin got on so well with Wendy and he too is very sad to think we won’t see her again.

Wendy spoke her mind. Not always agreeably, but we admired her consistency and occasional delicious gossip. Last year our older son was incredibly ill. Wendy phoned constantly to see how he was doing (miraculously, twelve months on he is fabulous again, but it was a very tough and long battle).  We will miss her style, wit, intelligence and irrepressible get up and go when it came to celebrating and having fun. She was absolutely unique and I feel it was a privilege to know her. She was also so proud of her brilliant daughter Wendell, a prize-winning journalist and writer to whom we feel close and who will continue to help us remember her extraordinary mother.’

Sue Fox

‘Wendy and I sang Gershwin songs together and enjoyed happy lunches for more than twenty years.

We supported and comforted each other throughout the last months of the lives of our dear husbands: David and Peter.

I am happy she knew you, darling Toby and got to know Proust because of you.

She endured the most dreadful illness without complaint and with huge courage.

I will miss her massively.’

Annie Frankel

Why read Proust?

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In September 2025, for the ninth time, I will begin leading a group of keen (and possibly trepidatious) readers through Marcel Proust’s extraordinary masterpiece In Search of Lost Time. Below I will explain why I believe reading Proust is a life-changing experience. If you are at all curious about joining please email us with any questions you may have.

For anyone keen to immerse themselves in the Paris of Proust and the Belle Époque (regardless of whether you have yet read Proust) we still have places available on our five-day travel study in September.

“Every reader, as he reads, is actually the reader of himself. The writer’s work is only a kind of optical instrument he provides the reader so he can discern what he might never have seen in himself without this book. The reader’s recognition in himself of what the book says is the proof of the book’s truth.”

Marcel Proust

Proust’s seven volume In Search of Lost Time  is a daunting prospect for most readers. I think of reading Proust as a kind of practice. It took me many years of teaching around Proust to finally decide to dive in to teach the work itself. And honestly, my first reading through Proust in 2017 felt quite laboured. But by the second journey, I started to soar in the prose—in the mode that Proust uses that blends the lived experience of a boy growing to a young man whose sense of wonder, curiosity and hunger to know often meets with disappointment in a world that is more artificial and transactional then glittering and authentic. Perhaps surprisingly, it is a comedy, but the comedy is often at the expense of the naïve narrator. But what Proust does so brilliantly is to use his narrator’s lived experience—the disappointments, jealousies, awkwardness, memories and false starts to explore how the mind gathers impressions and perceptions—and through imagination, desire and memory to create a universe.  And this is the material of the artist. 

As we accompany the narrator on his journey, we enter a world in a profound state of flux, traversing the decadence of the Belle Époque, the social and political ructions caused by the Dreyfus Affair and the trauma of World War One.

What previous readers of Proust with the Salon have said:

“I believe that no author understands human nature and his characters’ psychology more profoundly than Proust. They are more alive than any other author’s. Proust isn’t afraid to show the mix of good and bad motives and traits that add up to a human personality in everyone.“

“For me personally, reading Proust has been such a deep, meaningful experience over a long period of time. I feel it has become an important part of me. 

Could it be a revelatory reading experience? . . . a journey to be savoured – again . . . and . . . again?”

For more inspiration we suggest this article by Cath Pound on the BBC website: Why the world’s most difficult novel is so rewarding.

In fond memory of Pamela Johnson, 1 April 1949 – 27 April 2025

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Photographs of Pamela Johnson courtesy of Janet Minichiello

I write this blog post with a heavy heart and a keen sense of the inadequacy of words. The Salon community has lost one of its stalwart members, the wise and witty Pamela Johnson. Pamela learned about the Salon through Salonista Denise Field in 2016, and immediately jumped in with both feet to study Ulysses. From there, her always hungry mind brought her to studies of Toni Morrison, Ralph Ellison, Kate Chopin and many others. Some of our most expansive times together were on travel studies – specifically reading multiple Virginia Woolf works in St Ives. She was a grounding force in the Woolf Journals group and, as I look through my emails, there are plenty of resources she has forwarded to me that I will peruse with her in mind—the strange way that electronic communication keeps someone present after they have died. 

We remember Pam with great fondness. The Salon will host a small gathering in London mid-June to share thoughts and memories and honour her with a few readings. Please CONTACT US if you would like to be included. 

What Homer’s Odyssey can teach us in 2025 – and why Donald Trump won’t be reading it . . .

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Our annual Salon trip to the sun-drenched island of Agistri to study classical literature is always one of the year’s greatest highlights. Each day we wake to a different sunrise. We dip in the sparkling sea, embrace Jane’s heart-led yoga and savour the deliciously fresh and healthy food offered by Rosy’s village. Above all we relish the utter luxury of entering an enduring literary world with a group of bold fellow voyagers, for a week during which our reading is further expanded by Caroline’s illuminating poetic responses and Jane’s skill in realising dramatic possibilities. 

What is different for me this year is the clanging backdrop of global politics, louder than ever, and in particular the destruction of democracy in the United States. Our study of Homer’s Odyssey always reveals profound insights into the world we find ourselves in today: Oxen of the Sun gestures to the degradation of environmental balance, the encounter in Circe can be understood in terms of gender power dynamics seeking resolution, while the absolute struggle of Odysseus to survive and find his way home – not just for his own sake but for the men he leads – will open up our discussion about leadership. What makes a true leader? What does a leader owe those who follow? How does a group respond when leadership can no longer be trusted? Homer strips events back to their bare bones – in the Homeric world there is no interior narration, all happens on the surface and in the moment. 

The other predominant consideration in the Odyssey, and for us in the present day, is that of xenia – the relationship between guest and host. How do we treat the stranger arriving on our shore? How do we want to be treated when we are that stranger? What does this say about our culture, our home, our values? Homer makes us aware of how central this relationship has been to our humanity from the very earliest times of recorded history. 

In past years this rare escape into literature has provided context and perspective for the challenges of the modern world. It has given me renewed strength to oppose inequality and to encourage open and inclusive teaching practice for all. I come away from our Salon study experiences heartened by the many beautiful minds I have been privileged to encounter through shared exploration of these complex texts.

This year, I know it will not be easy to escape the horrors of the world, I will carry my worries with me. I have people in my community who are directly impacted by the destruction in the USA – I know people who have already lost their jobs and others who fear losing them, I know authors whose books have been banned, I know people in humanitarian aid around the world whose work is threatened daily – and I also know that this is just the beginning of direct, negative impact on the lives of so many. And yet, nearly three thousand years after it was first written, Homer’s Odyssey reminds me that with courage and persistence it is possible – eventually – to overcome adversity and return to rebuild one’s home and community.

We still have a few places available on our Odyssey study. If you are interested in the idea of sharing this experience with a group of keen and humane fellow readers and would like to know more, you are very welcome to email us.

Why read Faulkner now?

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Portrait of William Faulkner by Carl Van Vechten, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

“. . . the twilight-coloured smell of honeysuckle . . .”

William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

Why read Faulkner today? A difficult, old, white, long-dead male writer – one who lied about his military experience, whose mind was ravaged by drink and disappointment – who was also a Nobel laureate, a dreamer, a lover of beauty, a seeker of what shimmers in human relationships and who believed, against the violence and prejudice surrounding him, that human beings can strive for meaning and truth. 

Faulkner peeled back the skin of his life and allowed his art to feed on his exposed self. While it is true that at times he reflects the racial and gender prejudices of his time and cultural space, it is equally true that from the same space he also interrogates racism, misogyny and inequity through his own experience. His writing – sultry, tragic, comic and deeply philosophical – brings the reader utterly into his world and its agonies. But in the midst of the howling and rage, there is always the energy of seeking hope – whether it be in the form of a young woman who escapes her terrible inheritance, the endurance of the statuesque Dilsey, or the howling of the final inheritor of Sutpen’s magnificent dream – we see the human spirit fighting for integrity. 

Now – right now – I feel the need to find means to resist external forces that feel overwhelming. I am talking about political corruption, environmental degradation, disasters of fire and war, wilful ignorance, xenophobic power structures, and feelings of helplessness in the face of these monstrosities. Faulkner and other writers I revere help me to not turn away, reminding me that even in a cataclysm, a single act of bravery or resistance matters.  Language – words, rhythms, lyric content, jagged images – can give me a model for living within an indigestible world. 

William Faulkner’s Address Accepting the Nobel Prize in Literature

As originally delivered 10 December, 1950 in Stockholm, Sweden

This is an excerpt—the whole speech is worth reading.

Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear, so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only one question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man, young woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.

He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed – love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he lives under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.

Until he releases – relearns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will still endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking.

We are currently offering studies of Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom!

Why read Ulysses?

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Top of many ‘best novel’ lists, Ulysses also heads countless lists of great novels abandoned or never read – even by accomplished readers and writers. What is it about this huge book that makes it so daunting, so hard, and so valuable? Why read it at all?

The book offers an ever-widening perspective. From an intimate view of one relatively unremarkable man’s walk around Dublin on a summer’s day, the linguistic journey ripples outward to encompass a dazzling range of quirky local characters, visions of the Far East, critiques of Empire, references to Irish politics, ancient and modern philosophical theories, gender dynamics, operas, innards, sexual hallucinations, cross-dressing, dogs (alive and dead), cats, the history of food, lemon soap that sings, a treatise on water, death rituals and the decomposition of the human body, pornographic books, Shakespearean theories . . . Ulysses is packed with rich intellectual enquiry, the compelling rhythms of a hungry mind exploring the wonders of the world.

Then there is the writing itself. To grapple with the words and linguistic pyrotechnics of James Joyce – to enter into his exploration of the body, mind and street-life, to sit in awe of his allusions, musicality, interweaving structures and thematic developments – is to expand the possibilities of the written word. To do this with a diverse group of other curious readers who are sharing the struggle and process of discovery allows each participant to enrich their own understanding many times over. Together we laugh, we express our frustrations, we query meaning and purpose, and we discover great depth in the language and vision of an extraordinary writer.

Our next Ulysses studies – two options: 11.30 am – 1.30 pm or 5.30 – 7.30 pm (UK time) – begin on Tuesday 21 January. If you are tempted to sign up we have a very few places remaining and you are welcome to join the first meeting without charge or obligation to continue. Please email litsalon@gmail.com using the subject line ‘Ulysses 2025’ if you would like to try a session before you buy!

Ten good reasons to read Ulysses . . .

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Six months seems like a long commitment and reading this 933 page masterpiece can be a daunting prospect. There will be literary, historical and classical references you may not know (yet), but I promise you it will be worth it! Here are ten reasons why:

  • Ulysses teaches you to be a better reader.
  • Reading Ulysses helps you to understand your own interior thoughts and language.
  • Ulysses is frighteningly pertinent to today’s climate of xenophobia and tyranny.
  • Ulysses is funny.
  • Ulysses features a dancing, singing bar of soap.
  • Everyone who reads Ulysses finds references, allusions and images that resonate.
  • Once banned for obscenity, Ulysses is up-close and personal to the body.
  • The language of Ulysses can be breathtakingly beautiful: “The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit . . .”
  • The vivid and seductive response to ignorance and injustice in Ulysses will inspire you.
  • Ulysses is the story of one man, but a woman (Molly) gets the last word!

What past Ulysses readers in the Salon have said:

“I must thank you for a most wonderful study of Ulysses. I couldn’t imagine that I would actually make it through.  Occasionally I felt inadequate, but always eager and always willing to reach. And what a reward in the end: to have read a brilliant novel, and to have made a connection with a group of fellow voyagers that I cannot praise enough. How fortunate we have all been. It is never really over though is it? Bloom will be with me forever, pulling me back to Dublin and the streets therein.”

“Those of us who have done Proust and Ulysses with Toby are longing for her to take us on another read . . . We all love the long read.”

For more on this join my lecture and discussion Why Read Ulysses? (Tuesday 24 November on Zoom), the cost is redeemable against our next Ulysses study starting in January 2025.

Reflections on this day, and those to come

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Photo by Mike Cox on Unsplash

In a murderous time
the heart breaks and breaks
and lives by breaking.
It is necessary to go
through dark and deeper dark
and not to turn.
I am looking for the trail.

Stanley Kunitz, The Testing Tree

I knew in these last few weeks, that I was refusing to even countenance a Trump election victory. 

Now that it seems clear that is what will happen, I am shattered. 

My husband and daughter obsess on a very difficult puzzle that is a map of the world. 

I sit with my Spaniel who demands attention and find a clean and brief joy in rubbing his belly. 

My disbelief in what has transpired in the United States feels privileged and ignorant. I know people from countries who have watched with horror as their country turns to tyranny and fascism. And they keep finding reasons to hope, to fight. 

I want to say to my daughter ‘I am so sorry’. How can I apologise for this country of mine that I no longer understand? How can I apologise for who we are?

The thought that really cleaves – in both senses of the word – is all those who, with shining hope, worked for Harris-Walz and all the positive candidates across the USA. The candidates who spoke out against greed, against misogyny, against racism and hate in all its forms. How do you go on when you have put your heart and soul into what is right and you lose? So many people joined together to push against the grotesqueness of the MAGA crowd—what happens to their activism, their commitment to turning the USA towards progress and compassion? 

So this is what I will try to nurture in the coming days: the energy to keep fighting, the capacity to believe in a different vision of the future than the one just voted into power. Broken, battered and despondent, I will join with communities across the world to advocate for a better world against this horrific monster of hate. This man represents our worst instincts—now we must nurture our best. I am also aware that I speak from the luxury of living outside of the USA. I am familiar with the writings of some exiles whose love of their old, broken country fired their imagination. May we all find a voice to express our pain, outrage and, ultimately, hope. 

We loved reading Night and Day in Alfriston!

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Each travel study is its own epic experience. We work hard to put together the text, the group, a special site, unique eating experiences, relevant gallery or museum visits, outdoor adventures and of course, a wild swim or two, but still I experience a healthy anxiety in hoping that all the planning will result yet again in the magical coming together of minds, words and ideas that makes these times so unique. 

The study of a book that I have not previously worked through makes this pre-trip tension even greater. For our latest big Woolf read, Night and Day in Alfriston earlier this month, I had the great privilege of working with Dr. Karina Jakubowicz, whose deep knowledge, great energy and humour made the facilitation electric. She also makes a fine fire!

Added to this, we had a core group of dedicated Woolfians – some of whom are in the ongoing diary study of Woolf – who had prepared reflections from that work that informed our reading of Night and Day. 

We were also truly enriched by our contact and meeting with the brilliant folks at Much Ado Books in Alfriston. The space they have created, with such love for books and art, welcomes all readers into the bright and illuminating world of beautiful books. They have a wonderful variety of rooms and extra buildings dedicated to different aspects of literary art, and they kindly hosted one of our sessions in the barn that houses their collection of Book Art – a vibrant response to the meeting of word and material. I value this connection greatly and was inspired by their embracing space and passion for books. We plan to be back in Alfriston next April and look forward to more events and exchanges with this very special location.

On first diving-in, Night and Day can seem like a conventional late nineteenth century novel of romantic entanglements, but our time around the work introduced new understanding as we were guided by Woolf’s probing – and at times ironic – gaze into family life, women’s work and social relationships in the late Edwardian era. In his literary theories, Mikhail Bakhtin developed the proposal that social situation and relationships determine the structure of utterance. Night and Day, positioned at a moment of immense change in the world, as portrayed in Woolf’s later novels, captures this change by using traditional language to address the rigid values around marriage, love and the position of women. But into this (teetering) order, Woolf inserts dreams, darknesses, gaps in language and volition that reflect the difficulty of resistance to a system in which one is embedded. By the novel’s end, some of the characters are stepping out towards a new world, just as Woolf herself will move towards more experimental forms of language and complex understanding of character in all her subsequent works. 

During our time in Alfriston, some of us would venture to Seaford early in the mornings for a dip in the sea to get our minds moving. As we drove to the beach on 13 April, we learned of the Iranian missile attack on Israel (particularly relevant to one of our participants, a political journalist whose radio interview that morning was abruptly cancelled). Suddenly, war and global conflict invaded our idyll, giving us a different understanding of how Woolf could have written this most domestic of novels in the midst of the Great War (a concern voiced by many critics, especially in her immediate group). We realised that with the threat of war around us (and I believe that awareness of our global position means we are all implicated in war anywhere in the world) we might turn purposefully to the drama of human relationships, where conflict can spark and glow to destruction. We also reflected that, in the chaos of the news around us, the generation of hope in human potential for progressive change is an ember that must be nurtured. 

There were so many moments of glittering insight and pleasure during our time together engrossed in this lesser-known Woolf work. I became aware of how the great privilege of time dedicated to this process of exploration results in an expanded space in the mind. Like swimming in fresh waters, the flotsam is softened and made fluid. With time spent focusing on a narrative, away from the needs of home, work and family, my mind gains strength as I move towards a healthy kind of attention. 

The study of great literature gives me an envelope within which to manage the disparate struggles of being human. There is no absolute truth to learn, but always a greater understanding of who we are in relationship to others and the world around us.

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