Autumn 2013 in London–Faulkner, Woolf and Mann; short stories and poetry

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“After doing my first Salon, I will never read the same way again: this study has made reading an active and inspiring experience for me…”

After several months away, the Salon is swinging back with wonderful previous studies and new works. For the moment, please email the Salon Director at litsalon@gmail.com with any questions or queries. The studies below are designed to support both readers who desire a shorter commitment and those who are looking for an extended immersion.  The Salon welcomes requests– if there is a great work you would like to study in depth with a gathering of other perspectives, let us know! If you know of another hungry mind looking to join a lively community of readers, please pass along their email so they can be included in the newsletters.

 

Coming London Studies

 

Summer Reads

It was a tough summer– I was pulled out of my life in London in the beginning of June to spend the last days with my mother …what followed was a few months of total immersion in the twilight world of death and dementia. These epic moments blast high beams back onto life as one lives it–suddenly revealing the gaps and jagged edges.  I come back to the Salons and London with a deeper knowledge of the realm of shadows and great appreciation for the communities that coalesce around a family in need.  I did find time to run some Salons in the Adirondacks where I spent the summer; from those and the final spurts of energy given from the  gorgeous Ulysses 2013 Salon,  we roll forward into a new season of great words and vital connections.

One of my buoys this summer were some beautiful books– Mark Doty’s Still Life with Oysters and Lemon  and Rebecca Solnit’s The Far Away Nearby.

Listen:

An emergency is an accelerated phase of life, a point at which change is begotten, a little like a crisis. Quite a lot of suffering often comes along with it, of mourning for what will be left behind–an old self, an old love, an old order–and of fear for what is to come, of the wrenching difficulty of change itself. The poet Jon Keats once referred to earth as “this vale of soul-making,” and its in emergencies and difficulties that souls are made. If an emergency is an accelerated emergence, merge is the opposite condition, “to immerse or plunge (a person, esp. oneself) in a specified  activity, way of life, environment, etc.” or “to immerse or plunge into liquid” or ” to cause to be incorporated, absorbed, or amalgamated.” 

–Rebecca Solnit, The Far Away Nearby p. 250

I hope the summer days have left you merged and emerging. See you in the pages…

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7 thoughts on “Autumn 2013 in London–Faulkner, Woolf and Mann; short stories and poetry”

  1. Dear Toby,

    Thanks for putting me on the list. And for the precis of your time in the shadows.
    I shall try to come in October, as I think I said, my life is a bit complicated as I spend a lot of time in Norfolk.
    All best,
    Jehane

  2. Dear Toby
    I both want and need to return but don’t see a daytime class?
    Am drowning in my own rage and despair at the moment at a very recent bereavement: poetry and music? Prose is just not doing it for me.
    XX
    Carol

  3. Would like to do Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain — trying to figure out when you are offering it. It looks like Wednesdays starting Oct 16? Can I convince you to consider Tuesdays? Wed afternoon in that time frame (oct/nov) is impossible for me.

  4. Absolutely– Tuesday afternoons work well for me–and I am hoping to start the Salons mid October…will decide and post this week: i think this will be another wonderful journey!

  5. Oh Carol- it would be lovely to be working together! I am so sorry to hear about your recent bereavement: how about some Seamus Heaney, some Wislawa Szymborska, Billy Collins? I will offer some brief studies in the coming weeks…Tuesday afternoons suit?

  6. Thanks, Jehane– I appreciate your comment and look forward to your participation in a coming Salon– some lively works and participants in the coming months…
    See you in the pages

  7. Yes, yes I love those poets, I did actually try Seamus Heaney a little after writing the above – and Tuesday afternoon is a splendid time for me. Thank you for your message and for being able to come to Paul’s party. Has he said we want friends to contribute a poem or song or music etc that they can read/sing/play for the middle part of the afternoon? And we’d love it if other Joycean/Dublinistas and your partner and daughter came too.

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