Past Salons

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.

Writing Through the Seasons: Summer

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Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Praying

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

Mary Oliver
from Thirst, © Beacon Press, 2007


At the LitSalon’s Reading the Body retreat in Umbria earlier this month, I was reminded how intimidating creative writing can be for many people — even the most intelligent, eloquent and accomplished.  

As fifteen of us gathered and got acquainted in front of the villa, with its many varieties of trees and birdsong, I knew there’d be no shortage of inspiration for our writing together. Not to mention the literary discussions and daily yoga practice. Yes, we’d be not only reading the body but writing it too.

A few people pulled me aside to say that they would not be joining the writing workshop. More than a few were hesitant: it wasn’t their thing; they’d been scarred at school; they weren’t creative enough; it’s intimidating . . .  But, like Mary Oliver says, ‘it doesn’t have to be.’ 

The way we write together in these workshops is more about noticing, connecting, and playing with words.  Because I gently direct the writing, participants can be released from pressure and be spontaneous and intuitive — the opposite of the kind of writing we did in school. There’s no concern for grammar, spelling, punctuation, ‘You don’t even have to use words — you can doodle if you want,’ I say.  We’re not concerned at all with perfection.  It’s precisely the imperfection of spontaneity that’s at the heart of this playful writing, and I reckon that’s why it feels so good.

It feels good because there’s no critique, no judgment, just reflection. It isn’t a contest; it’s listening to our inner voices and knowing that everyone has something to say. Sharing and noticing the process of writing, not the writing itself.  Of course, you can read your words if you want to. And sometimes, but not always, there’s a bit of magic in what emerges.  

By the third workshop, word had spread like our laughter in the air. Almost everyone had given it a go.  We made pantoums (an ancient Malaysian poetic form), sankalpas, metaphors, a collaborative poem . . .  As a facilitator I was grateful for the bravery and creativity of all who participated and I like to think it added to their retreat experience. I wrote in my own reflections, ‘the Salon is as full of curious, creative women as the place is full of aromas — herbs, grass, rain. Fruits are ripening. Are we?’

If you feel curious or inspired, why not join me online for the next set of workshops in the ‘Writing Through the Seasons’ series? Summer starts on Tuesday 27 June.

Editor’s note:

Below, hot off the press, are two reviews of Alison’s writing sessions in Umbria.

‘An unexpected bonus for me was Alison’s writing groups. I went with a lot of trepidation, wanting, but not expecting to be able to write anything creative – even though I have wanted to do so for years. I have come back with a notebook full of fragments, embryonic poems, and ideas. We were told to dismiss our inner critic, and thanks to the time limits- (5 minutes to write a poem!) – my ‘busy old fool’ – (a Welsh Methodist superego) – never got a chance to stick his thin nose into the process, or to sniff disapprovingly at my unruly spontaneity.’

‘Alison proposes a writing experience which works just as well for a seasoned writer as it does for a beginner. Her exercises are uniquely tuned to take away inhibitions and provide participants with the confidence they need to express themselves freely. I found the writing that emerged could be as surprising as it was effective. Alison’s natural empathy immediately makes everyone feel comfortable. It’s about harmony; she creates a little circle of concord. She provides the wings we need to fly. And we do!’

Days on Agistri

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Photograph of Toby Brothers on Agistri by Sandrine Joseph, @london_lost_in

As we wrap up another sparkling Salon week at Rosy’s Little Village (a name that doesn’t do justice to the place), I reach to capture the enriching moments that make this immersion so fulfilling. 

It is, of course, a luxury to spend a week immersed in one work of literature.  To do so on a wooded Greek island in the Saronic Gulf is pretty extraordinary. Our venue provides a unique community feel: just minutes from a humming port, Rosy’s Little Village offers all we need to sustain us through our days of reading and discussion, and it is a simple amble down through the flower strewn terraced rocks to the sea.

Going away. The upheaval of habit, the reckoning of what you really need (and how that can fit into the limits of baggage), the many details of home leaving that brings you to some clarity about how complicated life is—how many daily tasks need to be passed along, how the build-up of things undone needs reckoning to be able to leave with some lightness . . .

But when all that is done—or, at least, done enough—the lightness that you have earned as you step off the plane, find your way to the ferry, drink deeply of the sea-fed air and let the intense sun of the Saronic gulf envelop you: this is where the release begins. 

In the first week, the Odyssey study rolls out with sessions of reading and discussion, exercises to develop our attention to breath, language, presentation, embodiment of the text and a sense of play; poetry interludes allow us to explore as a group —sometimes discussing, sometimes just sitting in wonder at the craft. Everyone finds their own rhythms around the scheduled sessions and nourishing meals. For some, it is early morning walks to the wild headlands to seek alpine swifts skimming over the sea. For others, it is an early dip to greet the dawn and her rosy fingers. For others, it is Jane’s gently guided yoga practice where the sun salutations feel like an intimate encounter with the glistening light that floods us from the open space of the performance tent. For others, it is painting or writing or reading time in a nook of the flowered rocky terraces. 

Photograph of dawn on Agistri by Sandrine Joseph, @london_lost_in

In this fresh world, I find my mind unclenching as the days simplify. This makes a fecund space in which to consider ancient and profound works. No matter how many times I have encountered the monsters and sought Ithaca with Odysseus, I open myself newly with each group and learn more—about the epic, about myself. S points to the way Homer makes respectful space for grieving as natural, as necessary; SJ wonders if the journey shows how the structure of home can be psychological – a space that moves with us – can you, snail-like, be your own home and therefore make peace with a travelling life? Others are amazed at the immense staying power of an oral text: interactive and shared in the group, these passages become chants that we embody. 

In the second week we encountered the Oresteia with a seasoned group—many of whom had been on the previous year’s Odyssey study. This was my second encounter with the dramatic trilogy, first studied on a long weekend in the outskirts of Paris. I gained such rich nuggets from the work on Agistri with this particularly game group. I learned what stichomythia is, how it functions in the dramatic context and, finally, how to pronounce it.  I watched Jane coach the group into speaking as one voice, and witnessed the pulse of power that group chanting creates. There was also the special sonnet recitation while planking, but that really needs to be experienced to be appreciated . . .

We considered the strange and primitive drive for justice—when is it revenge, when is it punitive, when is it restorative? We discussed the various ways of understanding the resolution of the Furies into the Eumenides: what it suggests about the role of female deities, how this moves towards democracy, whether this is the submerging of matriarchal power into patriarchal authority. We considered the right of a mother to rage against the needs of communal security when faced with the murder of her child. We read together the astonishing poetry that the Oresteia has inspired since its first performance and, after inhabiting rage and vengeance performed in the most majestic language, we danced a jig of life to celebrate our return to the clear light of present-day sea-soaked space.

To immerse myself in one work, for one week, with a curious and playful gathering of minds is truly a luxury. We come together, we question, disagree, explore, inspire and laugh together. Sometimes, we even dance.

Here is some feedback from participants:

“The Odyssey study on Agistri island has been a total marvel . . . It was on every level nourishing, emotional, spiritual and always caring . . . The island is beautiful, especially in Spring, you can swim, go kayaking, walk to the village and go hiking in the pines trees forest. Looking forward to going again!”

SJ

“To sit by the Agean and delve into the mysteries of Homer’s Odyssey, expertly facilitated with an intimate group was such a treat!  Learning about meter, oratory performance, Greek history and mythology with breaks to dip into the blue was heaven.  I think what I enjoyed most though was the extraordinary community formed over the week-long study.  Looking forward to the next one!”

SC

“What more can I say than that it was once again fabulous in every sense of the word!”

JG

“I love Rosy’s; it’s peaceful, beautiful and uncomplicated. The location and access to the sea are both amazing.”

ST

‘Reading’ Great Paintings

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LitSalon regulars know how meaningful it can be to discuss great works of literature. By engaging with the texts and hearing the thoughts of fellow readers, we can gain a deeper understanding of writers such as Joyce, Proust, Shakespeare — and of ourselves. Recently I have been working with the London LitSalon to develop new studies that will help participants enjoy similar experiences with great art and learn to ‘read’ paintings more deeply.

My name is Sean Forester. I am a classically trained oil painter who studied at the Florence Academy of Art, and I also studied literature at Cambridge after graduating from the Great Books program at St. John’s College in the United States. Currently based near San Francisco, I travel to Europe regularly and, as a new LitSalon facilitator, my aim is to invite you to join me in exploring the language of art: composition, colour, symbolism, visual narrative and more, as well as considering the cultural context in which artworks were created. Together we will look closely at paintings by artists such as Van Eyck, Titian, Rembrandt and Monet, and consider the question: How do the artist’s techniques impact the ideas in the artwork and the emotions we feel?

Unfortunately, my first LitSalon Study: Reading Great Paintings, due to take place in-person at London’s National Gallery in April, did not run entirely according to plan. When I developed Covid on arriving in London from Italy, we tried postponing by a week, but Covid persisted and eventually we had to move the study online using Zoom.

As a group, we looked at paintings ranging in style and period from Van Eyck’s The Arnolfini Portrait to Monet’s Water Lilies, via works including Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne and Rembrandt’s Woman Bathing in a Stream. Zoom provided a different experience from the one originally envisaged, but we received positive feedback from those who were able to make the revised date. Anyone who wasn’t part of the event can get a flavour of the study from this link: https://padlet.com/k5jyty77dd/london-literary-salon-at-the-national-gallery-kd8d1jgsmy4w0274.

The Arnolfini Portrait, Jan van Eyck, National Gallery

In The Arnolfini Portrait Van Eyck used a wood panel, a tempera underpainting and many thin layers of glazing in oil paint with tiny brushes. The painting has a perfect central balance, with the figures and the objects balanced across a vertical centre line. Van Eyck painted with astonishing precision, portraying carefully selected details that were likely intended to be significant, even symbolic, opening the work to a variety of interpretation. As one of the first genre paintings in the history of Western art, I feel The Arnolfini Portrait was highly influential on later artists such as Vermeer.

Bacchus and Ariadne, Titian, National Gallery

Bacchus and Ariadne is a dynamic painting, a feast for the senses. Titian used almost every colour available to him in 16th-century Venice. The composition is not centrally balanced like the Van Eyck, but rather uses an off-centre “steelyard balance” (as explained by H. R. Poore in his book Pictorial Composition). We can observe how all the warm colours are on the right side of the painting (except for the red sash on Ariadne), while all the cool colours are on the left (except for blue robe on the woman playing the cymbals). The way the story from Ovid is depicted is interesting: the meeting of Bacchus and Ariadne is shown by their eyes meeting across empty space, reinforced by strong diagonal lines. The tiny ship on the ocean horizon alludes to Theseus’ abandonment of Ariadne, while the circle of stars in the sky alludes to the metamorphosis she will experience after joining with the god Bacchus.

An Elderly Man as Saint Paul, Rembrandt, National Gallery

In his later work, such as Woman Bathing in a Stream and An Elderly Man as St. Paul, Rembrandt’s painting techniques are essentially the opposite of Van Eyck’s. He worked on canvas instead of wood, painted with thick impasto paint and used large brushes. In comparing Rembrandt with Van Eyck we can ask, “How does technique make possible (and also limit) their artistic vision? How does it impact what we feel when we look at their paintings?”

Water Lilies at Sunset, Monet, National Gallery

Finally, we can move forward to the nineteenth century to look at paintings by Claude Monet, the master of French Impressionism. Around 1800, tube paints became available and modern chemistry created many more colours. Artists such as Corot begin to paint en plein air. Monet embraced this, spending most of his time outdoors painting scenes in different weather and lighting conditions. In doing so, he created some striking innovations. He realised that shadows are not brown, but full of colour — purple, blue, red — he also realised that a white shirt is not simply white, that white has colours such as yellow, pink, blue and green, within it. At this time, colour theory began to be developed and Monet embraced that too, using complements and split-complements in his paintings. He also used broken, layered brush work to a greater degree than any artist before him, employing these techniques to explore all the ways a painter can see and feel about the landscape. Rather than traditional subject matter, he explored the play of colour and light and the movement between realism, impression and abstraction. In Snow Scene at Argenteuil we can see the different colours in snow and Monet’s use of a blue-orange complementary colour scheme. In Water Lilies and Water Lilies at Sunset, we see a complex use of complementary pairs (blue/orange, red/green, yellow/purple) as Monet explores the visual impressions created by lilies, surface water, deep water, and reflections.

Looking closely at colour, composition and painting technique provides a strong foundation for exploring our ideas and emotions about a given artwork. Clearly Rembrandt is a great artist because of the depth of his vision — he seems to see into the human heart — as well as his technical skill. This is where group discussions can be so rewarding, as people share their ideas and emotional responses, and I look forward to having more opportunities to explore this with members of the LitSalon – in-person and online – in the future.

Odyssean dreams

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As we begin to prepare for our next visit to the Greek island of Agistri for another week reading Homer’s Odyssey (28 April – 5 May 2023) here are a few reflections on our past experiences.

Jane, Caroline and I have now run two Odyssey retreats at Rosy’s Little Village on the island of Agistri in the Saronic Gulf near Athens. Each of these journeys has been personally and collectively deeply fulfilling. It is such a beautiful indulgence to spend a week fully immersed in an epic that – however much I may think I know of the narrative – surprises me on every reading with what it reveals about human nature, the deep past, our present relationships, the encounter with the stranger . . .

That quality of immersion, away from loud and full regular life, allows the mind to expand in unexpected ways. And then there is the space itself: Rosy and family have a created a unique environment, full of natural beauty and views over the crystalline waters, which feeds the imaginative realm. This is not to forget the wonderful feeding of the body, the food at Rosy’s is deliciously fresh and thoughtfully created. 

We have devised a schedule that combines the rigour of study with time to reflect and enjoy the place itself. Caroline’s guidance through contemporary poetic interpretations of the Odyssey is often cited as a favourite part of our week together, as is Jane’s generous sharing of her talent and passion for enacting the text: the words come alive as each participant has the opportunity to prepare a passage with her expert coaching and support. Without giving too much away, Jane and Caroline have activities and sessions planned that open us all up to each other and to the themes and language of the text. 

Every journey through the Odyssey in Agistri feels almost dreamlike as we experience the beauty of the place and the depths we are able to discover in our work together. And then there is the swimming, the sunshine, the company . . .

Many of last year’s participants are returning to Agistri with us to enjoy reading Aeschylus’s Oresteia (which is fully booked) and here are some of their comments on the Odyssey experience:

“It was a wonderful trip . . . the landscape, especially around the islands, is so seductive that you can see how these wonderful texts were written.”
 
“I loved the discussions around the text and getting to know a fascinating group of people.”
 
“It was an amazing and enriching experience.”

The Odyssey group on Agistri in 2022

There are still some places available on this year’s Odyssey trip if you would like to join us for this special offering!

Proust in Paris with Toby – January 2023

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“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who
make our souls blossom”

Of course I didn’t make that up.  It’s one of Marcel’s quotes which, I think, sums up the glorious weekend we all had in the City of Light (and not a little rain too – just enough to make us appreciate the gorgeous blue sky on Sunday).   

We all saw so much, eyes wide open and heads spinning with pages of handwriting, scrawly, spidery, crossings out, reworkings, work in progress.  We looked at photographs, information, paintings – so many paintings, books, artefacts and yes, even exquisite embroidery.  Painstakingly stitched and secured pearls and sparkles on fabrics woven by fairies, spun by silkworms and coloured by artists much greater than Elstir.  The purple opera coat which our man from the hotel said was too heavy for his wife to wear.   What a lark! As VW’s imagination might have said. 

We threw ourselves into Marcel’s world of suffering and lethargy, neurotic creativity, excess, music, madness and memory.

We definitely achieved our 10,000 steps each day.   And let’s not forget the food which was so central to our study (ha ha!) and sustenance.  We tasted foams, pearls, shavings and aromas of fermented Iranian lemons, liquorice.  We ordered  perfect scallops languishing in sea salty green puddles of unctuous who knows what? Fricassee and blanquette de veau, frites and farm cheeses. And the soufflé – the melting chocolate middle of the perfect sugared cake, the framboise birthday panna cotta with only  one candle to symbolise the hundreds of candles representing Toby’s circle of curious readers.  The metro carriage where everyone, almost on the dot of midnight sang Bonne Anniversaire to the amazing teacher who dreams up these treats for us all.  Did I say there was wine?   There was. Bien sûr!!

Le Swann Hôtel Littéraire was a treasure. “I created the Sociéte des Hôtels Litttéraires to share my love of books with the thousands of visitors whom I do not know, but who, I am sure, would be happy to find an author or a book by chance on a trip to Paris.”  (not to mention many other French cities) explains Jacques Letertre, President. 

Monsieur L came to talk to us over tea and madeleines.   He reminded me of a plump, pink, favourite uncle from Dickens.  This former banker and très sérieux collector of Proust books and much more, lives in an apartment in the factory where Marcel’s favourite coffee beans were roasted. The hotel, he told us, still serves coffee from the same company.  It is situated in the heart of the area where Marcel lived.   

The hotel madeleines however (this is a hotel with sweet cakes and excellent breakfasts) are, he admitted, slightly more ordinary.  The original moulds and recipe from Remembrance etc proved too expensive   They are, trust me, perfectly delicious for the weary, sugar-deprived Proustian  visitor whose head  is swirling with Albertine, Charlus, Swann and Odette.  They are what Francoise would have given everyone before they set off for a morning at the Bibliothèque Nationale or the Jacquemart André where, we were assured, 1000 guests could attend a soirée with no danger of one barouche crashing into another on the grand drive to the entrance.      

By the way, we all had rooms with names of characters from the volumes.  As probably the oldest participant, perhaps it was fitting that I was aunt Leonie….aaaargh!    I must rise from my couch and exercise… and, to quote MP “try to keep a patch of sky above your life”.  

Others must relate the Musée Carnavalet.  I only have the delicious photos and reports from the WhatsApp group.    I ran out of steam and time, filled my rucksack with mustards, fig jam and memories, hailed a taxi.  No porter or Françoise to report that “Madame has gone.” 

Going away with Toby on one of her magical study holidays – because, no apologies, these are holidays from everything you do and think about in real day-to-day life, is possibly a form of internet dating.   You don’t know who you will meet.  But you know it could work because there is a common theme.   We are all Toby’s students.   For me, meeting up with Proustians 1,2,3,4,5,6 – who knows how many! – was such a joy.   Crossing paths with new friends who have no ‘baggage’ apart from the carry-on kind, with wheels.  

Perhaps the best treat of all was getting to know some of Toby’s closest friends from when she lived in Paris.   Friends who have been on life’s journeys with her and continue to light up their lives. They certainly lit up ours.  

I think it was the ‘light’ in the darkest month of the year which I have taken away from our Paris adventure.  The light of everyone who was so game, so generous of spirit, who, in their own unique way, added something special to our beautiful time together.

To end on a low note… I lost my Freedom Pass somewhere along the way.   Quelle horreur! to arrive in the underground and no travel pass (young things won’t understand, a Freedom Pass allows geriatrics to go free on London tubes and buses.)   The complications of applying for a replacement online brought me back to real life with a bump, that and having to find the fridge and something to eat.   But the magic stays a little longer and I feel that Le Swann Hôtel Littéraire could be a Paris homecoming in the not too distant future.    If only Scott, who is a human Google walking map of Paris, would come along too!  Thank you, Scott, for always leading us in the right direction.

“My destination is no longer a place, rather a new way of seeing.”  

Marcel Proust

Remembering Javier Marias

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Writer, translator and journalist

Photo: Javier Marias, Wikimedia Commons

20 September 1951 – 11 September 2022

I had the wonderful opportunity to study two of the works of Javier Marías in Valencia in the years before the pandemic. Veteran Salonista Robin Tottenham hosted our gatherings on her lovely terrace overlooking Valencia’s glorious Mercado Centrale; Salonistas Keith Fosbrook and Ellie Ferguson had been emphatic in their urging me to dive into the works of Marías—and I am so glad that I did.

At first, I struggled to get a grip on his aesthetic vision. With his works, I often felt that I was a voyeur observing the lives of contemporary people struggling in spaces of passion and betrayal—his characters felt like people I had come to know, the entanglements dramatic but recognisably arising from all-too-common blindspots in human behaviour. But the work of studying Marías with a committed group paid off: I came to understand that what Marías offers is an acute understanding of how human consciousness is revealed in all the forces that press upon our fragile integrity: desire, history, injustice, guilt, betrayal…and how we employ narrative to give a shape to what has happened—even when we cannot shape what has happened into coherence. 

I think this quote from a Guardian article on Marías in 2013 gives a sense of his profound probing: 

“As a columnist I write as citizen and maybe have too many opinions” – he has published a whole book of just his football articles – “but writing as a novelist is different. I don’t like the journalistic kind of novel which is now rather fashionable. If a book or film takes a good subject from the everyday press – say domestic murders in Spain, which are a historic disgrace – everyone will applaud, but it is easy applause. Who will say it is bad? People say the novel is a way of imparting knowledge. Well, maybe. But for me it is more a way of imparting recognition of things that you didn’t know you knew. You say ‘yes’. It feels true even though it might be uncomfortable. You find this in Proust, who is one of the cruellest authors in the history of literature. He says terrible things, but in such a way that you know that you have experienced those thoughts too.”

Nicholas Wroe, The Guardian, 22 February 2013

We have lost a wonderful writer and philosopher in the death of Javier Marías. I hope to re-visit the works I have read and expand my knowledge of his writings in the coming year. I am grateful to Robin, Ellie and Keith who inspired the Marías studies—and I look forward to more. 

“Marías also wrote movingly about old age, and cast an unflinching eye on male-female relationships. The novels often begin with a shocking scene – an unexplained suicide, the sudden death in bed of a lover, a complex love triangle – plunging reader and narrator into the plot-to-be.

The main characters are often translators or interpreters – or, latterly, spies – people who have renounced their own voices, but who are also, in a sense, interpreters of people, which is, of course, precisely what any good novelist aspires to be. In Your Face Tomorrow, the narrator, Deza, is recruited to become exactly that, “an interpreter of people”, whose job it is to write detailed reports on the people he has seen only in videos or via a two-way mirror.”

Margaret Julla Costa, The Guardian, Obituary 15 September 2022

The Salon in Umbria: April 2022

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It is truly one of life’s great experiences to be in a beautiful place, with a group of adventurous and stretchy readers, immersed for a week in a complex book (Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady) that drives us to consider closely our own identity, relationship to history, cultural context, social relationships, familial inheritance . . .

Our insights into the challenges facing Isabel Archer, her enclosure in tradition and the interior maps she must negotiate to claim agency in a claustrophobic space, reflected back upon us all and inspired each of us. Some responded with creative writing, some with nuggets shared in discussion. For others the illuminations are held within, to carry back home and keep turning over.

Jackie Seigler and I worked to find the right balance of yoga and study sessions while leaving time for reflection, walking and adventuring in the golden landscapes of Umbria. There were food adventures to be had, wine-tastings, underground caves to crawl through and lakes to discover and dip into. Back in London, I feel my body strengthened with the careful attention of the yoga and my mind calmed with the wonderful focus of the discussions around the complex art of Henry James. I learned from every member of the group – Salonistas from Paris, London, Bristol, New York City, Upstate New York, some who have been with the Salon since its early days, a few experiencing the Salon for the first time. Thank you all for making this adventure so inspiring!

Some feedback from participants:

Location:  ‘Really beautiful and welcoming. Just the right balance of comfort and simplicity.’

Food: ‘Very good! Appreciated the many varieties of greens. A bit more pasta perhaps . . .’

Schedule: ‘Nicely paced. I could not routinely find my way to yoga twice a day but was really happy that the possibility was there when I did. Really enjoyed the afternoons at leisure too.’

Cost: ‘Good value for money.’

Yoga: ‘Really enjoyed the restorative and gentle yoga classes. Jackie, your warmth, joy and expertise is in my cells after this retreat.’

‘I found everything about the yoga just right. I felt really held and taken care of in the sessions. I particularly liked the restorative yoga and yoga nidra.’

Salon: ‘Toby, difficult to put into words the depth of the experience. I appreciated so much the slow read of a well-chosen classic and how it gave meaning to my own life in new ways. So good to read closely and in the process become closer to such thoughtful people.’

Overall: ‘Thank you both for all you did and are. I am renewed, recharged and changed after these seven very special days. See you in September.’

‘You both held the group beautifully . . . just the right balance. You were both really kind, sensitive, attentive and inclusive. It made for a great group experience . . . Only suggestion is to get people to read the book completely!’

‘This was a rich and revivifying experience – physically because of the wonderful yoga, and spiritually and intellectually through our collective reading of one of the great 19th century novels. The opportunity to drop into a book, deep below the surface, with a group of open-minded, intelligent, sensitive readers – and to stay there for a week, under expert and self-effacing leadership – is a great privilege. That privilege was enhanced by first-class yoga teaching which kept us grounded, and physically well-tuned.’

And finally, a poetic reflection from our creative writing facilitator Alison Cable:

On reading Portrait of a Lady with LitSalon in Umbria

Where am I positioned as reader

Of words, characters, people?

I am invited to slow down--

I experience others.

 

Words, characters, people,

When our systems crack, what are we left with?

I experience others--

Half-closed eyelids, a full moon.

 

When our systems crack, what are we left with?

It was an act of devotion to conceal her misery.

Half-closed eyelids, full moon--

Epiphany, expansion.

 

It was an act of devotion to conceal her misery.

Where am I positioned?

Epiphany, expansion—

I experience others.



Alison Cable, April 2022

Travel Studies: journeys to the centre of so many things

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Leah Jewett (far left) and other members of The Years study group, St Ives, September 2021

Three times I’ve taken the train down to St Ives – a region apart – for London Literary Salon Travel Studies of Virginia Woolf books: The Waves, To the Lighthouse and the last book published in her lifetime, The Years.

Woolf means a lot to me. Growing up I read her journals, just as I devoured the diaries of Sylvia Plath and Anaïs Nin to enter into the detail of these female writers’ thoughts and lives. Some of the last lines of Mrs Dalloway saw me over the threshold of turning 50: “What is this terror? what is this ecstasy? he thought to himself. What is it that fills me with extraordinary excitement?”

Travel Studies are worth going the distance for. Set against the backdrop of a place related to the book you are reading, a Travel Study makes the words come alive over time and feel shot through with new meaning.

I’d already been to Dublin with the London Literary Salon after doing a six-month study of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Because Joyce, as he proclaimed, “put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries”, the least daunting and most rewarding way to read this vast book is in the company of a group of people spearheaded by the astute, inquisitive, light-hearted, deep-diving teacher/facilitator Toby Brothers. Founder and Director of the Salon, she masterminds seminar-like discussions that are informal and in depth. Because she’s an avid swimmer, a Travel Study often incorporates swimming – in the bracing Atlantic (for The Years), in warmer Grecian waters (for The Odyssey) and off the Forty Foot promontory into the roiling Irish Sea (for Ulysses).

In Dublin on Bloomsday – which commemorates the events of 16 June 1904 described in Ulysses – we retraced characters’ steps and watched scenes played out in costume on doorsteps, in a crypt and at Sweny’s, the Dispensing Chemists (“Mr Bloom raised a cake [of soap] to his nostrils. Sweet lemony wax”).

He bought lemon soap; we bought lemon soap – and its tart scent time-travelled me back to turn-of-the-century Dublin.

That’s the thing about a Travel Study: it superimposes echoes of the book, and the life and times of the author, onto your experiences in real time. It transports you into the book and the book into the moment.

No 4 St Ives, the B&B where we’ve stayed for the Virginia Woolf Travel Studies, is a 30-second walk from Talland House, where Woolf spent 13 happy childhood summers. We stand transfixed in front of the white villa and think of how she movingly wrote in the essay “A Sketch of the Past”:

If life has a base that it stands upon, if it is a bowl that one fills and fills and fills – then my bowl without a doubt stands upon this memory. It is of lying half asleep, half awake, in bed in the nursery at St Ives. It is of hearing the waves breaking, one, two, one, two, and sending a splash of water over the beach . . . and feeling, it is almost impossible that I should be here; of feeling the purest ecstasy I can conceive.

A bit bedazzled, I keep thinking: This is the view (partially impeded, since, by houses) of the sea that she would have seen; that tide mirrors the waves she wrote about in The Waves; there’s the lighthouse from To the Lighthouse. Did the wind sound similar in these same trees? Undoubtedly she walked here, turned that doorhandle, looked through that pane of glass.

Time on a Travel Study is telescopic: it takes a while to put the workaday London world behind me, but by day two I’ve decompressed and am caught up in the escapism.

Each Travel Study is a study in work/life balance. It reminds me of the buzz I felt working at the Cannes Film Festival. Alternating schedule and spontaneity, you work, wander around, run into people, socialise, carve out some solitude.

Every day we parcel out the time: dash five minutes down to the sea for a 7am swim; join the others for breakfast; walk through the cobbled streets of whitewashed houses over to the rough-hewn, Grade II-listed Porthmeor Studios, which give on to a beach, to read aloud and discuss The Years; go our separate ways – to maybe take an open-top double-decker along the coast, tour the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden or opt for downtime to catch up on reading – then reconvene to discuss the book for another hour; continue talking over dinner; sleep.

A Travel Study, which elides past and present, is a journey to the centre of many things – of how aspects of a book’s personal and political landscapes resonate when you take them in experientially, how your ideas can evolve as you hear other people’s perceptions and analysis, and the connectedness – on location – with a writer and their words.

Leah Jewett is director of Outspoken Sex Ed and an inveterate Salonista

Dante’s Divine Comedy

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Dante’s Divine Comedy

Dante1

Già volgeva il mio disio e ’l velle,
sì come rota ch’igualmente è mossa,
l’amor che move ’l sole e l’altre stelle.

Now my will and my desire were turned,
like a wheel in perfect motion,
by the love that moves the sun and the other stars.

These breathtaking lines conclude Dante’s Divine Comedy, a 14,000-line epic written in 1321 on the state of the soul after death. T. S. Eliot called such poetry the most beautiful ever written—and yet so few of us have ever read it. Since the poem appeared, and especially in modern times, those readers intrepid enough to take on Dante have tended to focus on the first leg of his journey, through the burning fires of Inferno.

As I prepare opening notes for Dante’s Inferno, I am reading again about the medieval world view and how our idea of the human being has evolved. Dante offers a wonderful road into these deep and dense queries as his Divine Comedy is his attempt to construct an intellectual universe based on the visions of his faith. Several interested participants have wondered how the study of the Inferno might be approached if one is not formally religious. I am finding, as I did in the previous Paris-based study of this work, that the pilgrim’s exploration of his moral and spiritual universe—and the fantastic images that result—provide the reader a map for their own inquiry.

Dante fought the Church—his banishment from his beloved Florence was in part a result of his criticism of Pope Boniface and the political party he supported. His creation of the realms of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise were his attempt to bring his intellect and faith in alignment; a struggle that humans have been inspired by since Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. Although I will provide background on the historical moment of Dante’s Florentine world and the political and ecclesiastical struggles that tore at his home, these are background to the very human pursuit: to understand the human soul. Although Dante’s terms are Christian, I do not think this desire is limited to the Christian realm. As always, the Salon conversation is enriched with a variety of perspectives, those who hold a formal faith as well as those who hold a formal questioning, along with those, (and I would place myself in this category) whose inquiry is loose and fluid and lifelong. We have so few spaces to share diverse views in religious ideas or spiritual traditions; I propose the study of a great work that engages a vigorous questioning of a formal belief offers that space.

From Inferno, we move towards the mountain of Purgatory. . .

As Dante explains in the opening lines of the canticle, Purgatory is the place in which “the human spirit purges himself, and climbing to Heaven makes himself worthy.” Dante’s Purgatory consists of an island mountain, the only piece of land in the southern hemisphere. Divided into three sections, Antepurgatory, Purgatory proper, and the Earthly Paradise, the lower slopes are reserved for souls whose penance was delayed. The upper part of the mountain consists of seven terraces, each of which corresponds to one of the seven capital sins. Atop the mountain Dante locates, Eden, the Earthly Paradise, the place where the pilgrim is reunited with Beatrice, the woman who inspired the poem. (from The World of Dante: http://www.worldofdante.org/purgatory1.html)

Then on to Paradise. . .

In each translation and writing about the Divine Commedia that I have consulted, the unanimous conclusion is that Paradise is the most difficult—the least likely to be read—the most likely to be started and not finished. We are warned by Dante himself, in the longest address to the reader, that if we have followed thus far in our little boat we should turn back now while we can still see the shores, lest in “losing me, you would be lost yourselves. . .” (l.5, Canto 2). How can we turn back now? I recognize the going will be tough and this might not be the most enjoyable Salon read- but I have not known any of us to shrink from challenge.

Dante has these challenges of ineffability as he attempts both to describe Paradise and his journey—the experience is beyond memory, the visions beyond human words. Here he uses the examples of the human need to put feet and hands on God, to give the Angels wings—we cannot conceive of what he has seen because we are still in our human state. Thus Dante himself must change—transhumanize—(Canto I, l. 70) to manage the journey, and we must shuffle along as best we can in our mortal skins to understand what Dante is offering.

“O you, who in some pretty boat,

Eager to listen, have been following

Behind my ship, that singing sails along

Turn back to look again upon your own shores;

Tempt not the deep, lest unawares,

In losing me, you yourselves might be lost.

The sea I sail has never yet been passed;

Minerva breathes, and pilots me Apollo,

And Muses nine point out to me the Bears.

You other few who have neck uplifted

Betimes to the bread of angels upon

Which one lives and does not grow sated,

Well may you launch your vessel

Upon the deep sea.”

― Dante Alighieri, Paradiso

SALON DETAILS:

  • Three six-meeting studies, one on each book of the Divine Comedy
  • Recommended editions:
    • Inferno by Dante Aligheri, translated by Mark Musa; Penguin Classics; ISBN-13: 978-0142437223
    • Purgatorio by Dante Aligheri, translated by Robin Kirkpatrick; Penguin Classics; ISBN-13: 978-0140448962
    • Paradiso by Dante Aligheri, translated by Mark Musa; Penguin Classics edition; ISBN-13: 978-0140444438

From Joseph Luzzi\’s illuminating article in American Scholar 03.16

How to Read Dante in the 21st Century

How to Read Dante in the 21st Century 

“Dante requires what Nietzsche called “slow reading”—attentive, profound, patient reading—because Francesca’s sparse, seemingly innocent-sounding words speak volumes about the kind of sinner she is. In the first place, she’s not “speaking” to Dante in a natural voice; she’s alluding to poetry. And it’s a very famous poem, Al cor gentil rempaira sempre amore, “Love always returns to the gentle heart,” a gorgeous medieval lyric by Guido Guinizelli, one of Dante’s poetic mentors in the Sweet New Style, a movement in the late 1200s that nurtured Dante’s emerging artistic sensibilities. Francesca, by citing the poem and the Sweet New Style, is saying: it wasn’t my fault, blame it on love. Despite her prettiness, her sweetness, and her eloquence, she is like every other sinner in hell: it’s never their fault, always someone else’s. They never confess their guilt, the one thing necessary for redemption from sin. With one deft allusion, one lyrical dance amid the ferocious winds in the Circle of the Lustful, Dante delivers a magnificent psychological portrait of Francesca’s path to damnation.”

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