Literary Musings

Reasons to be cheerful at the turn of the year!

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My favorite end-of-year ritual is listing all the great, unexpected things that have happened over the past twelve months. It began on a Brooklyn subway one New Year’s Day morning over a decade ago, and after a particularly garbage year, with me jotting stuff down on the back of a manilla folder.

I’ve done it ever since as a reminder that while my perceptions are valid, and often right, I don’t know everything that’s going to happen. Each year has had its share of unanticipated good stuff.

We’re still two months off the end of the year, but key items for my 2025 list so far?

  • Getting lost on the way to the BBC Proms, meeting a kind stranger who got me to the Royal Albert Hall, and her turning out to be Marina (Salonista extraordinaire), who introduced me to Toby, Nicky, and all of you.
  • Also, falling in love with Ernest Hemingway’s first short story collection: In Our Time (1925), written before he turned twenty-five. NOT on my Bingo card. But it happened. First, because I heard Margaret Atwood, the iconic feminist novelist who wrote The Handmaid’s Tale, describe In Our Time as “one of the game-changing story collections of the 20th-century” during an NPR interview last year (you can listen to it for yourself here). Published 101 years ago, by the author I now refer to as ‘the Artist as a Very Different Young Man’, the stories of In Our Time still move with the weight, heft and athleticism of an Olympian.
  • When I decided to include two of those early Hemingway stories as ‘Tasters‘ this fall, both sessions sold out and the discussions were brilliant. Folks asked for more, so I decided to offer Hemingway’s entire In Our Time as a six meeting study starting Thursday evening, 13 November, from 6.30-8.30 pm GMT, running until 18 December. These are very short stories (each week’s set of 2-3 will take less than thirty minutes to read) and we all have super busy lives, so all six sessions can be booked individually, BUT those who sign up for the entire sequence get a substantial discount: six sessions for the price of five.
  • And then my study, Education and its Discontents: the 21st-Century Bildungsroman, reading Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and Tara Westover’s Educated will begin soon.

We know that for many this is a very busy time of year, so if we find that either of these studies recruit fewer participants than expected we may have to postpone until 2026, so if you are interested in joining please book or let us know as soon as possible!

Finally, two more opportunities coming soon:

  • I’m going to be in London in person this November and December and will facilitate a study looking at the work of war photographer Lee Miller, whose blockbuster exhibition is currently running at Tate Britain. This will involve one online meeting on Sunday 30 November from 3.30-5.30 pm (GMT) and an informal in-person visit to the show on Friday 5 December at 10.00 am. Proceeds will be used to fund support for Salon participants who are unable to afford full fees. Read more about this here.
  • Also in London, on Sunday 28 December from 3.00-5.00 pm, we’re offering a two hour post-Christmas/Hanukkah in-person exploration of Alison Bechdel’s extraordinary graphic novel Fun Home (which, alongside Tara Westover’s Educated, is one of the two memoirs we’ll be reading in the six-week online 21st-Century Bildungsroman study). Please email for more information.

I’m excited to be part of the Salon, I hope you’ll come join me in one or more of these adventures!

Why read Fernando Pessoa?

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Fernando Pessoa by unknown photographer, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) was, quipped one critic, Portugal’s three greatest modern poets. It is certainly true that to read Pessoa is not just to read one poet but to enter into a whole literature. 

Pessoa’s attempt to forge a new literary modernism for Portugal took shape through his creation of different literary personas. He called these personas ‘heteronyms’, to distinguish them from pseudonyms, as essentially distinct personalities, all with biographies, literary styles and philosophical and political ideas as different from each other as from Pessoa himself.

Pessoa authored works under at least 72 different names throughout his life, and this compulsion seems to have been both an aesthetic and a psychological necessity. But at the centre of his most important and accomplished literary achievements is the poetry authored by the three main heteronyms: Alberto Caiero, Alvaro de Campos and Ricardo Reis; by Pessoa himself as one of that company of heteronyms; and his great prose masterpiece The Book of Disquiet, authored by the semi-heteronym Bernardo Soares.

As readers of the poetry of Fernando Pessoa we encounter the works of four unmistakably distinct poets: Alberto Caeiro, Zen-like nature poet; Alvaro de Campos, avant-garde author of futurist odes; Ricardo Reis, melancholic classicist and philosophical stoic; and Pessoa himself, whose poetry restlessly explores questions of identity and self.

In The Book of Disquiet readers encounter something utterly unique in world literature.  Described by Pessoa as ‘a fact-less autobiography’, this text is fragmentary, circular, without beginning end or middle, without narrative, plot or conclusion. Almost impossible to categorise, this work may be regarded as (among other things) one of the greatest literary/philosophical studies in mood, in melancholy, in existential ennui, and their relation to meaning and existence.

What we find in Pessoa’s oeuvre is the radical co-existence of seemingly disparate and contradictory ideas; we find bold experiments of avant-garde-ism and quiet accomplishments of form and tone; we find the perennial themes of art, philosophy, identity, the nature of the self, the sense we have of our place in the cosmos. For me, Pessoa’s work captures a psychological truth of the modern age – one which by its nature resists reductionism, but in which we might recognise ourselves and our contemporary struggles for meaning. We find that in these preoccupations, Pessoa is our contemporary.

If you have not yet read Pessoa I can promise you an extraordinary literary experience. If you are intrigued, we are offering an introduction to his work starting in March.

On reading: long reading, slow reading, hard reading, reading that tickles . . .

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“I just don’t know where the time goes” I overheard this morning in the changing room at the pond where I swim. I nodded ruefully — a day slips away in the simple doing of modern life: emails to answer, writing and research to be done, plans to be made, food to prepare, bills to pay, dogs to be walked, the needs of ageing parents and the young — and underlying it all, the constant aching worry at wars being waged and the environment collapsing.

My mind feels crowded and noisy in the face of so many demands on my attention. It is easy — so easy — to be caught up in the movement of the day and reach the twilight moments of reflection to wonder: what have I done? With this day? With my life?

I step into a Salon session with lists and undone tasks still buzzing in my head, I worry that I will not be able to settle . . . and then, it happens. People enter the virtual space and something shifts as we all arrive, take a collective breath and slip into the words on the page. For the next few hours we are utterly attendant on the realm of words and ideas. It is not so much that the loud world goes away, rather that the book provides a space for contemplation that orders the overwhelming discord of the mind.

Perhaps it is the struggle with time that the book asks us to consider: how to understand its relentlessness, how to manage the unbearable weight of memory, how to live with flux. In other studies (or even later in the same book) we are considering the mystery of human motivation, how we ourselves often don’t recognise — or try not to — the true reason we treat another person a certain way. On another page, we are digging beneath the surface of racism, finding the complex entanglements within our self-perception that may evolve into a kind of tribalism.

I emerge from the Salon with gratitude for the wonderful minds I have engaged with, for the willingness of each person to go deeply into the work, to offer their ideas, to try out a reading of a difficult passage, sometimes to stumble, and to learn.

I am particularly grateful for the commitment and patience of those who take up one of the longer studies — whether it is a six month Ulysses odyssey, a two-and-a-half-year Proust project, or delving into Finnegans Wake (for however long it takes), or the ‘Slow Read’ of Ulysses or the Proust ‘Rebounders’ — these are all opportunities for a deeper engagement with the book, with each other, and to TAKE OUR TIME.  N.B. If you are interested, some of the longer studies can be joined along the way, not just at the beginning (although for the Ulysses Slow Read and the Proust Rebounders there is an expectation of having gone through the text previously).

I found this article by Christine Seifert (in the unlikely space of the Harvard Business Review) to give empirical support to what I have felt in my own work in the Salon and what I have observed in the experience of others. To quote:

“Research suggests that reading literary fiction is an effective way to enhance the brain’s ability to keep an open mind while processing information, a necessary skill for effective decision-making. In a 2013 study, researchers examined something called the need for cognitive closure, or the desire to “reach a quick conclusion in decision-making and an aversion to ambiguity and confusion.” Individuals with a strong need for cognitive closure rely heavily on “early information cues,” meaning they struggle to change their minds as new information becomes available. They also produce fewer individual hypotheses about alternative explanations, which makes them more confident in their own initial (and potentially flawed) beliefs. A high need for cognitive closure also means individuals gravitate toward smaller bits of information and fewer viewpoints. Individuals who resist the need for cognitive closure tend to be more thoughtful, more creative, and more comfortable with competing narratives—all characteristics of high EQ.

“University of Toronto researchers discovered that individuals in their study who read short stories (as opposed to essays) demonstrated a lower need for cognitive closure. That result is not surprising given that reading literature requires us to slow down, take in volumes of information, and then change our minds as we read. There’s no easy answer in literature; instead, there’s only perspective-taking.”

Christine Seifert, The Case for Reading Fiction (Harvard Business Review, March 06, 2020)

Below I have gathered a few poems that speak of the moment we are in and help me to be within the cataclysm of war in my imagination, helping me to not turn away but to be part of human experience empathically. As the study already quoted cites: “no easy answer . . . instead, there’s only perspective-taking.” I hope you too may find them helpful.

Every Morning by Mary Oliver

Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear by Mosab Abu Toha

What is a ‘text’?

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Angelus Novus by Paul Klee, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

When I thought about an image to illustrate Philosophy & Literature, Paul Klee’s Angelus Novus immediately came to mind. Benjamin, the German Jewish philosopher, was a literary critic known for his work on Proust, Baudelaire, Goethe, Kafka, theatre, storytelling, libraries and more. I felt that a salon reflecting on ‘text’ should somehow pay homage to this great critic who was interested in the truth found not just in books but in objects, advertisements, technology, arcades . . .  A monoprint of Klee’s Angel was one of Benjamin’s most cherished possessions and was found among his sparse belongings when he committed suicide in 1940, at the French/Spanish border he needed to cross to escape Nazism in France and which had just closed.

For Benjamin, the Angelus Novus is the Angel of History. “His face is turned towards the past. Where we perceive a chain of events he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet”. The pile of debris only grows higher as a storm pushes him backwards towards the future. This storm, says Benjamin “is what we call progress”, I wanted the Klee image to “quote” Benjamin, to remind us of his dedicated search for truth in all forms – from the smallest object to the most scholarly treatise. Unfortunately, with the horrendous attack on Israel by Hamas and the suffering of the Palestinian people, the Klee image brings back to our minds the despair suffered before, the pile of debris, the wreckage of human folly that we call progress and which surrounds us at this moment.

The philosophical work of Benjamin is inspiring and his search for truth in all objects and texts is worth pursuing. We are keen readers who, like Benjamin, love stories and books, and we ponder over them. Is Ulysses telling the ‘truth’ when he recounts his adventures to the Phaeacian king? Is Ishmael telling the truth when he weaves a story about Moby Dick to some Spanish gentlemen in Lima? What is the ‘truth’ of these narratives? Who is Mrs Dalloway? Who is the ‘real’ Clarissa? Reading Proust’s Search, we wonder, who is telling the story? What is that story about? Is there only one way of reading a text? What is a ‘text’? Who speaks what, to whom and with what effect? Can we speak of truth, reality or knowledge when we read? Can we speak of pleasure?

These questions do not have straight answers but, as a philosopher by training, I think they deserve a space of their own. Not that I believe philosophy can resolve them: nowadays we have become suspicious of the idea of a ‘foundation’ of knowledge.  Indeed, often we believe that philosophy is just one possible narrative among others. Still, as philosophy has traditionally addressed many of these questions, it will be interesting to see if, by reading excerpts of some well-known philosophical texts we can enrich our discussion.

Participants joining the Philosophy & Literature salon do not need to have had any previous acquaintance with philosophical texts. As readers who enjoy reading and discussing texts using our own experiences, we are ready to start. I will provide notes with background information on the authors, concepts and ideas, as well as some further reading for those who want to pursue those ideas. In the sessions we will be reading the texts and discussing how they present ideas of reality, truth, art and experience, seeking to integrate these ideas with our own understanding of books we have read and our own lived experience. Contributions from participants from all areas of knowledge will be very welcome. ‘Text’ as Barthes suggests, encompasses more than just the written word.   

We will start with Aristotle, who defined the art of ‘poetics’ as ‘imitation’: copying, representing reality. We will try to see how those ideas influenced the way we understand language, knowledge and art. From there we will move to Nietzsche, a big leap no doubt, but one that opens the space for modernist – and postmodern – literature. Wittgenstein will bring to the fore the horizon of shared practices, values and customs that surround language, writing, speaking and reading. Finally, we will ‘visit’ Paris and possibly find ‘pleasure’ amidst the multi-layered texts of Barthes, who in many ways and forms reminds us, once again, of Benjamin.

Philosophy & Literature, a four week study, begins on 25 January 2024. I invite you to join the journey.

Is there always more to say about Ulysses?

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Portrait of James Joyce by Jacques-Emile Blanche, 1934, National Gallery of Ireland, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Is there always more to say about Ulysses? Yes, there is always more to say about Ulysses. Particularly in the wake of the tidal wave of the centenary . . . and the wonderful writer Colm Tóibín always adds to my view with his deft prose and deep curiosity.

From the London Review of Books: Arruginated: James Joyce’s Errors by Colm Tóibín

In this article from the LRB about the errors—volitional or otherwise—that Joyce makes in the text, I found myself bemused by the desire to drill down to fact in the face of the magnificent vision of Ulysses. 

Having spent some time in the text—reading, teaching, singing, researching and puzzling—it is interesting to know that we are still learning how the details of the text match or do not match the historical experience of Dublin in 1904. As Tóibín considers, some of it matters (the final notes), some of it may not. Sometimes we go off on galloping goose chases, sometimes we disappear down holes more fitting the Mad Hatter. As I read this, I was thinking about the sweet satisfaction I have in peeling back layers of the text with both new and practised Ulyssians. 

Our Slow-Read Ulysses group has found a rhythm of play in a careful exploration of the text that expands both my knowledge of the text and my understanding of what a close encounter with a great work may yield. While some of our own work echoes Tóibín’s detective work traced in the article, we also find moments of lift-off, when the beauty of the prose and Joyce’s technical mastery of the language launch us into new realms of thought—about our relationship to history, about identity, around gender play, about our relationship to the material world . . . and how Joyce pulls us in with his shimmering net of wordplay, allusion and musicality in language. 

In Arruginated, I am faced with fragments and details that may offer verisimilitude to the real world, or remind me how much the experience of the real world is always sifting in my mind—against my memories, imagination and sensory limits and embellishments. This puts me in mind of our wonderful work in the Finnegans Wake group, as it shifts and adapts to the needs of life and time, goes from digging in fragments (the middenheap with the Hen) with an eye towards the wider scapes of sky or water. This was echoed in the recent Anselm Kiefer exhibition on Finnegans Wake which included rubble as part of the installation. I had not realised that Kiefer’s home had been destroyed by bombing on the day he was born; the rubble he used in the installation was from his childhood home—he had played in that rubble, and the tactile experience of rubble informs his vision of fragments and broken pieces that gave him insight into the Wake. 

We are continuing our Slow-Read of Ulysses in a few weeks . . . there are spaces available if you would like to join us, anyone who has meandered through Ulysses is most welcome. You can do a series (usually six weeks of meetings) and then drop out and return as you wish and as life allows. We will be digging into Aeolus next: the pace is comfortable (3-5 pages p/week), the work is shared and we have lots of laughs. And, o, there is some learning along the way!

Feel free to email me if you have any questions.

The Lady Vanishes – where are the women poets of the English Renaissance?

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Nicholas Hilliard miniature, believed to portray Aemilia Lanyer

What comes to mind when you think of English Renaissance poetry? Probably Sidney, Spenser and Shakespeare. Perhaps Wyatt and most certainly Donne. We delight in their inventive iambic pentameters, their creative imagery, their musical verse that takes our minds back to a time of courtly intrigue and endless linguistic innovation. We get lost in their clever metaphors, and revel in their elaborate rhetoric.

But what comes to mind when you think about women and the poetry of the English Renaissance? The chances are you might think of the many, many women who appear in the poems by Wyatt, Sidney, Spenser, Donne and Shakespeare. And this is where we find a disturbing paradox: while Renaissance women are everywhere on paper, it’s very hard to find them holding a pen. This is the conclusion Virginia Woolf came to in 1928, on speaking to a small group of Cambridge female students at a time when, after long struggles, women were allowed to study at university but still could not obtain a degree. Woolf, ever the storyteller, cast her mind back to the 1600s to imagine what would have happened if Shakespeare had ‘a wonderfully gifted sister’, how would her fictional biography go? As Woolf concluded, it ended badly.

Until very recently, if you wanted to read poetry written by women in Shakespeare’s day you would be in trouble. If you were really determined you might come across English women whose poetry survived largely because they were lucky enough to be in elevated social positions, the likes of Queen Elizabeth I, and Ladies Mary Sidney and Mary Wroth. But what about the common woman? One who could have been Shakespeare’s sister?

In the last decades scholars have started scouring archives and libraries in search of women writers of the English Renaissance, and they’ve made surprising discoveries. Despite not being born in courtly circles and being mostly denied any education or professional path, some English women managed to write (and occasionally even publish) impressive poetry in the 16th and 17th centuries. So, who were they? And was their poetry any good?

I’m excited to be leading the LitSalon study Women poets of the English Renaissance, which invites readers to explore this previously silent canon and begin to form an opinion. Together we will let these poems live again by revisiting their dormant sounds, rhymes and imagery. The study focuses on three groundbreaking poets and their work: Anne Locke’s fiercely devotional poetry; Isabella Whitney’s mock ‘last will’ bequeathing London to Londoners; and the feminist poetry of Aemilia Lanyer, who came from an Italian-Jewish family of courtly musicians and is rumoured to have been Shakespeare’s ‘Dark Lady’.

Together we will try to build a picture of these poets and their lives in the Renaissance world. And we will look to pair up their poetry with artefacts from that world, enabling the words and objects to converse across time. We will ask the compelling question: how does this poetry speak to us today?

Letter from Athens

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Photo by Ayo Ogunseinde on Unsplash

Snow was falling when I arrived in Athens, which will be my home for the next two years. The hills around the city stayed white for a whole week, making the trees loaded with oranges which line every street seem even more magical. The move has been complicated and much delayed, necessitating a break from the LitSalon. It’s by very happy coincidence that my first new study will be on the island of Agistri, to read the Odyssey and The Oresteia, with lots of familiar faces (and some new) joining me in my new home.    

In the meantime, I am enjoying Athens’ incomparable museums before the onslaught of summer visitors.  Museums, like literature, have always captivated me – just as words help us to make sense of the past, objects can do something similar, bringing us a closer connection to history.  

For a lover of the Homeric legends, the National Archeological Museum is the highlight of an Athens visit. The first two rooms house the contents of the graves from the palace at Mycenae, including the famous gold ‘Mask of Agamemnon’. Here are the hauls of treasure that Odysseus kept acquiring and losing, which Homer described so meticulously even though, a hundred lines later, they would end up at the bottom of the sea. They are gleaming inside their glass cases, seemingly ready to be loaded on to a ship.  

There are gold drinking vessels, tripods and bowls for mixing wine, all of them splendidly decorated. Objects made to be desirable as well as useful. Real hands lifted these cups, or wound the strands of gold beads around their necks and admired themselves in mirrors shaped like lotus flowers. Everything is rich with detail, even the smallest objects contain secret worlds. The blade of a knife is inlaid with a picture of a striped cat stalking water birds, a large gold signet ring shows a masted ship with full crew and two couples hailing it from the shore. Although so much of the Odyssey is fantastical, a myth, the people that Homer sang about never seem more real, or more like us, than when looking at the treasures they collected in life, and brought with them on their journeys to the afterlife.  

When the weather turned sunny and warmer a few weeks after we arrived, we spent Saturday on Aegina, an island familiar from last year’s study – the whole group made a day trip to see the temple there. The tables and chairs where we had a long, lingering lunch were all packed away for the winter, but the museum was open. Everywhere in Greece has museums, and even the tiniest are full of treasures. One of my favourite objects is here, a terracotta jug from the 6th century BC showing Odysseus and his companions escaping form the cave of Polyphemus.  I like it even more because, compared to some of the other objects on display, it’s not particularly well made: the painting is pretty crude, cartoonish. It is probably best described as fan merchandise – somebody bought it because they thought the Odyssey was really, really cool.  I feel the same way!

This time in Athens has given the Odyssey and Oresteia such a fresh new context, and has already increased my anticipation of sharing the joy of reading them when the study starts.

See you in the pages!

Thoughts on the ‘Slow-Read’ experience

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Photo by Nareeta Martin on Unsplash

My mother frequently told me that I lacked patience. As in, utterly and completely, almost like I was missing an internal organ. I turned the criticism into a kind of badge – of course I had no patience, but look at how much I can do all at once! Frantic movement as a superpower . . .

But high speed has its issues and one of the gifts of passing years is more time for thinking – and re-thinking. So, when Salon facilitator Mark Cwik first named and developed the ‘Slow Reading’ practice, I was intrigued but not quite certain this was my style. 

And then came Finnegans Wake.

I had resisted the Wake knowing that it is considered by many to be unreadable, but since a few honoured Salonistas kept nudging – even (Rachel) putting an excerpted book of Shem and Shaun in my hands – well I thought, what the hell: I have spent enough time with James Joyce and really, how long can I avoid the Wake? We began in 2017 and some iteration of the Wake group continues to trip through its ‘appatently ambrosiaurealised’ pages, seeking earwigger references and disappearing down the most unexpected rabbit holes – sometimes intoxicating, sometimes infuriating, but always opening up my understanding of the underlying structures of human history and identity. We read 3-5 pages a week. Some of the group have managed an entire read of the book already and we are re-Cycling-Vico-like through. And always learning.

Thus the Wake work led me to consider other Slow Read possibilities – and Ulysses was the obvious next choice. Although new readers may at first baulk at the six-month study, once they are rolling in the Bloomian pages, most chime in that we need MORE time! But once through a first read – once the arc of the book is in your mind – you are ready for a more thoughtful approach, where we can really discuss each paragraph with attention. 

In the Slow-Read Ulysses that started in September 2022, we have wonderful readers from all over the world, contributing expertise on philosophy, Jewish traditions and scholarship, psychological theories, economics, gender relationships, music, Irish history, aesthetics, narrative form, medical practices, modernism . . . we are truly eating with relish.

This week’s discussion of six pages, for example, included reflections on the Language of Flowers; desire as articulated in masochism; the Mary/Martha story from the Gospels of Luke and John, and how these are reflected in our Martha and Mary (Molly) characters; the use of the colour yellow to signal treachery; the figuration of Black people in missionary narratives; Marxism; Matzoh; what motivates people to turn to faith; relationship between colonial and religious projects; the geography of interior thoughts; the narcotic quality of sexual fantasies; pious frauds (echoing Pope Pius X); the relief of Sophocles on no longer being driven by lust . . .

The Ulysses Slow Read – like the Wake – is not a three or five year commitment. Rather, it invites participants to dip in and out as their lives allow and interests demand. Anyone who has previously read Ulysses can dive in to a 6-8 week series of study sessions (as long as there is space) and pick up the thread wherever we are. Each week, about half the participants adopt a particular passage and present this to the group with their own research or reflections. 

After years of reading and teaching Ulysses, I am so thankful for this practice of reading slowly and thoroughly. I am discovering gems that I have previously skipped over, and finding correspondences that I only now realise. The Slow Read also gives me time to explore more thoroughly the secondary literature, especially useful as there was a tremendous flowering of new work to coincide with the centenary celebration of the book in 2022. 

I would not say I have yet learned patience, but my mother would be surprised at my increasing ability to cultivate it. I have a practice – in both the Wake and Ulysses Slow Read sessions – that builds my capacity for attention and (the reward of exercising patience?) complexity. And I have learned so much: my sense of wonder expands with each dive into the realms of art, history, human nature, and the weird and beautiful intricacy of the human mind. 

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!

The Mutilated World

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The Wawel Cathedral, Krakow, Poland, © Toby Brothers, 2022

Andy and I have travelled to Krakow to meet our daughter, Madeline, who has been working outside of Lviv. She has been doing humanitarian aid work for a small local NGO that is providing food, power and medical supplies to the eastern part of Ukraine that has been destroyed — and then re-destroyed — by Russian missile strikes. I gather her fiercely in my arms, but no encompassing hug, no comforting words can erase the reality of war that she is living. And that reality, despite my over-active imagination, I cannot truly comprehend as I have only read about it. What she speaks about in her time with the Ukrainian guys she works with is their laughter, their teasing, their attempts to understand her feminism against their more traditional gender roles — how they meet the logistical challenges of moving truckloads of donated items across war-torn spaces.

We are reconnecting with her as we wander around the beautiful city of Krakow. I learn more specifically about the cycles of the portioning of Poland and the vast and violent re-drawings of empire that this land bears witness to. We enter the Wawel Cathedral and, amidst the relics of saints and royals, we find the Crypt of National Poets. And there on the wall is a poem, shared with me many years ago in the wake of the 9/11 attacks by my Athenian colleague Lisa Haney, and returned to when the horrors of history and the moment well up in me: Try to Praise the Mutilated World by Adam Zagajewski.

Try to praise the mutilated world

In reading that poem again — in marble, on the wall of this crypt, next to my weary daughter — I feel how the layers of unliveable history shape us. Zagajewski connects the daily acts of praise of living with the web of struggle and loss that we inherit.

You must praise the mutilated world

This is a call, a demand that in spite of the mutilation we should find beauty and coherence. The horror must be included in the blessing. I don’t know how. And I want to turn away. And I know we are all called to learn, to seek understanding where there is grief, to see the scars of the past on the earth.

Praise the mutilated world

I remember first reading this poem in the aftermath of 9/11 and thinking — briefly, self-indulgently — that I had an understanding of living in war. Such an American indulgence! My understanding has become more layered as I contingently watch what happens in Ukraine. As a citizen of London, I am learning all the time how the aftermath of war has shaped and shifted time and place, how it reframes our lives today. The poem reflects how deeply and desperately the mind holds the everyday miracle of living in equilibrium with injustice and violence. The poem connects me to past reckonings with history’s wrath — and gives me the breath of the light of living.

Solstice is a celebration of the necessity of the darkening days with the shift towards more light in our daily cycle. This poem meets that primal movement with the historical movement between times of peace and times of struggle. Zagajewski catches the experience of using our imagination as a way into other stories (the eternal role of the creative arts), other histories. Isn’t this in part why we wander through old buildings, tapestried halls? And it is not really the moments of triumph we seek, but a map of how to negotiate the exiles, the griefs — the blasts into the work of living. 

In The New Republic, the poet Robert Pinsky wrote in 1993 that Mr. Zagajewski’s poems, in a collection titled Canvas, were “about the presence of the past in ordinary life: history not as chronicle of the dead, or an anima to be illuminated by some doctrine, but as an immense, sometimes subtle force inhering in what people see and feel every day — and in the ways we see and feel.”

More on Zagajewski can be found in this New York Times obituary from March 2021.

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