All those who have passed through the Salon offer themselves in the integrity of their ideas; there are also some exciting happenings in the offerings Salon participants make to our cultural richness:
Published: Lynn Kramer, winner of the Ashram Award for her short story, was published by Virago in a collection of women writers exploring travelling: Once Upon a Time There Was a Traveller edited by Kate Pullinger
Awarded: Ursule Thurrnherr was named ‘Human Racer of the Month‘ after a gruelling charity ride raising money and awareness around breast cancer and local Women and Health community centre..
Blogged (deliciously): Julia Leonard, writer, foodie and all-round smart one has a wonderful blog that just gets you excited about cooking: http://thechiletrail.com She also published lively interviews with some of the best food writers this weekend in The Independent.
Exhibited: Sandrine Joseph will be bringing her eclectic vision of Hampstead Heath to Burgh House from November 13th- 29th– email me if you would like to join the private viewing.
Contemporary painters revel in the world of James Joyce
At The Francis Kyle Gallery until September 25th…don’t miss it.
I am always a bit hesitant about attempts to translate one art form into another: although there have been a few successful films based on great works of literature, the bulk of these collapse the narrative richness into a thin and emotionally manipulative vision of shining moments. The more entwined and complex the writing, the greater the challenge to capture this energy in another medium.
Yet, if you are playful…if you allow the words and images and voice of the writing to dance together with the idiosyncrasies of the writer—and if you choose a writer as wide and deep as Joyce—well, then there are possibilities. Since so much of Joyce’s work was autobiographical and located in specific places as seen from the obsessive perspective of an exile, there is much to work with when trying to visually present Joyce’s vision as wrapped around his words.
Francis Kyle challenged some of the best-known contemporary painters to respond to Joyce’s work and vision in their art. The result is exhibited in his gallery—it is bountiful and diverse and charged with large beauty of Joyce’s vision in exuberant and myriad ways. But look, here I am trying to put words to the saturation of images I experienced last Friday when I toured the exhibit—so much better to experience it for yourself! Even if you have not spent time in Joyce’s universe (gritty, sexy, musical, urban, mythic…), I think you will come away from the works with your brain humming. The 2013 Ulysses study celebrated the vitality and beauty of Joyce’s art in our discussion. One of the participants happens to be an exhibitor; Psiche Hughes’ crafted Leopold Bloom’s cat: a sculpture that reflects the way humans slide into their pets—and the pets reflect back their humanity. We are all overlapping into each other: Joyce’s work shows this in both his characters and our response to them.
IN describing the project he offered to the artists, Kyle focuses on Joyce’s lightness in contrast to the ‘apocalyptic cast’ of many of the modernists:
Not so James Joyce, whose experiments in ‘modernism’, pursued on a solitary basis rather than part of a group effort, have a far more positive character. It is this joyful side to Joyce’s creativity, the ambition to chronicle comprehensively but sympathetically nothing less than the human condition, which has appealed to the twenty contemporary painters…
See website for opening times and information…and you might even get a libation –Joyce’s preferred—if you get there at the right moment. http://www.franciskylegallery.com
1. A work of literature of significant merit that asks, not answers, the essential questions of what it means to be human.
2. This same work of literature is composed of writing that invigorates and challenges its readers– and at times is simply sublime in its language.
3. A safe space–literally, psychologically and metaphorically where participants feel at ease and able to question, share and take risks.
4. A group of participants that are diverse in their ideas, histories, cultural affiliations and personality styles.
5. An atmosphere of discussion that does not aim for one right answer but a weave of responses.
.6.A facilitator who keeps opening his or her mind to the possibilities suggested in the literature and the insights offered by the group while holding lots of possible directions to pursue and passages to consider.
7. Good food and drink.
8. Laughter.
9. A shared desire to know about the experience and interior world of others.
10. A willingness on the part of all to read, be challenged and reflect.
Some days we just need a little help. I know, hallmark card stuff…but I am addicted to the fierce optimism that I can live with less struggle and distraction though each day presents challenges to this belief.
How to be transcendental, full of the gleam of life and art when you are failing badly written citizenship tests, forgot to renew your parking permit, responding to parents of students who think The Odyssey is best left unread, pushing through freezing rain and dodging angry motorists on your bike, absorbing the slings and arrows of outraged adolescence, realizing no one has any idea what’s to be done for dinner and the cat has figured out to aim his pee outside the door frame of the litter box?
But then a breath comes: I remember I can go for swim (yes freezing but AWAKE) in the nearby pond, I get an email with something that makes me giggle and think, I turn back to Ulysses for a few more delicious, cantering sentences and I remember a recent discussion in the Salon that expanded and challenged my ideas. I think, AWAKE, and remember how beautifully Thoreau explored this same state of daily struggle to be alive to our precious humanity…here is a selection borrowed from his essay, Where I lived, and What I lived for
May your day be a perpetual morning.
Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself. I have been as sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks. I got up early and bathed in the pond; that was a religious exercise, and one of the best things which I did. They say that characters were engraven on the bathing tub of King Tching-thang to this effect: “Renew thyself completely each day; do it again, and again, and forever again.” I can understand that. Morning brings back the heroic ages. I was as much affected by the faint burn of a mosquito making its invisible and unimaginable tour through my apartment at earliest dawn, when I was sailing with door and windows open, as I could be by any trumpet that ever sang of fame. It was Homer’s requiem; itself an Iliad and Odyssey in the air, singing its own wrath and wanderings. There was something cosmical about it; a standing advertisement, till forbidden, of the everlasting vigor and fertility of the world. The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour. Then there is least somnolence in us; and for an hour, at least, some part of us awakes which slumbers all the rest of the day and night.
28 Dec. 12 Sit Still. Breathe.
Occasionally circumstances align to allow a glimpse beneath the surface of the dash and noise of life; if I am ready –or if I am shaken enough—that glimpse can teach me something. This sounds so small but I am constantly aware (in the season of resolutions) how hard it is to truly change even when you recognize how much change would increase the quality of the life you live, the quality of the self you offer.
So this holiday season brought me The Perfect Storm of factors to shake me out of my ruts of the moment: a passport that spent too long with the American Embassy meant our holiday plans were completely overturned, a stubborn virus walked up and hit me in the face and is just now creeping out, and my friend Dan came from North Fork, CA to spend Solstice with us.
So instead of the round of visiting wonderful friends in Paris and Toulouse and spending Christmas Day swimming in the Mediterranean, I slept, thought, read and slept. I grew quiet. I felt sorry for myself, and then I didn’t anymore. I enjoyed my family who were also forced to go slow: cooking, cleaning, playing card games.
Through these grey and shifting days that usually shatter with the onslaught of parties, gifts, preparations, expectations, I inhaled sage steam and let my thoughts truly wander and stopped making lists. Dan was passing through on his way to lead a 10 day Vipassana Meditation retreat in Norfolk. He told me about his sitting practice and I listened with the intellectual intrigue of someone who cannot possibly imagine sitting still and being quiet for 10 days—but admire those who can. But the forced rest and empty days became my own stillness, and now I can imagine choosing a retreat as a (perhaps more enjoyable) means to achieve this same exquisite sharpness. Thanks to my quiet thoughts, some plaguing complications in professional relationships I am able to re-imagine as not requiring a combative stance, but an approach of shared frustration and an authentic desire to change the dynamic. I am newly aware of how important it is to be able to shift out of my own narrow perspective to that of another, to understand how inexplicable behaviours on the part of others might seem reasonable from their perspective. Of course, being immersed in literature gives me the constant gift of pushing out of my own perspective, of stepping into the world view of others. This results in increased breadth in my own vision, a greater capability for compassion, and a deeper understanding of the world outside of my borders.
Dan describes Vipassana meditation practice as a discipline in studying your responses to external stimuli—we all are constantly responding to sensory stimuli most often sub- or unconsciously. Our senses register a stimulus and somewhere in our body a response occurs: pain, discomfort, pleasure, itch…and then our mind responds to that response. The mind’s responses accumulate to become our mood, our mental landscape but often without an awareness of how those unexamined stimuli contributed to how we feel. Vipassana is aimed to develop an awareness of the stimuli and consequent response.. During the 10 days, students learn the technique and begin to eradicate the root cause of their suffering.
From the Dhamma Dipa Meditation Centre in Herefordshire: “Vipassana means “to see things as they really are”. It is a process of self-purification by self-observation. It is an ancient technique from India, which was originally taught by the Buddha. The teaching is universal and not connected with any religious organisation and can be practised by anyone without conflict with existing religious beliefs or absence of beliefs. For those who are not familiar with Vipassana Meditation we recommend visiting the International Vipassana Website for an introduction.”
Other local Mediation centres and sources from a London Salonista who has also inspired me with her clarity:
And here is one (of many) poet(s) who encapsulates clarity of mind, art of words:
POEM
The spirit
likes to dress up like this:
ten fingers,
ten toes,
shoulders, and all the rest
at night
in the black branches,
in the morning
in the blue branches
of the world.
It could float, of course,
but would rather
plumb rough matter.
Airy and shapeless thing,
it needs
the metaphor of the body,
lime and appetite,
the oceanic fluids;
it needs the body’s world,
instinct
and imagination
and the dark hug of time,
sweetness
and tangibility,
to be understood,
to be more than pure light
that burns
where no one is —
so it enters us —
in the morning
shines from brute comfort
like a stitch of lightning;
and at night
lights up the deep and wondrous
drownings of the body
like a star.
by Mary Oliver, from Dream Work
Atlantic Monthly Pr., 1986, ISBN 0871130696
We have started our journey through Bleak House; through the fog and detritus of Dickens’s London, into the depths of Chancery…we may even have a field trip to the newly opened Dickens Museum and enjoy a performance of A Christmas Carol and a Dickensian Christmas Walk. If one is to be in chilly London with the pond becoming jellid towards freezing and the winds blowing through to your bones, you might as well celebrate the season.
Nabokov on Bleak House
For nearly twenty years, Vladimir Nabokov delivered a series of very popular lectures first at Wellesley and later at Cornell introducing undergraduates to the delights of great fiction.
Below is an excerpt from his lectures on Bleak House (following on his studies of Jane Austen)
With Dickens we are ready to expand. It seems to me that Jane Austen’s fiction had been a charming rearrangement of old-fashioned values. In the case of Dickens the values are new. Modern authors still get drunk on his vintage. Here there is no problem of approach as with Jane Austen, no courtship, no dillydallying. We just surrender ourselves to Dickens’s voice—that is all…All we have to do when reading Bleak House is to relax and let our spines take over. Although we read with our minds, the seat of artistic delight is between the shoulder blades. That little shiver behind is quite certainly the highest form of emotion that humanity has attained when evolving pure art and pure science. Let us worship the spine and its tingle. Let us be proud of our being vertebrates, for we are vertebrates tipped at the head with a divine flame. The brain only continues the spine: the wick really goes through the whole length of the candle. If we are not capable of enjoying that shiver, if we cannot enjoy literature, then let us give up the whole thing and concentrate on our comics, our videos (our Facebook and Youtube, VN would have added), our books-of-the-week. But I think Dickens will prove the stronger.
V. Nabokov, Lectures on Literature (1982 First Harvest/ HBJ NY ) Pg 63-4.
The introduction of Kindle, the e-book and other new forms of technology threaten to render the book- that object of pages and black on white scratchings-obsolete or at least archaic. But what if instead we grab this opportunity to not just re-imagine the form of the thing but our relationship to books?
Beyond fetishizing the object, perhaps we may reconsider how books act in our lives. In a time of increasing divisions between people and isolation of the individual, is there a way that books– and more importantly, the worlds and questions contained within them– can provide an intellectual space that supports deep human connections?
There have been many moments in the Salons when the study of a significant work of literature brings awareness, an understanding between people coming from different worlds. A recent study of ‘The Wasteland’, for example, considered how religious traditions have imposed on that fundamental human relationship of intimate love and the ways in which we may resist such strictures. A discussion of “Sonny’s Blues” opens up the deep inheritance of racism and how we all live within its shadow. Literature provides a platform for the issues that make us human; the hard and complex issues around which we can each illuminate, with our own ideas and experiences, what it is to be a vibrant and thinking being in this world.
Sometimes I have to drag myself out of the deep reading that the Salon immerses me in…and I can always count on Salon readers for great and discerning recommendations. The weekend Review section of the Guardian showcased one of my favourite contemporary fiction writers Alice Munro and introduced me to a writer I will seek out for her explorations across the gender line: A. M. Homes.
Here is a recent reading list from Denise of the Paris Salons: “…since compiling it I’ve just seen Hilary Mantel has won the Booker Prize this year for the SECOND time with her sequel to Wolf Hall. She deserves it.”
Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald (German professor of European Literature at the University of East Anglia, who died in 2001) A masterpiece of contemporary literature. “A superb meditation on time, loss and retrieval. A new kind of writing, combining fictions, memoir…philosophy.” A MUST.
Bring up the Bodies, by Hilary Mantel. A great sequel to Wolf Hall: a modern language historical romp based on Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s chief minister and his role at court at the time of Ann Boleyn’s demise. Brilliant.
The Blue Flower (about the dramatic youth and loves of the philosopher Novalis) and The Beginning of Spring (about the dramas of an English/Russian couple living in Russia in 1922) by Penelope Fitzgerald (she started writing late in life and died in 2000). I’ve just discovered this remarkable writer, and her innovative writing style, thanks to a member of our Salon Odile Hellier,
The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan. A novella which he wrote years ago, and for me the best book I’ve read by him. A curious, disturbing tale of a couple’s stay in Venice which slowly spirals into violence and obsession. Compact and chilling!
The Poetry of Thought by George Steiner (former Professor of Compared Lit at Cambridge, foremost international intellectual), I’m a fan of his, and here he shows how great thought is carried by great language and style.
Here is a selection from a reading group list that Carol of the London Salons is involved in (Books read by our book group acc to country where apt and starred/commented briefly upon by Carol and/or group. )
Nigeria: Achebe, Chinoa. Things Fall Apart. *** a classic
Eire: Banville, John. The Book of Evidence. ***
UK: Barker Pat. Regeneration ***
Eire: Barry, Sebastian. The Secret Scripture ***
Ulster but international as takes place in Congo: Bennett Ronan The Catastrophist ****
USA/ English author domiciled both countries: Gaiman, Neil. American Gods. ** The group generally didn’t really get this but my husband and I rate it highly and I think it could be a marvellous one to perhaps end your tour with. The premise – where do their gods go when whole cultures move ie to the Land of the Free? It is so clever and manages to answer this question and show what might be happening as the gods evolve/fade away, find new roles. It is also cleverly critical AND understanding of mass culture. Much more than fantasy which is why I like it so much.
England: Garner, Alan The Weirdstone of Brisingamen **
England: Gaskell. Elizabeth. North & South. ***
Burma, Malaya & India & Bangladesh: Ghosh, Amitav. The Glass Palace. *** Another excellent find and he is an author to read more of, born in Calcutta and grew up in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, written on Hong Kong too in Sea of Poppies
Mexico, English author, Greene, Graham. The Power and The Glory. ****
From Bronwyn of the Paris Salons:
Teju Cole “Open City” http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2011/02/28/110228crbo_books_wood
From WWM of the Paris Salons
The book I referenced was “Violence and the Sacred” by René Girard.
mimetic desire: all of our desires are borrowed from other people;
mimetic rivalry: all conflict originates in mimetic desire;
the scapegoat mechanism is the origin of sacrifice and the foundation of human culture, and religion was necessary in human evolution to control the violence that can come from mimetic rivalry;
the Bible reveals the three previous ideas and denounces the scapegoat mechanism.
And then, my now beloved David Foster Wallace. His fiction and his essays. Maybe his essays provide a more accessible entry into his work. I would suggest “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Neve Do Again” as a collection of his essays, and of course, Infinite Jest, for his fiction. What I can say about him is he makes me feel more awake.
7 October 2012
The last few Salons in London and Paris have raised questions around the power of language: how language evokes power, how language may represent the struggle with power (Faulkner’s grappling with the structures—grammar, words—of language as he questions his culture’s systems of power) how language can evoke such responses through the portrayal of horror and violence. These issues are coalescing for me as I prepare the Paradise Lost study starting this week in London. Milton, as the image of literary authority, was also the figure of power resistance in his time: it is his writings that articulated the first (and in England, only) anti-monarchical rebellion resulting in the overturning of divine authority—only to see this reversed in his lifetime.
There are moments when I am reading the news or biking through the city streets when I wonder how relevant the study of literature is in a world facing epic challenges and gross inequalities—not somewhere else, but here, in my neighbourhood in the air I breathe, the water I relish and the education systems shaping our young people. I return again to the relevance of the word—the way that language determines relationships, the way language is employed for power. In our studies—in any engagement with a challenging and significant work of literature, our ability to use language is increased. The analysis and understanding of the characters in the literature increases our ability to be in relationship with others; reveals the limits of our own perception, widens our sense of how one lives in the world. The Salons in their structure also force us each to enter into the minds of other participants: to respond, to disagree with respect, to be inspired by, to learn from their ideas.
The dynamic nature of the Salons means that they are created in response to the needs and desires of participants. I WELCOME any requests, suggestions and feedback.
Live out Loud, think with all your heart, welcome the voices of others
The two Salons this past weekend in Paris reminded me (if I needed reminding) what an amazing community gathers there for our work together…and the (forgive the cliché) particular je ne sais quoi of Paris–that effervescence and higher reach feeds the Salon work as well. We spoke of inheritance, race, gendered fear, mythologies and eruptions to mythologies, the compulsion to wilderness, the wildness within…and that was just the beginning.
NEXT UP
Friday October 19th 6-10 PM The Bear by William Faulkner (for those who could not join for this one)
Saturday October 20th The Wasteland three hour intensive (afternoon)
I had been thinking of offering a third study but schedule and family conspired- The Fury and Watching Eyes will wait…I am creating a page on the websote to include Salonistas’ recommended reads–please submit (to my email or into the comments section) any book (it doesn’t have to be serious literature…if there is such a thing…) that you have or are enjoying with a few words of context. And keep those recommendations coming; we do have world enough and time….
“Just to say what a tremendous salon that was…Faulkner really works for us all! “–Paris Salon participant, 09.12
“So…just wanted to say how much I enjoyed The Bear salon, (it was
magic) and the start of our work on The Passion of New Eve…The grey matter was stirred up because my texto (if you didn’t receive
it) written in the metro, read:
‘In effect, how else to proceed but by imitation of man’s image of
woman because we do not (yet) have our own authenticity.'”
Thank you to all who participated offering their time, energy and most authentic selves.
November 23-25th weekend: Short stories (Carver & Cheever) The Aeneid (Fagles translation) Details to follow…
10 things that make a great Literary Salon
