june 2020

23jun7:00 pm9:30 pmToni Morrison's A Mercy7:00 pm - 9:30 pm Kentish Town, LondonType Of Study:LiteratureFrequency:WeeklyDuration:Two weeks

Event Details

41iuOcscEpL._SX325_BO1,204,203,200_“I am nothing to you. You say I am wilderness. I am. Is that a tremble on your mouth, in your eye? Are you afraid? You should be.”

― Toni Morrison, A Mercy

Morrison has commented that she wrote A Mercy  to explore a time before slavery was identified with race. This may help readers to consider race more as ‘an interplay with other social determiners, such as gender and class. Moreover, we must resist the trigger reaction that interprets “race” to reference black-white relations, given that in colonial America another different people lived here who were subjected to biological mayhem as well as painstakingly plotted genocide” (Tally & Stave, intro to Critical Approaches: Toni Morrison’s A Mercy) .

Please notice as you read the differing perspectives and narrative styles that tell the story. Notice also how the land—the specific geographical settings—impact character and tellings. Notice how you read different paradigms: for example, what is ownership to one character is different to another….

SALON DETAILS 

  • Facilitated by Salon Director Toby Brothers
  • Two-week study: June 23rd & June 30th 7-9:30
  • Meeting in Kentish Town
  • Cost £60 includes notes and critical resources *reduced cost available for first-time participants*
  • RECOMMENDED EDITION: A Mercy, by Toni Morrison, Vintage (2009). ISBN-13: 978-0099502548

TO REGISTER, please use the Paypal button below to pay £60.00




 

A Mercy  is a study of displaced peoples. Instead of focusing on (and singling out) the experience of black Americans , Morrison chooses a moment in the history of the United States—in the moment before this land comes to be called the United States—and explores the lives of the collection of people creating a home in wilderness. These ideas are connected to post-colonial theory, race issues and immigrant cultural adaptations—but perhaps what is new in our understanding now is how prevalent and constant the loss of home is for peoples across history.

We may each of an aspect of displacement in our lives; this may open us to a kind of understanding—but I believe through literature—the carefully evoked experience of others—we may start to understand with greater complexity the precarious experience of the displaced identity—and the strategies and creativity one uses to respond to this upheaval.

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