New Year, new possibilities…what better way to kick off 2013 than with a gift to your mind? There are so many wonderful works to delve into; so many ideas to explore as we shake off the shadows of the previous year. The offerings below range from the biggest (and consequently, most satisfying) study of James Joyce’s Ulysses to one-meeting poetry and short story studies.
NOW is the time to suggest or request particular reads; let me know if one of the offerings here appeals (and ideal meeting time if it is not already named) or suggest a work that you would like to read in the Salon. Below are some planned; more to schedule with your requests!
January Salons
* 07.01.13 Walt Whitman Poetry Evening What better way to offset the lethargy of winter and the exhaustion of the holiday schedules then to dip into the poetry of Whitman? His poetry is exuberant, embracing and evocative of the Transcendentalist philosophy that he admired.
* 09.01.13 Bleak House This Salon started in December…we are enjoying our character-based exploration of Dickens’ critical vision: the lawyers, the street sweepers, the wards of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, the mad, the bored, the about to explode… {Salon full}
*17.01.13 The Liar by Tobias Wolff offers a protagonist caught in his own world, using language to separate and shield himself from those he loves- and fears.
* 22.01.13 ULYSSES register now for opening notes…
* 31.01.13 The Sound and The Fury
In William Faulkner’s first truly modernist work, he pushes to break through the confines of time and sequence to get at the essence of human nature- as Malcolm Bradbury explains, “Faulkner’s preoccupation with time has to do with the endless interlocking of personal and public histories and with the relation of the past to the lost, chaotic present.” The Sound and the Fury uses the interior world of its narrators to expose a crumbling world, through inference and allusion rather than through direct social critique.
* 18.02.13 Chekhov Short Story: “The Grasshopper” ‘As readers of imaginative literature, we are always seeking clues, warnings: where in life to search more assiduously; what not to overlook; what’s the orgin of this sort of human calamity, that sort of joy and pleasure…and to such seekers as we are, Chekhov is guide, perhaps the guide…’ –Richard Ford [Salon details to follow]
Other Salons I would like to offer–please let me know if these are of interest and if you prefer a day time or evening schedule; an intensive (one long meeting) or a series (meetings scheduled over a few weeks)..
BEOWULF (Seamus Heaney translation)
BETWEEN THE ACTS by Virginia Woolf
MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie
ABSALOM, ABSALOM! by William Faulkner
Virginia Woolf — Between the Acts — yes!
Between The Acts yes please x
Virginia Woolf, Faulkner or Beowulf day sessions all get the thumbs up!