A place for the meeting of minds . . .
“Thank you, thank you, thank you. I never would have read Ulysses but am very glad that I have. It was frustrating, moving, enigmatic, and uplifting – and that was just the first page. It – and the salon – were also a gift for me this year. Life has been challenging and the Salon was a pocket of time when everything else went away. It was a rare moment in which I was truly immersed in the here and now. And that doesn’t seem to happen much these days.”
– Ulysses Salon participant
Image credit: Jose Barba www.jajed.com
On-going Proust studies
Beginning 27 January
In Search of Lost Time Vol. V & VI – The Captive and the Fugitive
“Every reader, as he reads, is actually the reader of himself. The writer’s work is only a kind of optical instrument he provides the reader so he can discern what he might never have seen in himself without this book. The reader’s recognition in himself of what the book says is the proof of the book’s truth.”
Hamlet
Beginning 8 February
How does one introduce a play that is so deeply imbedded in our cultural history? For this Salon, we come to study Hamlet afresh, not worrying about whether we see it as Shakespeare’s greatest play ever or whether we stand breathless at the language – but finding within the play what has so riveted audiences and readers for centuries.
The Portrait of a Lady
Beginning 15 February
“It’s just as when one has been trying to spell out a book in the twilight, and suddenly the lamp comes in. I had been putting out my eyes over the book of life, and finding nothing to reward me for my pains; but now that I can read it properly I see that it’s a delightful story.”
― Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady
Homer's Iliad
Beginning 16 February with Mark Cwik
“Rage—Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls. . .”
New Kid - Online Study
Beginning 23 February
Barb Turk leads this study of the 2020 Newbury Medal winner New Kid by Jerry Craft, examining the experience of a Black student starting out in a predominantly white secondary school in the Bronx.
Coming Travel Studies 2021
Literary adventures abound: Virginia Woolf in St Ives, The Odyssey and then The Iliad in Greece, Henry James and Dacia Maraini in Umbria with Yoga
Joyce's Ulysses - Online Study
For first timers – afternoon and evening options
“Plenty to see and hear and feel yet. Feel live warm beings near you. They aren’t going to get me this innings. Warm beds: warm full blooded life.”
Welcome to the London Literary Salon
The London Literary Salon creates community around the study of great literature and ideas.
In light of the global crisis facing us, all of the Salons are now offered virtually, using face-to-face video conferencing that recreates the live, interactive, small-group experience of our in-person Salons. We will offer some donation-only studies alongside the regular-priced opportunities. In recognition of the extraordinary stress of the times and the need for connection that the Salon offers, if you are interested in a study but are unable to pay, please contact the facilitator. We will also offer free tutorials on the conference platform.
The Salon offers unique discussion-based studies of outstanding works of fiction, philosophy, poetry and drama. We welcome all readers with a curiosity and openness to the insights of others—no academic preparation is necessary.
Our expert facilitators help to weave the ideas of participants with questions the books raise about what it is to be human. We visit realms imagined by writers and thinkers from ancient times to modern.
Studies range from one-meeting intensives to six-month and two-year odysseys, along with travel retreats to locations around the UK and Europe.
Click here to read more about the Salon experience or browse upcoming studies below.
What's coming up this year?
january 2021
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James Joyce’s The Dead This longer short story is a rich feast through which one may taste the world of
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James Joyce’s The Dead
This longer short story is a rich feast through which one may taste the world of Joyce. Nothing – NOTHING – in Joyce is casual. Each image, reference, description carries symbolic resonance. Career Joyce scholars may try to align all the references – but I like W. Tindall’s attitude: “The text is not a system of mathematical equations but a flexible relationship of possibilities. . .” Bearing this in mind, we will dig at some of these references to give a sense of the richness in the writing.
Pay attention to the title even as it sits in contrast with the opening scene of the story itself – how is the image of death and the Dead brought up throughout the work? This story also holds to Joyce’s fascination with epiphanies – that moment of sudden and intense illumination when a profound truth is, or may be, revealed. Joyce describes the epiphany as ‘the most delicate and evanescent of moments’ that offer ‘a sudden spiritual manifestation, whether in the vulgarity of speech or of gesture or in memorable phase of the mind itself’. For Joyce, these moments did not occur at the height of the heroic or dramatic gesture, but in the ordinary acts of life. What are the moments in ‘The Dead’ that fit this description? More importantly, what is revealed?
This study would be particularly useful for those in the coming Ulysses 2021 study as a way to warm up your Joyce muscles.
SALON DETAILS:
- One-meeting intensive study: 3 hours January 5th 2021
- Facilitated by Salon Director Toby Brothers
- Virtual Meeting on Zoom 16:00-19:00 GMT
- Cost £50 includes notes and critical resources *reduced cost available for first-time participants*
- RECOMMENDED EDITION: Dubliners by James Joyce (Penguin Modern Classics, Feb. 2000) ISBN-13 : 978-0141182452TO REGISTER, please use the Paypal button below to pay £50.00
“Generous tears filled Gabriel’s eyes. He had never felt like that himself towards any woman, but he knew that such a feeling must be love. The tears gathered more thickly in his eyes and in the partial darkness he imagined he saw the form of a young man standing under a dripping tree. Other forms were near. His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead. He was conscious of, but could not apprehend, their wayward and flickering existence. His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the solid world itself, which these dead had one time reared and lived in, was dissolving and dwindling.”
― James Joyce, The Dead
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Every reader finds himself. The writer’s work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to
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Every reader finds himself. The writer’s work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.
-Marcel Proust
Who hasn’t gazed at this mountain of Modernism and felt daunted or wondered what could possibly take any writer 3,000+ words and six or seven volumes to say? In our study, we will enter into the Proustian universe through the first volume: this will give readers a glimpse of the breadth and purpose of this carefully constructed universe that Proust uses to reflect on the workings of the mind, memory, imagination and the role of art. Harold Bloom cites ISOLT as the greatest literary work of comic jealousy. Proust uses social critique, abundant detail, lyric descriptions and philosophical query to portray a sensitive young mind engaging with the world and human relationships. The narrator’s incredible vision and unique voice develop over the course of the volumes. By studying this first volume, you will have the tools to complete the epic on your own if you are inspired– or continue with the Salon study if this is working for you. Could there be a better moment in history to go in search of Lost Time?
This will be the fifth troop I have led through this massive work – even though this means 2.5 years of reading together, most have stayed the course and have found the work immensely satisfying. I would say simply that my time in Proust has changed the way I understand my relationship to the world of art and experience.
Here is how one Salonista describes the pleasure and work of reading Proust: “This is a velvet jewel of a book that demands the attention of a lover full of enchantment and obsession, we need not get impatient as all good lovers perfect their art in taking their time.”
***THIS SALON IS NOW FULL– Contact us if you are interested in a future Proust cycle**
Salon Details and Registration
- Nine weeks : January 11th- March 8th 2021 12:30-2:30
- ZOOM Virtual Study
- Facilitated by Salon Director Toby Brothers
- Cost £205 includes loads of notes and critical resources
- RECOMMENDED EDITION: In Search of Lost Time: Volume I, The Way By Swann’s, by Marcel Proust, translated by Lydia Davis; Penguin Modern Classics; ISBN 978-0141180311
- For volumes II through VI: Vintage Classics editions, translated by Moncrief/Kilmartin/Enright ISBN-13: 978-0099362319
To register for the Salon study, please use the Paypal button below to pay £205: Please ensure that the email that is connected to your Paypal account is the same email that you use for correspondence.
Proust’s writing requires a wide awake mind as the reader is drawn into dissecting the world as it is experienced and the way our minds decorate and create memories, values and paradigms of understanding. This sounds so dry; the wonder is how deeply sensual Proust’s work is—he is most concerned with the experience of intimacy and how this dance between two beings is fractured and re-imagined through the lens of perception.
Reading Proust teaches the reader to observe how the world is experienced, to be aware that although humans are tempted to give greater weight to the perceptual universe, it is the entwining of memory, idealized experience (dreams) and relationships with what our senses perceive that molds our consciousness.
Proust also uses his curious and attentive narrator to uncover the ombre—the part of the self that hides in the shade or shadow. As we come to know the characters in the narrator’s world, each turns out to have aspects that reveal a savagery or laziness or discrepancy that was not what appeared on the surface. Of course, as soon as Proust reflects this to the reader, we recognize this truth of human nature: all carry a shadow, an untoward or simply unmanageable part of the self that we struggle to contain. In Proust’s world, these aspects are equally a part of the coherent self. This has me thinking a great deal about how carefully we construct the social self—and how we temper what simmers beneath the surface.
For further reflection, I offer you this keen reader’s reasons to study Proust:
Can Proust Really Change Your Life? Let’s Find Out
September 28, 2009 by Dennis Abrams
You know you’ve been meaning to. You’re pretty sure that you’ve got a dusty copy of Swann’s Way sitting around somewhere. You’ve probably even read the book’s famous opening line, “For a long time I would go to bed early,” and thought to yourself, well, not now, maybe some other time.
Join us, (there is safety in numbers) and see what you’ve been missing all these years.
Should you need further encouragement, here are ten reasons why you should join in and make Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time your next big literary project.
- You’ll finally be reading the work of one of the great prose stylists of all time. Long, sensuous sentences that cast a spell like no others: Glorious descriptions of nature, art, music, and fashion, full of witty conversation and aphorisms galore.
- You will be constantly putting the book down to underline another memorable passage, all the while asking yourself, “How does he know that?”
- You’ll be surprised to learn that Proust is surprisingly funny. Yes, In Search of Lost Time is a literary masterpiece, it’s long, and it’s French, it can’t possibly be funny. But it is. Truly.
- You should do it because it’s there. At 3,000 pages and over 1.25 million words, it’s the Mt. Everest of literature, but you can reach its peak without an oxygen mask or the assistance of a Sherpa. By way of comparison, it took David Chase 86 episodes and six seasons to tell the story of The Sopranos and the Harry Potter saga is 4,224 pages long and contains over one million words. Given that, Proust doesn’t seem nearly as daunting.
- You’ll learn nearly all there is to know about love, jealousy, obsession, memory, and time. It will, if you let it, change your life: it is one of those rare books that provides an entirely new way of perceiving and understanding the world.
- You’ll have the thrill of accomplishment. Think of the sense of pride you’ll have in having read, comprehended, and enjoyed In Search of Lost Time.
- You’ll meet lots of fascinating people from all levels of French society. Harold Bloom wrote that “Proust’s greatest strength, amid so many others, is his characterization: no twentieth-century novelist can match his roster of vivid personalities.” Of course, Harold’s not always right, but this time he is.
- You’ll impress your friends. Consider the following piece of dialogue. Them: “Did you catch last night’s episode of Lost?” You: “No, sorry, I was so enthralled reading Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time that I couldn’t bring myself to turn on the television.” Game, Set and Match (Of course, you should say it nicely).
- You’ll be able to relax knowing that for the next few months at least, you will not have to worry about what you’re going to be reading next.
- And finally, and most importantly, reading In Search of Lost Time means that at last you’ll be reading the greatest novel ever written. Virginia Woolf said, “My greatest adventure was undoubtedly Proust. What is there left to write after that?” Who are you to argue with Virginia Woolf?
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"You should approach Joyce’s Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith.” —William Faulkner There is a strong
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“You should approach Joyce’s Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith.”
—William Faulkner
There is a strong argument for studying this huge and intimidating text—book list chart-topper of 100 greatest books of all time, critics’ darling, most lauded/least read, the book that many literary academics dedicate their lives to studying—but you will only know for yourself by diving in. I believe the only way to study it is with a group of hungry, curious readers who all contribute to evoking meaning, through their questions as well as their insights.
The good news: reading Ulysses is fun. And I don’t mean in a frustrating, overly-analytical see-how-much-you-know-way. The language is amazing—even when I don’t understand it. Perhaps, especially when I don’t understand it, because meaning sneaks in through more than my critical faculty. Meaning slides in through sound, through the lushness of the language, through the filmy and substantial images, and suddenly I find myself transported from a walk on a beach to a contemplation of the origins of man—thanks, James Joyce.
Any time spent studying Joyce leaves one a better reader—a broader thinker—even if all the references, repetitions, epiphanies and allusions are not immediately understood.
“Joining the Ulysses salon was one of the best things I have ever done. This was a book I had wanted to read for years but never got past the first section. I had no idea what the salon would be like and was very apprehensive about joining up. But Toby so skillfully guided us through it, her knowledge of the text seemingly inexhaustible, that with her warmth and generosity and sensitivity she got everyone involved and the satisfaction of participating in the salon and in getting an understanding of this marvelous work was immense.”
—Ulysses Salon participant
See more participant feedback here…
SALON DETAILS
A) DAYTIME: Mondays 3:00-5:00 PM **This study will be VIRTUAL** 4/1/21 STUDY FULL
B) EVENINGS : Tuesdays 5:00-7:00 PM **This study will be VIRTUAL** 26/12/20: STUDY FULL
- Both afternoon and evening studies start January 11th/12th and finish June 20th (combined Sunday evening) 2021 ; there will be a few special Sunday evening meetings for both afternoon & evening groups to address the longer chapters.
- We will meet for 21 meetings; there will be a few breaks around school half-terms
- Please purchase these editions in preparation for our study:
- Ulysses, by James Joyce, Annotated Students’ Edition; (Penguin Modern Classics), ISBN-10: 0141184434. (There are many editions of Ulysses — I find this edition is most coherent and the notes and introduction by Declan Kieberd very helpful; as we will constantly be referencing particular passages, having the same edition will be extremely useful.)
- The New Bloomsday Book: A Guide Through Ulysses, by Harry Blamires, ISBN-10: 0415138582
- The total cost for the 20-meeting study, with all notes and resources materials, is £420
TO REGISTER, Please use the Paypal button below to pay for the study; upon receipt of payment, you will receive opening notes and loads of resources to start the study.
For the daytime study on Mondays :
For the early evening study on Tuesdays *THIS SESSION IS NOW FULL*
If you have any questions about this study, please contact us.
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"You should approach Joyce’s Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith.” —William Faulkner After wandering through these
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“You should approach Joyce’s Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith.”
—William Faulkner
After wandering through these rich pages with many wonderful readers, I am keen to offer a study of Ulysses for those who have already passed through once (or more) and are ready to dig deeper. The reading schedule will be the same, but we will approach with an understanding of the structure already in mind. This will allow us to flesh out the themes from the start of the work and engage more thoroughly the historical, social and aesthetic structures that Joyce inhabits and overturns. Hopefully this will also give seasoned readers the opportunity to feel grounded in the text and discover motifs, connections and explorations that they may have missed in the madness of the first reading.
If you have not previously read Ulysses, please join either the afternoon study or the early evening study.
“Joining the Ulysses salon was one of the best things I have ever done. This was a book I had wanted to read for years but never got past the first section. I had no idea what the salon would be like and was very apprehensive about joining up. But Toby so skillfully guided us through it, her knowledge of the text seemingly inexhaustible, that with her warmth and generosity and sensitivity she got everyone involved and the satisfaction of participating in the salon and in getting an understanding of this marvelous work was immense.”
—Ulysses Salon participant
See more participant feedback here…
SALON DETAILS
- Studies start January 12th and finish June 20th (Sunday combined meeting) ; there will be a few special Sunday evening meetings for both afternoon & evening groups to address the longer chapters.
- We will meet for 21 meetings; there will be a few breaks around school half-terms
- Please purchase these editions in preparation for our study:
- Ulysses, by James Joyce, Annotated Students’ Edition; (Penguin Modern Classics), ISBN-10: 0141184434. (There are many editions of Ulysses — I find this edition is most coherent and the notes and introduction by Declan Kieberd very helpful; as we will constantly be referencing particular passages, having the same edition will be extremely useful.)
- The New Bloomsday Book: A Guide Through Ulysses, by Harry Blamires, ISBN-10: 0415138582
- The total cost for the 21-meeting study, with all notes and resources materials, is £420
TO REGISTER, Please use the Paypal button below to pay for the study; upon receipt of payment, you will receive opening notes and loads of resources to start the study.
If you have any questions about this study, please contact us.
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She had the perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always
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She had the perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone;
she always had the feeling that it was very, very, dangerous to live even one day.
–Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
Virginia Woolf’s writing hits emotion first—‘what happens’ takes second place to ‘what feels’. The language is packed with subtlety, nuance and evocative images as Woolf probes the depths of intimate relationships. Come join us for this exploration of a warm June day in London: madness, aesthetics, the nature of love and intimacy, war, relationships across and between genders, Imperialism—all are prodded in this delicate and lyric work.
SALON DETAILS
- Facilitated by Toby Brothers, Salon Director
- Four-meeting study starting January 14th running through February 4th Thursday late afternoon
- Virtual Meeting on Zoom
- Cost £115 includes notes and critical resources *reduced cost available for first-time participants*
- Recommended edition: Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf; Oxford World’s Classics edition; ISBN-13: 978-0199536009
Please use the Paypal button below to register by paying £115 for the four-meeting study- if you prefer to pay by direct bank transfer, please contact us for details. Upon payment, you will receive opening notes and further information. Please be sure the email associated with your payment is the same used for correspondence.
For First Time participants only- 20% reduction: £92
Mrs Dalloway makes an ideal study: her writing is challenging to read on one’s own, rich as it is in images, references and details that deliver a powerful emotional and intellectual impact. The study format encourages exploration by reading with a group of diverse and questing minds. Together we will work to understand Woolf’s incisive study of human personality—and use some of her contemporaries (Freud, Henri Bergson, Roger Fry) to help make sense of this new writing she creates. Here is Julia Briggs from her biographical study of Woolf through her works:
“Mrs. Dalloway is the story of a day in the lives of a man and woman who never meet—a society hostess who gives a party, and a shell-shocked soldier… What they have in common or why their stories are told in parallel, the reader must decide, for this is a modernist text, an open text, with no neat climax or final explanation, and what happens seems to shift as we read and reread. Woolf intended her experiment to bring the reader closer to everyday life, in all its confusion, mystery and uncertainly, rejecting the artificial structures and categories of Victorian fiction.”
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Every reader finds himself. The writer’s work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader
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Every reader finds himself. The writer’s work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself. -Marcel Proust
After completing incredibly satisfying studies of Ulysses and Magic Mountain, we have turned to the next big mountain of Modernism, Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. This is my fifth tour through the Search— each visit reveals new nuggets and gasping moments This fifth and sixth volume considers closely the seductive agony of jealousy. The two groups who have made it through the first two volumes in the last six months are lively and welcoming– we have room for two in the evening (the 5-7 PM group is full). If you have not read the first four volumes previously, please contact us to discuss.
Here is how one Salonista describes the pleasure and work of reading Proust: ” This is a velvet jewel of a book that demands the attention of a lover full of enchantment and obsession ,we need not get impatient as all good lovers perfect their art in taking their time.”
Reading Proust teaches the reader to observe how the world is experienced, to be aware that although humans are tempted to give greater weight to the perceptual universe, it is the entwining of memory, idealized experience (dreams) and relationships with what our senses perceive that molds our consciousness.
**5-7 PM Full; Two spaces 7:30-9:30** Please contact us if you have questions about starting The Search in the fifth volume
Salon Details
- Facilitated by Toby Brothers
- Wednesday afternoons 5-7 PM OR 7:30-9:30 PM
- 15 Meeting study from January 27th- May 26th; (No meetings October 14th)
- Recommended edition: Vintage Classics Moncrief/Kilmartin/Enright
- £345 for 15 meetings includes background materials, literary criticism, opening notes & discussion notes
- This is a VIRTUAL study–
Use the Paypal button below to register . The cost is £345 for the fifteen-week study–this will cover the entire volume. I will send along opening notes and critical resources once I have received your registration.
For WEDNESDAY evenings 7:30-9:30 pm:
If you have any questions about this study, please contact us.
I’d like to share with you part of Edmund White’s essay on this section from Andre Aciman’s collection The Proust Project:
“In these pages, Proust alludes to so many conflicting theories of homosexuality that they end up by casting doubt on one another — and on all such theories. In fact they suggest, finally, that only the conventions of a few cultures (but not all or even most cultures) determine the definition of normality; mere convention and nothing more absolute defines the status of homosexuality.
On the face of it nothing could seem further from the Proustian position. He starts out with the most extreme (and the most offensive) theory; that male homosexuals are inverts, i.e., women disguised as men. this whole initial disquisition on homosexuality is triggered by Marcel’s realization that Charlus’s face in repose is that of a woman since ‘he was one.’ This is the theory of ‘the soul of a woman enclosed in the body of a man’ first worked out by the German sexologist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs in 1868.
Proust plays with the theories and homophobia of his time — and exposes societal hypocrisies in all forms.
february 2021
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"The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral; scene individable, or poem unlimited." How does
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“The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy,
history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral,
tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral; scene
individable, or poem unlimited.”
How does one introduce a play that is so deeply imbedded in our cultural history? For this Salon, we come to study Hamlet afresh, not worrying about whether we see it as Shakespeare’s greatest play ever or whether we stand breathless at the language – but finding within the play what has so riveted audiences and readers for centuries. In addition, we have Shakespearean actor Jane Wymark as facilitator: Jane offers deep insights: having played Ophelia to Derek Jacobi’s Hamlet for over 200 performances, she has Hamlet in her bones. We welcome to this Salon those who have never read or seen the play along with those who have memorized entire soliloquies – we will need both perspectives to carefully negotiate our way through the “constantly shifting register not only of action but of language” (Frank Kermode, Shakespeare’s Language, 2000).
What is Hamlet about? Themes include the most precise questions of loyalty, revenge and allegiance, what it means to be human, the role of fate and self-will, the truth of madness- the essences of human experience. The language must stand up to the weight of these themes – we will closely examine the words and structures to decide if it does and if so, how. Hamlet as a character is utterly compelling: the sinuous dance of his mind, his outrage at human frailty, his exquisite language infused by his agony at a world too small and mean for his spirit inspires the reader.
As with any other Salon dealing with a dramatic work, we will read aloud — sections of the text and I will suggest viewing various filmed adaptations. For those who are keen to stretch themselves, there will be opportunities for a prepared reading. We will include in our discussions reflections on various productions and how this play speaks to this strange time we are living; we shall also consider diversity in casting and setting of the play over time.
SALON DETAILS
- Facilitated by Jane Wymark
- Monday early eves 18-20:00 PM BST
- Six meetings over six weeks from February 8th to March 15th
- Meetings conducted virtually via ZOOM
- There are many editions; to simplify for this study please use the Arden Shakespeare– loads of notes and opportunities to read around the text and understand the differences in editions ASIN: B015QL4M8S
- £130 includes background notes and resources
To register, please email Jane who will advise you on how to make the payment jwymark@me.com Upon receipt of payment, I will send you the opening notes, resources and preparation suggestions.
Reflections from our previous study:
“Thank you for such an engrossing salon, and so well-choreographed. Hamlet feels like a play that’s a companion through life, and at this turbulent time it has meant so much to me to share it with you and the group. Thank you. You get it, and that makes such a difference.”
“The word ‘joy’ is not one I’ve ever associated with Hamlet before, but
it perfectly describes my experience studying the play under Jane’s
expert tutelage. Reading scenes aloud between discussions about the
text brought Shakespeare’s words to life in a way I hadn’t experienced
since working in theatre. Jane created a welcoming environment where I
felt comfortable sharing thoughts, ideas, and even questions about
lines I didn’t understand. It was truly a delight.” JM Hamlet Salon 2020
“There is one peculiarity which real works of art possess in common. At each fresh reading one notices some change in them, as if the sap of life ran in their leaves, and with skies and plants they had the power to alter their shape and color from season to season. To write down one’s impressions of Hamlet as one reads it year after year, would be virtually to record one’s own autobiography, for as we know more of life, so Shakespeare comments upon what we know.”
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“It has made me better loving you... it has made me wiser, and easier, and brighter. I used to want a great
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“It has made me better loving you… it has made me wiser, and easier, and brighter. I used to want a great many things before, and to be angry that I did not have them. Theoretically, I was satisfied. I flattered myself that I had limited my wants. But I was subject to irritation; I used to have morbid sterile hateful fits of hunger, of desire. Now I really am satisfied, because I can’t think of anything better. It’s just as when one has been trying to spell out a book in the twilight, and suddenly the lamp comes in. I had been putting out my eyes over the book of life, and finding nothing to reward me for my pains; but now that I can read it properly I see that it’s a delightful story.”
― Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady
The Portrait of A Lady by Henry James
The book is a painted portrait or even a kaleidoscope. We watch and guess what Isabel will do. But like a portrait, she is (perhaps) caught in a frame and frozen by the artistry –or the terms of her world.
Previous studies have included considerations of gender roles, the negotiated space between self and other, the corruption or freedom offered by privilege, the challenge of looking at nationalities in generalizations (and the tempting ease to do so), the ways in which humans reveal themselves…these Salon discussions are full of wonder: the meeting of the gathered minds and the provoking text is a powerful thing.
Ralph Waldo Emerson seems to echo in the lines and characters of Henry James, Isabel in particular: “You think of me the child of my circumstances: I make my circumstance…I—this thought which is called I, –is the mould into which the world is poured like melted wax. The mould is invisible, but the world betrays the shape of the mould. You call it the power of circumstance, but it is the power of me.” –from Emerson’s essay The Transcendentalist
Our study of PoAL may include a consideration of this quote in light of Isabel’s life and choices: how much do we make ourselves? How does the world impose itself on the individual in the act of self-creation?
Salon Details and Registration
- Seven weeks : February 15th – March 29th 2021
- ZOOM Virtual Study
- Facilitated by Salon Director Toby Brothers and Salon facilitator Sarah Snoxhall
- Cost £190 includes notes and critical resources
- RECOMMENDED EDITION: Norton Critical Edition Oct. 2017; ISBN-10: 0393938530
To register for the Salon study, please use the Paypal button below to pay £190: Please ensure that the email that is connected to your Paypal account is the same email that you use for correspondence (if you prefer direct bank transfer, please Contact Us)
From J. Smiley’s 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel
“The question (could a novel be art) were…framed in terms of technique, but the ideal was no longer just to promote the novel’s ability to communicate more and more details about more and more things, but also to have an aesthetic shape or effect that would be intended by the author and felt by the reader as consciously graceful, beautiful or ‘right.’ Foremost proponent of these ideas was Henry James…” p. 134
“Everything that Isabel has learned about love and marriage growing up in the United States turns out to be wrong—in Europe, marriage is a pure commodity relationship, and it is the fate girls to be bought, sold, and dominated. Their only choices are to accept their fate knowingly or undergo it without understanding it. ..In Pofa Lady James does what he intended to do…uses intense psychological analysis and careful depiction of settings to fill the spots where the vulgar might have been. “ p. 135
“H. James …recognized that, as vital and satisfying as the English novel was, English novels were missing something that French novels possessed—psychological refinement and depth. …HJ wanted to write…important novels about the progress of the inner life, in which the climax might be only a silent recognition by the protagonist that she has made a commitment fatal to her happiness. Readers had to be educated to understand the weight of such subterranean drama…” p.136
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"Rage—Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles, murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses, hurling down to the House of
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“Rage—Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls. . .”
The first great work of European literature is a magnificent poem that challenges us to think about what really matters: about what is worth living—and dying—for. Homer’s Iliad recounts the story of the Trojan War, covering just a few pivotal weeks near the end of the ten-year siege of the mighty city of Troy. The invading Greek army’s greatest warrior, Achilles, withdraws from the fighting after a dispute with their leader Agamemnon, bringing the threat of defeat and destruction upon the Greeks. His action precipitates devastating results for both sides, ultimately leading to the fall of Troy itself.
Homer portrays a world in which his characters are pulled by forces most of which seem beyond their control. On the human plane, they are driven by loyalties to comrades, fidelity to an oath, responsibility to family and city, subordination to authority, and the lure of fame. Above them, the Olympian gods exert influence both benevolent and malign. Looming over everything is the obscure force called Fate.
Though memorable for its scenes of bloody battle and the squabbling of gods on Olympus, the Iliad exudes an intense humanity, infusing a tragic longing for peace amid the seeming inevitability of war and destruction. Homer invites us to put ourselves into the world of the war: a place no one wants to be, where the gods seem unpredictable, and where there’s a genuine question of whether justice is anywhere to be found. Through the struggles of Homer’s warriors, the Iliad brings us face-to-face with fundamental questions about honor, community, justice, love, and loyalty, as the story’s characters search to make sense of their inescapable mortality.
Each week of this eight-meeting study we will examine closely several key passages of the poem, allowing us to take an in-depth look at the wealth of fascinating characters, conflicts and big questions raised by Homer’s epic. The study will take place on Zoom. Each session will last 2 1/4 hours, with a short break mid-session.
SALON DETAILS
- Facilitated by Mark Cwik
- Tuesday afternoons 2:00 pm – 4:15 pm
- Eight-meeting study, 16 February, 2021 to 06 April, 2021
- Online discussions using Zoom meeting interface. Zoom is free for participants, instructions will be sent upon registration.
- Recommended edition:
- The Iliad, by Homer, translated by Robert Fagles, introduction by Bernard Knox; Penguin Classics; ISBN-13: 978-0140275360
- £190 for eight-week study, includes notes and questions for preparation.
TO REGISTER for the study, please use the secure Paypal payment button below to pay £190. If you would prefer to pay by bank transfer, please email facilitator Mark Cwik to arrange payment.
ABOUT THE FACILITATOR: Mark Cwik has been organizing and leading discussions of great literature for over twenty years in London, Chicago and Toronto. He specializes in works from the ancient, mythic and religious world. He was trained as a discussion facilitator while at the Great Books Foundation in Chicago and has been a passionate advocate for great books education since attending St. John’s College, Santa Fe and the University of Chicago Basic Program in Liberal Education.
“I’ve been coming to Mark’s discussion groups for about 15 years . . . Mark is amazing in his ability to keep the group functioning smoothly. He asks questions that get to the heart of the piece and he keeps the group focused on those questions. You don’t feel that he’s trying to steer us to any conclusion; he’s in it with us to figure out what the author is saying. He makes everyone feel welcome and their opinions are respectfully heard. He’s always prepared and totally dedicated to advancing our understanding of the great books.” — group participant.
If you have any questions about this study, please contact facilitator Mark Cwik.
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“This distinct, timely, and honest story respects children and gives its readers a glimpse into what it means to be other.” -
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“This distinct, timely, and honest story respects children and gives its readers a glimpse into what it means to be other.” – Newbery Medal Committee Chair Krishna Grady
Seventh grader Jordan Banks loves nothing more than drawing cartoons about his life. But instead of sending him to the art school of his dreams, his parents enrol him in a prestigious private school known for its academics, where Jordan is one of the few kids of colour in his entire year.
As he makes the daily trip from his Washington Heights apartment to the upscale Riverdale Academy Day School, Jordan soon finds himself torn between two worlds—and not really fitting into either one. Can Jordan learn to navigate his new school culture while keeping his neighbourhood friends and staying true to himself?
Barb Turk facilitates this study of the first graphic novel to win the Newbery Medal, examining reading strategies, building visual literacy and offering a platform for middle-grade students to consider racism through the characters’ relationships and interactions at school and home.
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Art is organisation — a searching after order. The primal artistic act is God’s creating of the universe out of chaos — shaping
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Art is organisation — a searching after order. The primal artistic act is God’s creating of the universe out of chaos — shaping formlessness into form. Therefore evaluate a poem by its unity, coherence and proper placement of emphasis: structure, form, pattern, symmetry (reflect) the human instinct for design.
– notes from Perrine’s Sound & Sense pg. 219
Since Sir Thomas Wyatt introduced the Petrarchan sonnet to the English Court in the early16th century poets have been using this deceptively simple 14-line form to express their thoughts on love, mortality, politics and just about everything else. Adapted by Shakespeare to accommodate the challenges of rhyming in English and used by a succession of poets from Milton to Frost, the sonnet is very much alive and well in the 21st Century – in recent years two poets have received TS Eliot Prize nominations for collections comprised entirely of sonnets.
This two-part study considers the enduring appeal of the sonnet through the study of form, metre and voice. Sonnets written in the 1600’s or in 2000’s will be looked at in detail to help us understand how poets have found expression for their ideas through fitting them into a tightly woven square of rhymed iambic pentameter. Throughout the course we will read these “little songs” aloud and dig deeper into their meaning as we hear their music.
Salon Details:
Facilitated by: Caroline Hammond and Jane Wymark
Wednesday Evenings: 6pm – 8pm
2 meeting study: 24th February & 3rd March 2021
Recommended Books: TBC
£50 for two meeting study includes background materials and opening notes
To register, please use the PayPal button below to pay £50.
Upon receipt of payment, I will send you the opening notes, resources and preparation suggestions. If you have any questions about this study, please contact us.
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Faulkner’s Sanctuary has attracted wide controversy from the moment of its publication. The novel has contributed significantly to the author’s reputation as
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Faulkner’s Sanctuary has attracted wide controversy from the moment of its publication. The novel has contributed significantly to the author’s reputation as a writer of Gothic, melodramatic tales of violence and sexual misconduct. This new study will look at the extent to which that view is justified by this work, and will give participants the opportunity to discuss the novel in the wider context of Faulkner’s other writing. Earlier Faulkner studies have included: The Sound and the Fury; Absalom, Absalom; Light in August; As I Lay Dying; ‘The Bear’; and ‘A Rose for Emily.’ This salon will build on that earlier work, as well as giving space for reconsideration of a novel whose reputation has dominated attempts at objective criticism.
“Good God, I can’t publish this. We’d both be in jail.” [Faulkner’s publisher]
“I often found myself completely taken by the poetry of Faulkner’s sentences and paragraphs.” [reviewer]
“Brutal backwoods savagery” [reviewer]
“Writing style still seems modern…cinematic quality.” [reviewer]
“A powerful novel examining the nature of evil, informed by the works of T. S. Eliot, Freud and mythology” [reviewer]
SALON DETAILS
- Co-facilitated by Salon Director Toby Brothers and Geoff Brown
- Five meetings: Thursday afternoons starting February 25th 1-3 PM
- Virtual Meeting on Zoom
- Cost £135.00 includes opening notes and resources
- Recommended editions: Vintage International (1993) ISBN 0679748148 or Penguin Classics(1975) ISBN 13: 9780140008999
To register, please use the Paypal button below to pay £135 for this five- meeting study. Upon receipt of payment, I will send you the opening notes, resources and preparation suggestions.
april 2021
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"Millions of things came back to her. Atoms danced apart and massed themselves. But how did they compose what people called a
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“Millions of things came back to her. Atoms danced apart and massed themselves. But how did they compose what people called a life? She clenched her hands and felt the hard little coins she was holding. Perhaps there’s ‘I’ at the middle of it, she thought; a knot; a centre; and again she saw herself sitting at her table drawing on the blotting paper, digging little holes from which spokes radiated. Out and out they went; thing followed thing, scene obliterated scene.”
–Virginia Woolf, The Years
Each study in St Ives is magical. The light, the smell and sound of the sea gilds the intensive study with a unique sense of stepping into another world. This study of The Years, the last novel published by Virginia Woolf while she was still alive, expands our time in Cornwall to five days as requested by past participants. We will meet Wednesday evening for our first exploration with six more meetings spread over the coming days to allow time for enjoyment of the natural and cultural gems offered in this beautiful place. This will be the Salon’s first study of The Years; this study will have the exploratory energy that a first Salon study offers.
IN LIGHT OF THE CURRENT PANDEMIC, the dates for this study are shifted: April 14th-18th 2021 …there is ONE space available.
The Years is described as a family saga–and is often considered more accessible than other works by Woolf. With the experience of many studies of To The Lighthouse, Between the Acts, The Waves and Mrs Dalloway, I have come to relish the subtle profundity beneath the language experimentation and interior explorations that Woolf offers. The Years engages history– the personal history of a family, the mantel of history of a people, the sense of a denigrated future in the shadow of historical myths and mistakes–and considers how various characters negotiate this troubled inheritance. Woolf moves deftly between the individual and the larger cultural landscapes–illuminating how one person can exist in their vulnerable selfhood amidst the waves of the world around them.
To understand this book, you will want to read with a wide awake mind and then re-read once you have played on the surface of plot and character. Notice how the descriptions along the edges—the fragments, the other stories invoked, the changing weather passages—all comment on and expand the central narrative. We will also consider essays from her work, The Pargiters — the theoretical framework that Woolf wrote alongside The Years but then excluded from the text. This has become available in Mitchell Leaska’s edition: “The Pargiters is interesting in its own right for the insight it offers into Woolf’s politics, which she expresses more bluntly in the novel-essay than she ever had before.” (R. Higney, Modernism Lab)
SALON DETAILS:
- Five-day Meeting in St Ives — approximately 14 hours of study
- Meeting St Ives Cornwall; facilitated by Salon Director Toby Brothers
- Cost £325 includes notes and critical resources (transport and housing not included)
- RECOMMENDED EDITION: The Years by Virginia Woolf (Vintage Classics Woolf Series) Paperback – 6 Oct 2016 ISBN-10: 1784872237
- If possible, please also purchase The Pargiters– this book is difficult to find and tends to be pricey– if you can not find an affordable edition, please contact us— I have a few editions for purchase or loan.
To register for the Salon study, please use the Paypal button below to pay £325: (Please pay for the room directly to No4St Ives once your registration has been confirmed):
*Apologies– it appears that this Paypal button is only working for those with a Paypal account– I am working with Paypal to fix this issue– in the meantime, if you wish to register and don’t have nor want a PP account, please Contact Us directly.
‘A brilliant fantasia of all Time’s problems, age and youth, change and permanence, truth and illusion’ The Times Literary Supplement
The Years is the story of the Pargiter family – their intimacies and estrangements, anxieties and triumphs – mapped out against the bustling rhythms of London’s streets during the first decades of the twentieth century, as their Victorian upbringing gives way to a new world, where the rules of etiquette have shifted from the drawing room to the air-raid shelter. Virginia Woolf’s penultimate novel is a celebration of the resilience of the individual amid time, change, life, death and renewal.
Virginia Woolf: “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 doubt stands upon this memory. It is of lying in bed, half-asleep, haf 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 then breaking, one, two, one two, behind a yellow blind […}. If I were a painter I should paint these impressions in pale yellow, silver, and green. There was the pale yellow blind; the green sea; and the silver of the passion flowers.”
“Here is the past and all its inhabitants miraculously sealed as in a magic tank.”
“The past only comes back when the present runs so smoothly that it is like the sliding surace of a deep river. Then one sees through the surface to the depths. The past sometimes presses so close that you can feel nothing else.”
—“Sketch of the Past,” begun in June 1939.
St IVES: Virginia Woolf spent much of her childhood in St. Ives. The London Literary Salon invites you to join us in St Ives to explore this lovely coastal town and have it serve as a prism through which we will explore Woolf’s perspectives on landscape, domesticity, historical inheritance and identity in her novel The Years. We have already completed four magical weekends with Woolf’s writings in the environment that inspired it– this is an incredible experience!
You will have the opportunity to visit the iconic Tate St Ives gallery overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, built between 1988 and 1993 on the site of an old gasworks, and there will be an optional boat trip to Godrevy Lighthouse.
We may also look at Talland House, now privately owned, her childhood summer home. For several months of the year the elegant house overlooking St Ives Bay would be the Stephens’ family home until 1895 when Virginia’s mother Julia Stephen died. Although the complete family never returned to St Ives following their mother’s death, her children travellled back in 1905 following the death of their father in 1904.
Accommodation: We are working with No4 St Ives which is just steps from Talland House and has an elevated position overloooking St Ives Bay. It is a 5 minute walk from the beach and St Ives Town Centre.
Approximate cost:
Rooms at No4 St Ives range from £110-£140 per night– if the room is shared, the cost is halved; breakfast included. Some of us plan to stay Sunday night as well to be able to enjoy an extra day in this beautiful site. The entire cost is to be paid upfront. If for some reason you are unable to attend, we will work to find someone to replace you & reimburse you for the room but can not guarantee that is possible. The Salon cost may be applied to a later study.
Train cost is approx. £70 each way(cheaper if bought earlier)
Salon cost is £325: We will meet around 14 hours over the five days. The first meeting starts at 5:45 Wednesday evening; the last meeting is scheduled for 9:30-11:30 Sunday morning. On previous trips, many have stayed in St Ives through Sunday evening to have time for further exploration and reflection. Please discuss this option with Sue and Mike from No4 St Ives if you are interested.
We will enjoy dinner out on Wednesday and Saturday…other costs will include the optional boat trip & visit to the St Ives gallery.
Getting there: The train from London takes just over five hours, with one change at St Erth for the branch line to St Ives.
This event and other in-depth explorations of Virginia Woolf and her works can be found on the website of the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain
Part of the challenge when reading Woolf is to understand it is not the action that matters but the impression of thoughts; it is by attending to the pattern and signification of thoughts and impressions that we will uncover meaning, innovation. As one of the primary modernist writers, Woolf plays with language; testing its ability to truly reflect human experience by recording the life of the mind not just action. Her narrative form reflects one of the characteristics of Modernist writing in its shifting centre of narrative perspective reflecting a questioning of ultimate and moral authority that characterized the time with the dissolution of Imperialism and absolute values.
Writing from the edge of the violent shift from Victorian to Modernist era, the loss of an old world in the violent destruction of war and massive social change, Woolf’s ambivalence is demonstrated in her work. She struggles against the boundaries and structures of the Victorian era while holding a great longing and nostalgia for the noble traditions of the time.
If you have any questions about this study, please contact us.
may 2021
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Drawing on the success of the LLS, we are excited to expand the studies by offering retreats that place participants in locales
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Drawing on the success of the LLS, we are excited to expand the studies by offering retreats that place participants in locales that reflect and expand the literature. By taking participants to beautiful places, the LLS retreat offers a more intensive immersion in the book while opening the mind to a part of the world illuminated through the beauty of the language.
The Greek Odyssey study for May 2020 will use Homer’s epic poem to consider closely the guest-host relationship, the defining struggle of humans against overwhelming nature, the struggle to know ourselves in foreign spaces, our understanding of the heroic and the role of myth and epic in lived experience. Actor Jane Wymark and Poet Caroline Donnelly will be assisting Salon Director Toby Brothers in this week-long study, sharing their insights into the spoken word, metre and translation. In an era where the epic poem is in eclipse, the novel and film having taken over as the preferred vehicles for complex narratives, we will explore aspects of the Odyssey as a work in the oral tradition.
We have found the perfect site to host this study providing the ideal combination of a local space run by someone who understands our mission & can provide us room & board that has some cultural and adventure offerings — and is easy to access. We will be staying at Rosy’s Village on the stunning Island of Agistri. The study is scheduled for the 3rd (arrival) to the 10th (departure) of May 2020.
** UPDATE: This Salon is now full. If you are interested, please contact us to be added to the waiting list– or to be on the list for the May 2021 Odyssey
SALON DETAILS
- Facilitated by Toby Brothers, Jane Wymark and Caroline Donnelly
- May 2nd-9th 2021; program will run approx. five to six hours per day (one day open) leaving time for other activities (optional kayaking adventure and trip to The Pidavros theatre or Temple of Aphasia
- Preparatory meeting Monday April 26th 7:00-9:30 in London (via ZOOM)
- Recommended editions: The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Robert Fagles AND the Emily Wilson translation (more details below)
- £475 for the Salon study includes preparatory meetings, background materials and opening notes
Room and half board (two meals per day) will be paid directly to Rosy’s; after you register, you will receive details on payment.
Room Prices for seven night stay: (including Breakfast & Dinner)
- 574 euro Single (approx. £510)
- 413 euro Double (approx. £365)
- 392 eruo triple/family room
Other costs: Flights (Right now can be found for £120-200 r/t British Air), ferry to Agistri (usually 14 euro each way but may be 30 euro for arrival if the group chooses private water taxi), one meal a day and extra trips. For flight purchase, please make sure you can be in Piraeus by 3 PM for May 3rd to make the ferry. We will not be meeting on the 10th so you have choices about your return; ferry are frequent (one hour travel from Agistri to Piraeus).
To register and pay for the study or if you would like further information, please contact us . Opening notes will be sent after registration; please read at least one of the translations before arriving on Agistri.
Primary texts edition recommended:
- The Odyssey translated by Robert Fagles (Penguin Classics, various editions) Nov. 1997 ISBN-13:978-0140268867
- The Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson (W.W. Norton & Co., Nov. 2018) ISBN-13: 978-0393356250
Participant reflections May 2019:
“And it was such stirring stuff! It transformed The Odyssey from ever so slightly a form of homework, the better to get to grips with Ulysses, into an unexpectedly powerful, truly immersive and poetic experience – a fascinating study in its own right.”
“The facilitators were great, particularly Jane, who is wonderful, for the readings. That was memorable, for me.
About the epic…
The Salon has certainly been a place to re-discover- or discover for the first time- the works that form the cornerstones of Western literary tradition. The Odyssey is a root for our understanding of ourselves as well as the words and ways of the ancients. How does it continue to shape our idea of the heroic? What do the dilemmas that Odysseus faces offer to us today? Can we still appreciate the lyric and narrative quality alongside a violent story filled with the suffering and death of nameless servants, slave girls and soldiers?
Many artists have used The Odyssey as an inspiration for their work as Joyce does with Ulysses and the Coen brothers did for their film(winning an Oscar for the best screenplay adaptation from Homer’s original)…the epic struggle to return home and exploration of the guest/relationship remain relevant across time.
David Denby, in his work Great Books, describes his engagement with The Odyssey as an essential exploration of the formation of the self for the reader as well as for Telemachus and Odysseus: “Even at the beginning of the literary tradition of the West, the self has masks, and remakes itself as a fiction and not as a guiltless fiction either. . .
The Odyssey is an after-the-war poem, a plea for relief and gratification, and it turns, at times, into a sensual, even carnal celebration.”
Further reading : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10833515/Alice-Oswald-how-to-read-Homer.html
And here, from Jane, a brief summary of some of the contemporary novels inspired by the Homeric epics….
“All of these books contain major spoilers of the plots of both The Iliadand The Odysseyand so are to be avoided if you’d rather approach the Homeric Epics completely innocent. On the other hand, without some background knowledge of the Greek Pantheon you will soon be at sea so you might consider sacrificing surprise for context…”
Silence of the Girls
Pat Barker
‘An important, powerful, memorable book that invites us to look differently not only at The Iliadbut at our own ways of telling stories about the past and the present, an invitation to listen for voices silenced by history and power.’
Emily Wilson
Pat Barker is the author of the much respected award-winning Regenerationtrilogy set during the First World War and is thus very well qualified to retell the story of TheIliadin a style that displays its mythic universality. The first time that Achilles says ‘OK’ it lands as a shocking anachronism, but as you read on you realise that Barker is deliberately showing that the Trojan War has similarities to all wars in all times. Her central character, Briseis, is mentioned no more than a dozen times in Homer: she is an enslaved woman regarded simply as plunder.
The Song of Achilles
Circe
Madeline Miller
The Song of Achilleswas Miller’s first book and was a major bestseller, published in 23 languages. It retells the story of the siege of Troy from the point of view of Patroclus, whose death Achilles avenged by the killing of the Trojan hero Hector and defiling the corpse by dragging it around the city walls behind his chariot. The book was less popular in some quarters: the NYT described it as having ‘the head of a young adult novel, the body of The Iliadand the hindquarters of Barbara Cartland’ and there’s some truth in that criticism, despite its irritating snobbish tone. It’s certainly a very engaging read and Miller’s second book, Circe, is even more so. Circe is a nymph and witch whose island home Odysseus and his men land up on. The book manages to weave in an enormous amount of Greek myth and legend in palatable form.
A Thousand Ships
Natalie Haynes
‘This subversive reseeing of the classics is a many-layered delight’.
Elizabeth Lowry
This is the most recent of the current crop of Homeric retellings. It is written in short chapters and covers the stories of many of the female characters, most of whom get fairly short shrift in Homer. Some are given more than one chapter – especially Penelope and the group Haynes calls The Trojan Women. Penelope’s chapters are written as letters to the absent Odysseus, a device taken from Ovid’s Heroides, but the dry witty tone echoes The Penelopiad written by the great Margaret Attwood fifteen years ago which is definitely worth a read.
If you have any questions about this study, please contact us.
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Reading the Body Umbria Retreat: Mind & Body interplay NEW DATE-_TWO SPACES AVAILABLE MAY 29-June 5 2021 Providing space and material for thought and
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Reading the Body Umbria Retreat: Mind & Body interplay
NEW DATE-_TWO SPACES AVAILABLE MAY 29-June 5 2021
Providing space and material for thought and play towards greater connection to the world we inhabit-through expansion of the mind and body.
Jackie and Toby have both developed approaches to understanding the self in the world. Jackie’s work uses the body as a space of exploration & understanding, while Toby employs literature as a platform for discovery.
Each day will include two sessions of yoga and one to two sessions of literature study. This will leave hours across the day for down time: explore the local area, rest and resource, reading, swimming, hiking, stretching.
SALON RETREAT DETAILS
- Facilitated by Toby Brothers and Jackie Seigler
- May 29th- June 5th 2021; program will run approx. four to five hours per day (one day open) leaving time for other activities
- Recommended editions: The Portrait of A Lady by Henry James (Norton Critical Edition, ISBN-10: 0393938530); The Silent Duchess by Dacia Maraini (Arcadia Books Jun. 2010 ISBN-10: 190641372X)
Fees: Includes all yoga and salon study, accommodation , 3 meals a day & tea/biscuits and fruit.
- £1,200 Single
- £875 Shared Double
- £785 Triple shared
- £750 for non-participating partners
Not included: Travel to the retreat (flights to Rome)
Further queries and reservation instructions, please contact: Jackie – Jackie@seigler.co.uk
Opening notes will be sent after registration.
The Place– La locanda della Quercia Calante
In the heart of verdant Umbria, in Castel Giorgio, only hills and nature surround the Locanda della Quercia Calante, charming holiday farm in an old farm house, renovated according to natural architectural principles. 18 kilometers from Orvieto, in the province of Terni, it is the ideal spot for those who want a fully natural vacation, in an environmentally friendly atmosphere at a natural pace of life. Energizing water pool, holistic spa center with yoga room, restaurant with local and vegetarian cuisine, fourteen rooms without electromagnetic fields…
http://www.querciacalante.com/home-en/
- full board in single or double/twin rooms /triple rooms/ quadruple (family)rooms with services and private veranda on the park.
- two coffee-tea-herbal teas, fruit etc. Breaks each day.
- use of one of the large yoga studios
- free use of the large complex of two swimming pools (300 m2) and one large spa in the park (during the summer). Salt filtering systems without chlorine.
- excellent and fresh food, mostly organic, very well cooked. Possibility of traditional Italian, mixed, vegetarian or vegan food (one choice for the entire group).
- all the rooms are perfectly heated in winter and cooled during the summer.
In your free time you can visit the beautiful surroundings: art cities of Orvieto, Siena, Todi or Etruscan and medieval sites, Bolsena Lake and thermal springs.
The Yoga:
Jackie Seigler – Yoga teacher
Jackie’s teaching style is very much drawn from Ashtanga yoga. Her practice is continually evolving; she describes her style of yoga modern postural yoga with an emphasis on core stability as well as flexibility. Her goal in teaching is for students across all ages and body types to establish a more regular and fulfilling practice.
Jackie continually reviews, investigates and modifies her self-practice to make her teaching practice more accessible to everyone.
When one becomes a yoga practitioner you become an eternal student.
The idea of our retreat together is ‘Reading The Body’: our yoga and meditation practice in the morning will be a great place to begin that work.
The afternoon class will be a combination of Restorative yoga, yoga Nidra and technical alignment-based sessions so we can work and build on a specific pose.
Restorative yoga is all about slowing down and opening your body through passive stretching, the centring of your breath and body, and aligning the physical and mental by practicing stillness or gentle movement for extended periods of time. The props assist in helping you to hold poses longer. During the long holds of restorative yoga your muscles can relax deeply. It’s a unique feeling because props, rather than your muscles, are used to support your body. Restorative classes are very mellow, making them a good complement to more active practices and an excellent antidote to stress.
Yoga Nidra, a state of conscious deep sleep, is a simple yet profound technique that unwinds the nervous system and induces complete physical and mental relaxation with inner awareness.
The Literary Salon:
Toby Brothers – London Literary Salon Director
The London Literary Salon creates community around the study of great literature. The Salon offers unique and inclusive discussion-based studies of literature—weaving the ideas of participants with questions the books raise about what it is to be human. Carefully facilitated, each study is dynamic and expansive in scope.
Drawing on the success of the LLS, we are expanding the studies by offering retreats that place participants in locales that reflect and open up the literature. The LLS retreat offers a more intensive immersion in the book while opening the mind to a part of the world illuminated through the beauty of the language.
I am considering two works for this study: A Portrait of a Lady by Henry James and The Silent Duchess by Dacia Maraini. Both of these works consider Italy as both setting and cultural idea, and both explore the struggle for an independent mind to be authentic in stifling cultural roles and relationships.
A Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
The book is a painted portrait or even a kaleidoscope. We watch and guess what Isabel will do. But like a portrait, she is (perhaps) caught in a frame and frozen by the artistry –or the terms of her world.
Previous studies have included considerations of gender roles, the negotiated space between self and other, the corruption or freedom offered by privilege, the challenge of looking at nationalities in generalizations (and the tempting ease to do so), the ways in which humans reveal themselves…these Salon discussions are full of wonder: the meeting of the gathered minds and the provoking text is a powerful thing.
Ralph Waldo Emerson seems to echo in the lines and characters of Henry James, Isabel in particular.
“You think of me the child of my circumstances: I make my circumstance…I—this thought which is called I, –is the mould into which the world is poured like melted wax. The mould is invisible, but the world betrays the shape of the mould. You call it the power of circumstance, but it is the power of me.” –from Emerson’s essay The Transcendentalist
Our study of PoAL may include a consideration of this quote in light of Isabel’s life and choices: how much do we make ourselves? How does the world impose itself on the individual in the act of self-creation?
The Silent Duchess by Dacia Maraini
Finalist for the International Man Booker Prize, winner of the Premio Campiello, short-listed for the Independent Foreign Fiction Award upon its first English-language publication in the UK, and published to critical acclaim in fourteen languages, this historical novel by one of Italy’s premier women writers has mesmerized readers globally.
In luminous language that conveys both the keen visual sight and the deep human insight possessed by her remarkable main character, Dacia Maraini captures the splendor and the corruption of Marianna’s world and the strength of her unbreakable spirit.
Maraini paints a vivid and unflinching representation of 18th century Sicilian Italy. It is often shocking in its honest portrayal of the inequalities at the heart of that society. From the excesses indulged in by the nobility while the majority lived in abject poverty or were subject to the most barbaric punishments should they err, to the utter powerlessness and abuse of women of any class.
The silent duchess of the title, Marianna, is deaf and mute. Her muteness is symbolic of all women of her time who had no say in anything at all. In the patriarchal system which prevailed, all decisions and choices were made for them. Not that many choices were afforded them; they either ended up in a convent or were married off at an appallingly young age for paternal gain. It seemed the convent was preferable, as Marianna’s sister thrived in her role as a healing nun. (from Jenny Lloyd, Goodreads Review)
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