Late Summer-Autumn 2019 thru Spring 2020
Having just returned from another magical St Ives weekend immersed in Virginia Woolf, I am inspired anew by the rare luxury of being in a beautiful place with a group of wonderful minds encountering a work of literature intensely together.
I leave these weekends gasping: they are full on (even as we build in down-time)—the intense engagement with the book fills and expands the mind. There is the added stimulus of the place and the experience of the group: joining together, coming to know each other, pushing against each other, clarifying one’s own thoughts and perspectives as they rub up against others…each retreat feels larger than the actual time—and we are so fully awake.
Here are some participant reflections from this past weekend:
“Thank you Toby for this caring, well organised, managed tour de force VW weekend…”
“Toby you are incredible! it was a wonderful two days which felt like a week…. such a great bunch of women and so interesting. friendships made, insights gained…. lighthouse reached…. perfect…… hope you get some proper down time. thank you thank you!”
Below you will find some of the coming courses– both travelling and in London…always happy to hear feedback on the offerings and what is of interest. Most of the following should be posted and available for registration in the next week.
Fall London Regular
- Monday 5-7 Moby Dick 9 weeks Sept.16- Nov.25
- Tuesday evenings short courses TS Eliot: “The Wasteland” followed by “Four Quartets”
- Wednesdays 1:15-3:15 Finnegan Wake
- Wednesdays 5-7, 7:30-9:30 Proust– Volume II Budding Groove (On-going study)
- Thursdays 12-2 PM Proust Volume IV pt. 2 (On-going study, Salon Full)
Fall travel studies
- Sept 20-22 Camber Sands Beloved (Private group study)
- Nov 22-24 Rye Henry James — Portrait of A Lady
- October 18-21 St Ives Retreat: Between the Acts
- November 15-18 Javier Marías – Infatuations
Spring London Regular
- Continued Proust studies Wednes. Eves & Thursday mid-day
- Continued Finnegans Wake Weds. 13:15-15:15
- Ulysses 2020 January -June Tuesday mid-day & evenings
Spring 2020 Travel Salons
- April St Ives Woolf Immersion (dates to be determined)
- May 3-11 Homer’s Odyssey Greece (posted)
- May 17-24 Umbria yoga & Henry James/Silent Duchess trip
- September 2020 Iliad in Greece (dates to be determined)
“You should approach Joyce’s Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith.”
The legend of the Trojan War is one of the most enduring stories in our culture, inspiring some of our most creative and moving literature and art—from Homer to Shakespeare to Joyce and the present day. The famous Golden Apple and the Trojan Horse are familiar to most everyone, along with the names of Achilles, Odysseus, Hector and Aeneas—and, of course, the ever-enigmatic Helen at the centre of it all.
Socrates was described as poor and ugly, called a “numbfish,” compared to a 
“I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves or figments of their imagination, indeed, everything and anything except me.”
“Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.”
Jane Austen needs no introduction or explanation. She’s a writer unmatched in her ability to parse the workings of the human psyche and the nuances of social interactions. And her novels are simply delightful. In this four-week study we’ll read two of her best: Persuasion and Emma.