Gods and monsters are notably absent from the first of two new films based on Homer’s Odyssey, which focuses on the end of the poem as Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca to find Penelope besieged by suitors. Out in the UK today (it was released in the US at the end of 2024) Uberto Pasolini’s The Return reunites Ralph Fiennes and Juliet Binoche for the first time since the multi-Academy Award winning dramatisation of Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient, and it’s hard to avoid reviews and comment in print, online and broadcast media. Here is a link to Peter Bradshaw’s Guardian review (which includes a brief trailer for the film).
Meanwhile, preparations are afoot for the 2026 release of Christopher Nolan’s “action fantasy” interpretation of the epic, apparently described by Universal Pictures’ US head of distribution as “a visionary, once-in-a-generation cinematic masterpiece that Homer himself would quite likely be proud of.” Aside from the Trump-style hyperbole, The Odyssey does seem to be having a moment more than two-and-a-half thousand years after it was first written, so we are taking the opportunity to remind the Salon community (and friends and family) that there are still two places available on our week-long study on the Greek island of Agistri. It will be an amazing trip, email us if you would like to know more!
News from the US last month about growing numbers of students at elite universities who can’t read whole books (revealed in The Atlantic magazine) was immediately echoed by UK academics. Earlier in the year a report from UK charity the Reading Agency (whose mission is to empower people of all ages to read) found that half of UK adults don’t regularly read and almost one in four young people aged 16-24 say they’ve never been readers.
While some people find the prospect of reading literature simply overwhelming, others find it difficult to overcome barriers including lack of time, as well as competing distractions from electronic devices and bite-size chunks of instant entertainment. Fortunately, there are also many who remain convinced that reading is a unique way of expanding our understanding of the world and our empathy for others. Sharing the experience of individuals in different times, places and circumstances through reading expands our consciousness, our sensitivity and our imagination in unique ways.
We continue to offer opportunities to be part of a community reading wonderful books from authors writing originally in a range of languages, from places real and imagined, and covering milliennia from the ancient world to the present day. Already on the menu for 2025 are new studies of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time and James Joyce’s Ulysses starting in January. Also booking now are Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, not to mention travel studies reading Homer’s Iliad and Euripides’ Trojan Women in Greece, and Herman Melville’s Moby Dick on board a traditional sailing ship. Much more – poetry, drama, philosophy, history of art – will follow soon. Join us if you can!
If you are thinking about joining our Proust or James Joyce studies check out these lectures and discussions led by Toby Brothers and coming up in the next few weeks (the cost is redeemable against the study price if you decide to sign up):
“Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed . . .”
For many of us the opening lines of Ulysses, which usher in the one day (16 June 1904) on which Leopold Bloom takes his long perambulation around Dublin, are so familiar they scarcely need repeating. And yet, there are always people who have yet to read – or re-read – James Joyce’s monumental work of art. For anyone contemplating this journey through time we are planning a new Ulysses study starting early in 2025, details will be announced here on the website and in our newsletter soon (please make sure you are subscribed).
We have some incredible readers who are just in the process of completing Ulysses with Toby, after six months of what she describes as: “mad reading, struggling for understanding, deep probing of textual complexity, gender roles and identifications, the awful weight of history, antisemitism, the haunting of grief and the meaning of the lemon soap – a lovely group of readers have triumphed in their work with Joyce – their final meeting happens this week.”
Unusually, we are not celebrating Bloomsday formally this year, BUT the gallery above is a reminder of Bloomsday and other Joyce-related events the Salon has enjoyed in recent years (and there will be more in the future). Meanwhile, here are a few things going on if you are keen to find a last minute opportunity:
The London Balloonatics, who can normally be found on Bloomsday re-enacting Bloom’s Dublin walk on the streets of London, are instead walking in Dublin this year (find them on the Bloomsday Festival website link below) but offer this audio for those of us who are not in Dublin with them!
Our friends at Audrey are offering a ‘listen-along’ Ulysses opportunity.
For anyone in Dublin the James Joyce Centre’s annual Bloomsday Festival has lots going on this weekend, as does the Derry-based YES Festival celebrating female creativity with a focus on Molly Bloom’s soliloquy.
In London the Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith is offering a play Norah & Jim and an art exhibition based on Ulysses.
Karina, Toby & DavidSharon & TobyToby by the Pyports lawnDavid describes the Lushington Archive
The inimitable Sharon Bylenga, long-time supporter of the London LitSalon and Virginia Woolf devotee, recently discovered the depth of the links between Woolf and the Lushington family, three generations of whom lived in Pyports, a handsome residence in Cobham, Surrey. Sharon introduced us to Cobham-based historian and archivist David Taylor, author of The Remarkable Lushington Family, and the idea for a unique ‘in-person’ event was born.
On a sunny June Saturday, a group of enthusiastic Woolf readers joined us in the main hall and garden of Pyports (a private house, generously opened to us by the current owners) to hear David Taylor and Karina Jakubowicz, Woolf scholar, LitSalon facilitator and presenter of the Virginia Woolf Podcast, ‘in conversation’ with the Salon’s founding director and lead facilitator Toby Brothers.
Virginia Woolf herself admitted that Mrs Dalloway, a recurring character in several of her works of fiction, most notably the eponymous Mrs Dalloway, was based on Kitty Lushington. Over the years there has been much speculation about the life of Kitty (who, on marriage to the writer and journalist Leopold Maxse, became a celebrated socialite) and her untimely death. The panel discussed the extent to which they believe Kitty’s life was accurately represented in Woolf’s writing and, more broadly, the differences between the approach of the historian and the writer of literary fiction. Thought-provoking questions and observations from the audience about historical record and works of imagination completed a fascinating exploration of life and art, followed by drinks on the Pyports lawn where Virginia Woolf and Kitty Lushington once gathered beneath the ancient cedar tree that remains standing today.
For information about forthcoming LitSalon studies (including reading Woolf in Cornwall this autumn) please make sure you are subscribed to our newsletter and do check out Karina’s wonderful Virginia Woolf podcast for Literature Cambridge!
I recently had to confess to our new facilitator, Anne Boyd Rioux, author of the highly acclaimed Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why it Still Matters, that I have never really warmed to Little Women. This is in spite of its strong credentials as the archetypal feminist fiction and a book that has inspired countless women – many of them (including luminaries such as Simone de Beauvoir, Patti Smith, Coretta Scott King and Zadie Smith) celebrated for their talents and tenacity – to emulate the character of Jo March in forging their own brilliant careers.
On reflection I wonder to what extent my feelings are based on an instinctive distaste for the title (even as a child I thought it demeaning) and that of its sequel Good Wives. Anne patiently explained to me that in the US Little Women was first published in two volumes, the first in 1868 followed by Little WomenPart Two in 1869, soon thereafter becoming a single book following its huge success. However, here in the UK (and the rest of the English-speaking world), the publishers – rather than the author – persisted in maintaining two volumes: Little Women and Good Wives.
Further confusion was caused in 1880 when the US publisher produced a new edition in which much of the language of the original text was ‘improved’ by, for example, amending the March girls’ use of the “ain’t” to “am – or is, or are – not”, in the process robbing the original prose of its vitality! For this reason Anne urges readers to seek out the original text and recommends the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition (ISBN: 978-0143106654).
All of the above (further encouraged by this New Yorker article) has led me to the conclusion that I should re-read Little Women (in its original form) with an open mind and, if my schedule allows it, join her Reading Little Women study starting on 29 March!
Even though days are getting longer, mornings lighter and sunsets later, February can be a grind. As we await the arrival of Spring we’re looking forward to getting away from it all in the coming months, so here’s a reminder that this year we have more opportunities to read great literature in evocative locations than we’ve ever offered before.
Some of our travel studies – Jacob’s Room on the Sussex Downs, The Oresteia in Greece, ‘Reading the Body’ in Umbria – are already fully booked, but there are still a few places left to read Homer’s Odyssey on the gorgeous Greek island of Agistri, and Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouseand Between the Acts in St Ives.
Some feedback from participants in previous travel studies gives an idea of what to expect:
The Odyssey on the island of Agistri, April/May 2022
“Discussing Homer whilst gazing out at the Aegean . . . heaven!”
“Rested? Not really, as there was simply so much to do, all of it interesting. Energised? Definitely . . . “
“Agistri and Rosy’s provided a wonderful setting which was both peaceful and invigorating. I so appreciated being surrounded by the beauty – bees buzzing in orange blossom – and being by, and in, the sea. This scenery that Homer would have known really enhanced the experience of studying the text.”
“The group was amazing and I loved your insights and questioning of the text. It was an amazing and enriching experience.”
“It was a wonderful trip . . . I think the landscape, especially around the islands, is so seductive that you can see how these wonderful texts were written.”
To the Lighthouse in St Ives, September/October 2022
“The collaboration between facilitators and participants was rich indeed and I wonder how it was accomplished that everyone in the group was so insightful and intelligent and I might even say soul-searching.”
“Wonderful . . . The studio where the discussion took place is a beautiful, extraordinary place, the participants were imbued with the light and landscape, creating a friendly and committed atmosphere. The two facilitators were wonderful – knowledgeable and sensitive, understanding in depth not just the book but the group as a whole.”
Meanwhile, if writing is your preferred route to escaping the February blues, your creative juices are stirring and you fancy some armchair travel, there is still time to register for Alison Cable’s ‘Writing for Wellbeing’ workshopJourneys beginning on 20 February.
Email us if you are tempted by any of our studies and would like to know more!
And, last but not least, although it’s not part of our own schedule, we’d like to mention Salonista Harriet Griffey’s Writers’ Retreat in Spain from 10-17 June. Harriet explains:
Writers’ retreat with Harriet Griffey at Las Chimeneas, Spain, 10-17 June 2023
Whether you are completely new to writing or are trying to begin, develop or complete a piece of work, this writers’ retreat facilitated by Harriet Griffey (ex-publisher and author of Write Every Day) offers creative space to do so, along with one-to-one feedback and optional group opportunities to share and discuss your writing progress.
Set in the peaceful village of Mairena in the beautiful Alpujarra region of Spain, prices including full board and airport transfer (excluding flights) for a week’s retreat range from €860-€1050. Further details and booking at:
Co-facilitator of the study, Sarah Snoxall, expressed concerns shared by all of us that we should consider carefully the possibility of withdrawing it and the extent to which the proposed boycott might be relevant to our work. After much discussion, we agreed that we all oppose the idea of cancelling any kind of cultural activity unless it can be shown to be harmful. On reflection, we also concluded that reading what Freud described as “the most magnificent novel ever written” and examining, within the study group, the profound moral questions posed by Dostoevsky, would do nothing to flatter Putin’s regime or to undermine the right of Ukraine to resist invasion.
Much has been written about Russia and Ukraine since the launch of Putin’s ‘special operation’ earlier this year, but a 2014 article in the Los Angeles Review of Books, written in the aftermath of the annexation of Crimea, draws on images from The Brothers Karamazov of two intertwined and opposing abysses – the basest and the highest – to portray the essence of the Russian soul, underlining the political and moral relevance of this work to the contemporary world.
Dostoevsky is allegedly (with Tolstoy) Vladimir Putin’s favourite author, and The Brothers Karamazov is reputedly his favourite novel. Sarah’s co-facilitator, Keith Fosbrook, makes the point that the meaning of a work of art is always contestable and, as a result, art can always be used for the purposes of political propaganda . . . An article on Lit Hub, Dear Vladimir Putin: If You’ve Read Dostoevsky, You’ve Tragically Misunderstood Him examines this in more detail, the author, Austin Ratner, concluding: “Those who have read and understood The Brothers Karamazov know exactly how to measure Dostoyevsky—and how to measure Putin.”
If you would like to decide for yourself, there are still a few places left on The Brothers Karamazov, which promises to be an engrossing exploration of this extraordinary work of art.
In troubled times we all hope for better things. The current state of the world and its problems – global warming, pandemics, political extremism, economic crises to name just a few – lead many of us to speculate with dread about a dystopian future.
So, could there be a better time to reflect on the concept of Utopia, the perfect and ideal state? Seductive but unobtainable, what did Thomas More, the originator of Utopia (literally ‘no place’) really mean when he wrote his most famous work, published in 1516? How much have things changed over the centuries? How much can they change when the fundamentals of human nature and motivation remain the same?
Vivien Kogut’s four-week exploration of Thomas More’s Utopia will discuss society, power and freedom. Subjects of relevance in the sixteenth century remain just as topical in today’s world: social inequality, individual freedom, the motivation of politicians, how to limit power.
Ultimately the study will consider whether a more egalitarian society is viable, what would an ideal world look like and where we are today.
Vivien Kogut’s Thomas More’s Utopia (part of a series on The Renaissance through texts and objects) begins on 18 October 2022.
Everything we do at the London Literary Salon is in some way about the power of words. Often this means reading and sharing responses to literature with others, but we are also committed to the idea of providing opportunities for people to use writing as a means of promoting their own mental wellbeing and resilience.
Our ‘Reading and Writing for Wellbeing’ workshops led by Alison Cable help participants to write, with the primary aim of encouraging self-development. Some people regard it as a kind of literary yoga!
The focus is always on process rather than product. People may be invited to share their work with others in the group – and many choose to do so – but this is entirely voluntary. Sessions often begin with a short free-writing warm-up which Alison describes as “a continuous blurt” with no worries about grammar, spelling, content, form or audience. She explains “Start with your grocery list, or a doodle, if that’s where you are. Anything at all. No one will read it unless you want them to.”
For many of the writing exercises Alison uses prompts from poetry and prose by well-known writers which members of the group read together. For example, the theme of ‘place’ inspired by Virginia Woolf’s eerie and puzzling story The Haunted House in which a ghostly couple search for their ‘hidden joy’. Writers are free to use fantasy, reality, metaphor – anything that works – with no pressure to label or focus on personal experience.
These workshops provide a safe and supportive environment in which to cultivate self-exploration and expression. The groups are guided by principles embodied in the acronym CARE – confidentiality, attention, respect and empathy. Participants are welcome to share their writing and reflections without judgement or criticism, Alison stresses that “whatever you write is right!”
Some feedback from past participants:
“Alison Cable creates such a safe, fun, non-judgmental space that even I can’t turn it into a struggle . . . In this space both reading and writing are joyful.”
“A great experience. Alison strips away the pressure and self-criticism often associated with writing and enables participants to write first and foremost for themselves.”
Writing for Wellbeing workshops currently booking:
For Ulysses readers past, present and future who didn’t catch Adam Low’s film James Joyce’s Ulysses on BBC2 last night, it will remain available to view online for the next eleven months.
Over an hour and a half the film visits Trieste, Zurich, Paris and Dublin, telling the tale of how Joyce came to write his masterpiece, the struggle to get it published and how he and Nora Barnacle lived their lives together. With archive footage and contributions from scholars and writers including Salman Rushdie, Colm Tóibín, Anne Enright, Howard Jacobson, Eimear McBride, Paul Muldoon, John McCourt, Nuala O’Connor, Vivien Igoe and many others. Apologies to those who can’t access the BBC but catch it if you can!
