Coming Salons

The Brothers Karamazov – Vladimir Putin’s favourite novel?

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Earlier this month, when Ukraine’s culture minister called on the world to boycott Tchaikovsky and other ‘Kremlin-favoured’ works until the war in Ukraine is over, we were prompted to discuss whether we should be reading great Russian literature in the Salon at this time. The prospect of a new Brothers Karamazov study starting on 11 January made it an urgent question.

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.

The search for Utopia

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Photo by Matt Palmer on Unsplash

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.

What do we mean by ‘Writing for Wellbeing’?

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Photo by Marija Zaric on Unsplash

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:

Experience Poetry 2 (starts 5 October)

Urban Places and Wild Spaces (starts 1 November)

Experience Poetry 3 (starts 2 November)

Why read The Secret Agent in 2022?

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“Nobody looked at him. He passed on unsuspected and deadly, like a pest in the street full of men.”

― Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent

With so many books available in a multiplicity of forms, and the impossibility of reading everything we might be attracted to, why pick up The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad?

Conrad has long been admired and loved by readers and we may wish to see for ourselves why this is so. For me, he has an unusual and arresting literary style, a penetrating, realistic (some say pessimistic) view of human behaviour and experience, offering analysis on both individual and socio-political levels. He has outstanding, sometimes complex, narrative powers and a persuasive empathetic understanding.

On a less general level, some features of Conrad’s writing serve to define his sensibility as modern and of clear relevance to our twenty-first century preoccupations. Globalisation was getting into its stride as he wrote his tales, and they are saturated with issues which still concern us today. His profound confrontation of terrorism, racism, colonialism, alienation and the power of international capitalism often appears startlingly prescient. From his writer’s desk, he reflected on the rapidly changing world of his time, drawing on his early experiences on board the ships which facilitated the development of intercontinental communications.

Living at a time of such rapid innovations, he was profoundly aware of flux and change in human life. A child of the nineteenth century, he was stunned by the discovery of entropy, and the concomitant view of our earth as a planet which will eventually wind down and die rather than being preternaturally favoured by a benevolent divine being. In Conrad’s lifetime the so-called ‘Death of God’, trumpeted by Nietzsche, was still a fledgling idea, jostling to establish itself. In adopting the positivist stance of his time and a non-religious viewpoint, Conrad faces towards the twentieth century. He lived when the times they were a-changing, and this is reflected in his creative response to developments in the novelistic arts. Some critics, rather patronisingly, think of him (along with Henry James) as forming a bridge between realism and modernism, condescendingly suggesting that he is neither one thing nor the other. They seem to regret that he cannot be pigeon-holed more precisely!

Finally, there are also some very specific reasons for reading this book now. A terrorist action is at its heart, and many contemporary readers – made shockingly aware of terrorism in our own century – have turned for enlightenment to Conrad’s novel. Whether they have found it, I cannot say, but the instinct of turning to literature in the hope of gaining some understanding of such a disturbing phenomenon seems to me to be a good one. I am also convinced by my reading of both this book and Under Western Eyes that Joseph Conrad, if magically resurrected today, would instantly recognise Putin’s strategy and sense an astonishing continuity in Russia’s current foreign policy.

But, we are talking about a work of the imagination and we can never be sure where it may lead us. The central character in Conrad’s novel is a refugee/immigrant, trying to forge an identity for himself in a strange country. This is, of course, rather like Conrad himself, but current preoccupations may mean that the themes of immigration and identity strike us more strongly than any others. Who knows? The only way to find out is to read this extraordinary book . . .

Keith Fosbrook will facilitate a five-week study of The Secret Agent starting on 4 October.

Closer to Fine

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Photo by Mark Lewis on Unsplash

August is the moment when I breathe in and gaze across the previous months of studies and work. This August feels particularly welcome: the Salon has grown with the incredible energy of the new facilitators (new as in going from myself and Mark a few years ago to a current staff of 13) and Nicky Mayhew keeping the Salon ship moving with communications, strategic advice and administrative support. We are also indebted to Sophie and crew at TPR media who have helped raise the Salon profile with interviews and news on Start the Week, BBC London and more.

At the heart of our work is always the experience of the studies themselves: the magical and enriching journey through the words into the blossoming spaces of imagination and contemplation. I am sharply aware that all around me the world is challenged with wars and violence, with climate change and suffering. I am also aware that the monsters of intolerance and prejudice are swelling, greedy in their appetite for discord. Sometimes I realise the Salon discussions offer an escape—an immersion in the artistic rendering of the human mind that emphasizes the lyric and generous visions of writers able to illuminate all aspects of our living.

But it is more than an escape. Within Salon discussions we learn to form and speak our insights to provocative ideas. We learn to hear each other and even—perhaps especially—to disagree respectfully, opening our minds to differing views and the reflections of others. Stepping out of our individual perspective and entering into the mind of an author, a character, another being—this is the practice of empathy. I experience this both in deep reading and discussion of the literature, and also in focused engagement with the participants in a Salon discussion. 

Mohsin Hamid recently explored the dangerous progression he has witnessed towards binary thinking and how reading and writing literature pushes against it, read his article here.

“I wrote this novel to explore what it has been to be myself, and also to explore what it is to be other selves. I intend it as a means for readers to do the same. We risk being trapped in a dangerous and decadent tyranny of binaries. Perhaps fiction can help us investigate the space between the ones and zeroes, the space that presently seems empty, impossible, but then, when entered, when occupied, continues to expand and expand, bending and stretching and eventually, possibly, revealing its unexpected capacity for encompassing us all.”

Mohsin Hamid

August is also the time (well, of course, it should be July or earlier but, hey, we are all doing the best we can) when we plan and announce the bulk of the studies for the coming year. This has been a big year for Joyce and Ulysses (one hundred years since publication) and I am still basking in the afterglow of the three study groups—one for returning readers, with whom I was privileged to explore again, more deeply, this incredible work that celebrates curiosity, fantasy, and desire while skewering one-eyed prejudicial perspectives. The Bloomsday festivities—in London and in Dublin—were particularly sweet this year. The building Ulyssian energy has prompted a new ‘Slow Read’ of the great book, commencing in October, rolling forward in ten-week waves so participants can join along the way. This format echoes the Finnegans Wake approach that is now on its second cycle after four years of study, and it is so satisfying to dwell in such a complex text with the time and space for careful consideration. 

There are so many wonderful and unique studies coming in the next few months. I am still harnessing the right words to express the particular magic of the travel studies—this past year in St Ives, Umbria and Greece—these adventures create on-going groups connected through their combined love of literature and adventure. We are working on the travel offerings for the coming year, and this year’s September/October St. Ives studies are in place with one remaining space for Virginia Woolf’s The Waves as I write.

Thinking across the variety of genres, historical and social contexts that we offer in the Salon, an old verse from the folk-rock duo Indigo Girls plays on the edges of my mind. My hungry brain seeks an answer, THE answer (how to fight inequities in power and resources, what is the best way to live, what confers meaning on our existence?), but the study of great writing bends my mind towards possibilities and means of expanding my understanding. Art can offer a gasp of insight to the big questions—not to stop the asking but to find a moment of solidity on the climb. 

And I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains
There’s more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
And the less I seek my source for some definitive
(The less I seek my source)
Closer I am to fine, yeah

Indigo Girls, Closer to Fine

Bloomsday 2022!

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So, in the centenary year of Ulysses, this year’s Bloomsday on 16th June was – perhaps slightly confusingly – the 100th (from publication) or the 116th (from the setting of the book in 1904).

Either way, devotees of James Joyce and his most famous work continue to use the day as as a reason to celebrate all things Joycean and in particular the fabulous characters that populate Ulysses, most notably Leopold and Molly Bloom and Stephen Dedalus. Below are some of this year’s highlights for the LitSalon.

‘Bloomsday’ by Nick Midgley on RTE Radio 1

Nick Midgley’s radio play Bloomsday, dramatising the relationship between James Joyce and his brother Stanislaus and their time together (with Nora Barnacle) in Trieste, was broadcast on RTE Radio 1 on Sunday 12 June and can still be heard online.

The Bootleg Balloonatics’ Bloomsday Walk in Tufnell Park,
12 June 2022

The Bootleg Balloonatics – organiser Chris Bilton, Paul Dornan and John Goudie – invited Toby Brothers to join them (playing Molly, Milly and Mrs Breen) for a two-hour recreation of Leopold Bloom’s Dublin perambulations in London’s Tufnell Park, performed for an appreciative travelling audience of around 50, ending with gorgonzola sandwiches in the Dartmouth Arms . . . Read more in the Camden New Journal here.

Bloomsday in Dublin, 16 June 2022

A group of intrepid Salonistas – including Sheila Fitzgerald, Leah Jewett, Paul Caviston, Zita Moran (to name just a few) – visited Dublin to enjoy Bloomsday celebrations in situ. The day included the Dublin Balloonatics’ Bloomsday Walk led by founder Paul O’Hanrahan, an early morning swim from the Forty Foot (that’s Toby diving in), a variety of period costumes, a visit to The James Joyce Centre, and an Eccles Cake (or perhaps it’s a toasted teacake) in Eccles Street . . . a good time was had by all!

At a specially convened celebratory lunch on the following day, Toby – who has guided so many in the Salon through this extraordinary literary journey – recited her poem about launching a new Ulysses study:

Launching Ulysses study

A new study begins…
First time faces gather in Hollywood Squares
Alarmed face asks me
Why did he come?
Courtesy or an inward light?

Will they find their way?
Will they stumble and fall into ineluctable modality of the impossible?
This reader wants into the fray, but
“I’m not a believer myself, that is to say…
A believer in the narrow sense of the word.”
And I want to say:
Shut your eyes and See.

Another reader takes tentative steps forward
Her reading wobbles but Buck draws her near
“Are we supposed to like him – or not?”
In Joyce, there are no easy answers. 
In the stilted dance of Telemachus
I hope she will catch a grip
And Joyce whispers close:
“That’s the bucko that’ll organise her, take my tip.”

A frustrated reader who hasn’t yet learned to swim in Jim
Scratches at the text
But it is himself he fears
Plenty to see and hear and feel yet.
“The only thing is to walk,
Then you’ll feel a different man. 
It’s not far – lean on me.“

I hope they will hear in a profound 
Ancient male unfamiliar melody
The accumulation of the past.  

I hope that they will hear
The chant of a quick young male form
The predestination of the future.

Look out—gender fireworks ahead
Who will stumble? O, so many rocks!
“Possess her once take the starch out of her”
“O wept! Aren’t men frightful idiots!”
“She does whack it, by George!“
So many cocks. 

But if—o, but if they can find
The ample bed-warmed flesh

Yes                Yes        
FORWARD woozy Wobblers!
Old Ulyssians – Make more room in the Bed!

Reading Ulysses is not only a wonderful literary adventure, it’s also great fun! Our next Ulysses studies (a six-month study beginning in January 2023 and an extended ‘slow read’ option starting in October 2022) are now open for booking.

Also in Dublin . . .

Meanwhile, Salonista Geoff Strange has kindly allowed us to publish below an account of his own independent visit to Dublin for Bloomsday 2022.


The day was long, starting with a brisk walk to the Martello Tower in Dalkey, then walking the strand in Sandymount, then Sweny’s, then The National Museum and for then what we hoped to be a relieving park bench in St Stephen’s Green before our next “appointment.” But could we find a spare park bench anywhere? No! Literally all benches were occupied and occupied, I might add, by a cacophony of bonnet/boater wearing Edwardians, some of whom were even playing American football! At last, we spied a shady bench and after a dash that would impress Usain Bolt, the bench was duly nabbed! We sat and napped only to discover on awakening that we were sat opposite non other than our very own Jim! There he was, plinthed and peering back at us with those dodgy eyes of his. It’s as if he had bequeathed his very own bench to a couple of foot weary flaneurs in our hour of need!   

Suitably reinvigorated we left our bench, said bench soon to be taken up as temporary dug-out for those Edwardian garbed American footballers, and made our way to MoLI for a lecture by Paul Muldoon, Irish poet and general polymath about town. He was giving the inaugural Dedalus Lecture entitled, “Spinoza’s Shillelagh: Some Thorny Issues in Ulysses.” We were treated to an hour of poetic investigation of, wait for it, the first three words of the novel. Can you remember them? Of course: stately, plump, and buck. To Muldoon, the whole book is bound within those three words. It was a fanciful and entertaining romp through Irish and Classical literature! 

The whole sixty minutes was, in a way, quite Joycean, not through design but in the way he was initially interrupted by the reggae band in the garden, then a stream of late attendees with himself, no less, showing them to their seats and then to cap it all, the gentle murmur of somebody’s mobile phone. All of us reached for our pockets but all but one was safe in the knowledge that it was not ours. For the poor eejit that discovered that it was his phone was bad enough but his woeful inability to firstly find the correct pocket and then work out how to switch the damned thing off, all the time the volume of its inane ringtone getting louder and louder, made me think of how Joyce would actually have loved this! 

After that there was only one final destination on the agenda: pints and a toasted sandwich at Peter’s Pub. No, not mentioned by Joyce but this favourite Dublin haunt of mine is so redolent of a bygone era of manners, stools at the bar and none of that musak, maybe similar to Davy Byrne’s in its heyday. As you walk in, they say “how are yer, what’ll you have,” to which the response is two pints please (no need for clarification in this boozer). “No matter, you sit down, and I’ll bring them over. Toastie?” No need to tell you the answer to that! 

Several hours later we are back on the DART speeding past Sandymount Strand with not a firework in sight! We look left across the sea denuded strand, peering into eternity. 

What a day!

Hope your day was special!

And just to say, Toby, how grateful I am to you for your amazing guidance on this epic journey. You certainly opened an old door very carefully to another way of reading and I can’t thank you enough. 

Go raibh mile maith agaibh


The Waves – novel or poem?

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The Waves, first edition
Portrait of Virginia Woolf by Roger Fry

Is it a novel? Is it a poem? What exactly was Virginia Woolf trying to achieve when she wrote The Waves?

In his review in the New York Times in October 1931, critic Louis Kronenberger wrote:

“This prose, this imagery, is not in other words a medium, but an end in itself. The texture of the prose is a warp of sensory impressions woven into woof of poetical abstraction. As prose it has very often a high distinction–it is clear, bright, burnished, at once marvelously accurate and subtly connotative. The pure, delicate sensibility found in this language and the moods that it expresses are a true kind of poetry. And since literature comes before the novel, and “The Waves” reaches the level of literature, whether it is a good or bad novel, or any novel at all, is not really important. Bernard’s summing up at the end, for instance, of what their lives have meant–a cohesive, exquisite and sometimes moving stretch of writing–must be allowed, if no precedent exists for it, to set its own.”

Over the years The Waves has remained one of Woolf’s lesser-known works, perhaps because it defies categorisation and lacks the narrative unity of novels such as Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse. Yes, it can seem difficult, but it is also extraordinarily beautiful, the writing complex and daring. There will be much to discuss during our time in St Ives and two places remain on the Salon study this October!

Midsummer writing . . .

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Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash

June rolls on, and suddenly it’s the middle of summertime in the northern hemisphere – longest day of the year, midpoint of the year. The peak of solar energy, the green stuff bursts forth. Celebrating the Solstice means observing fire and our great living sun, not just literally (our inexorable connection to the sun as a life source), but also figuratively (illumination of the mind, the soul).

Like literature. It’s no stretch that I’m thinking about my favourite midsummer novel, Joyce’s Ulysses – not only 16 June, just a few days before the Summer Solstice in Dublin, but also the longest day in literature (Stephen Dedalus notes at the end of Proteus: “By the way next when is it? Tuesday will be the longest day.”)  It is indeed a long day for Bloom: it’s between 8 and 9.00pm in Nausicaa when he says “Long day I’ve had.”

Readers know there’s still a long way to go! It will be a few hours and a few hundred pages until “the heaventree of stars hung heavy with humid nightblue fruit.” This, my favourite line in the novel comes near the end of that long midsummer day and captures a moment of noticing. An observation of the glorious evening sky. For me, it’s something about seeing the cosmos as a tree that roots me in my tiny here and now every time. It’s perspective. And something about that humid nightblue fruit nourishes . . .

There is still time to book a place on Alison Cable’s three-session Midsummer Writing study running on 14, 21 and 28 June.

What do Greek philosophers from 400 BCE have to say to us in the 21st Century?

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“Can you tell me, Socrates—is being good something you can be taught? Or does it come with practice rather than being teachable? Or is it something that doesn’t come with practice or learning; does it just come to people naturally? “

– from Plato’s Meno

The good news is that Plato’s dialogues are both accessible and enjoyable to a modern audience, particularly when read as part of a group! They are intricately crafted, dramatic philosophical works and the Meno is an excellent place to begin.

In its opening line, the dialogue gets right to the heart of a matter that could hardly be more relevant today. The title speaker, Meno, asks Socrates whether being ‘good’ (a term sometimes translated as ‘virtue’ or ‘excellence’) is a thing that can be taught. Far from being able to answer, Socrates tells Meno that he has no idea of what virtue even is, and nor does anyone else he’s ever met. As they try to find a solid definition of virtue, Socrates and Meno find themselves confronted by some of philosophy’s most basic and profound questions: what can we know, how can we know it, how can we teach, how can we learn? All of which remain as relevant to contemporary life as to the ancient world.

The Meno offers a multifaceted view of Socrates, Plato’s teacher and philosophical protagonist—at times thoughtful, playful, humble, flirtatious, ironic, and slightly abrasive. To this is added an intriguing demonstration of the Pythagorean Theorem by an untutored slave boy, and a brief encounter with an Athenian politician who will later bring Socrates to trial on charges that will lead to his death.

The Meno offers a classic demonstration of Plato’s chosen philosophical format, the dramatic dialogue, in which the drama is sometimes just as important as the participant’ words and ideas. Our Beginner’s Guide to Plato study starts on 28 February.

Dramatic writing workshop: what and why?

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Many Salon participants enjoy writing as well as reading. In response, we have been developing a programme of creative writing studies, most recently with Alison Cable’s Writing for Wellbeing series. The primary aim is not necessarily to prepare for publication, but to develop and enjoy a writing practice as part of self-development.

Now we are offering an opportunity to experiment with dramatic writing which, with its emphasis on structure, character and dialogue, is a way of telling stories that can feed into all kinds of literary creativity and appreciation.

Award-winning writer Jeremy Kamps, Professor of Dramatic Writing at New York University and a Guest Professor for the Pratt Institute writing department, explains the design of his eight-week study:

Our workshop will focus on the craft, process and art of dramatic story. You will write either a film short or a ten minute play (your choice), and our time together will include craft study, story de-construction, rumination on process and voice. Or, in other words, how your story meets and moves the world.

We will engage in peer review using the writer-centred Liz Lerman feedback protocol and there will be an emphasis on the idea that “writing is rewriting” (with its attendant joy and pain). The workshop is not about good or bad, but about how you tell the story you want to tell and why it needs to be told, while also providing some tools and ideas to consider along the way. Professional actors will join us for the culminating reading of our work. 

Click here for more information and booking details.

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