Little Women: dreadful title, wonderful book?

26 March 2023 by Nicky Mayhew

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 Women Part 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!

Away from it all . . .

17 February 2023 by Nicky Mayhew

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 Lighthouse and 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’ workshop Journeys 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:

www.writersretreats.org

What is Wide Open Reading?

8 January 20238 January 2023 by Toby Brothers

As 2023 begins we are launching ‘Wide Open Reading’, a series of occasional studies that will be slightly different to those we have traditionally offered, embracing a broader and more diverse variety of writers and texts. Initially focusing on fiction and poetry, every study will comprise 2-4 weekly meetings in London led by facilitators who are continually exploring and developing their in-depth knowledge of these relatively new works.

Our goal is to feature writers ranging from the mid-twentieth century to the present day, traditional or experimental in style, voicing the experiences of people from an unlimited range of places, communities and perspectives. This may include South Asia, the Caribbean, Africa (north, south and central), the Middle East, people of colour, displaced peoples, indigenous peoples, post-colonial experience, exiles, migrants, LGBTQ+ and more . . .

We aim to be genuinely wide open and invite you to join us with a correspondingly wide open mind. Our first title is Mohsin Hamid’s 2007 novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist, with meetings starting in February.

The Mutilated World

21 December 2022 by Toby Brothers

*The Wawel Cathedral, Krakow, Poland, © Toby Brothers, 2022*

Andy and I have travelled to Krakow to meet our daughter, Madeline, who has been working outside of Lviv. She has been doing humanitarian aid work for a small local NGO that is providing food, power and medical supplies to the eastern part of Ukraine that has been destroyed — and then re-destroyed — by Russian missile strikes. I gather her fiercely in my arms, but no encompassing hug, no comforting words can erase the reality of war that she is living. And that reality, despite my over-active imagination, I cannot truly comprehend as I have only read about it. What she speaks about in her time with the Ukrainian guys she works with is their laughter, their teasing, their attempts to understand her feminism against their more traditional gender roles — how they meet the logistical challenges of moving truckloads of donated items across war-torn spaces.

We are reconnecting with her as we wander around the beautiful city of Krakow. I learn more specifically about the cycles of the portioning of Poland and the vast and violent re-drawings of empire that this land bears witness to. We enter the Wawel Cathedral and, amidst the relics of saints and royals, we find the Crypt of National Poets. And there on the wall is a poem, shared with me many years ago in the wake of the 9/11 attacks by my Athenian colleague Lisa Haney, and returned to when the horrors of history and the moment well up in me: Try to Praise the Mutilated World by Adam Zagajewski.

Try to praise the mutilated world

In reading that poem again — in marble, on the wall of this crypt, next to my weary daughter — I feel how the layers of unliveable history shape us. Zagajewski connects the daily acts of praise of living with the web of struggle and loss that we inherit.

You must praise the mutilated world

This is a call, a demand that in spite of the mutilation we should find beauty and coherence. The horror must be included in the blessing. I don’t know how. And I want to turn away. And I know we are all called to learn, to seek understanding where there is grief, to see the scars of the past on the earth.

Praise the mutilated world

I remember first reading this poem in the aftermath of 9/11 and thinking — briefly, self-indulgently — that I had an understanding of living in war. Such an American indulgence! My understanding has become more layered as I contingently watch what happens in Ukraine. As a citizen of London, I am learning all the time how the aftermath of war has shaped and shifted time and place, how it reframes our lives today. The poem reflects how deeply and desperately the mind holds the everyday miracle of living in equilibrium with injustice and violence. The poem connects me to past reckonings with history’s wrath — and gives me the breath of the light of living.

Solstice is a celebration of the necessity of the darkening days with the shift towards more light in our daily cycle. This poem meets that primal movement with the historical movement between times of peace and times of struggle. Zagajewski catches the experience of using our imagination as a way into other stories (the eternal role of the creative arts), other histories. Isn’t this in part why we wander through old buildings, tapestried halls? And it is not really the moments of triumph we seek, but a map of how to negotiate the exiles, the griefs — the blasts into the work of living.

In The New Republic, the poet Robert Pinsky wrote in 1993 that Mr. Zagajewski’s poems, in a collection titled Canvas, were “about the presence of the past in ordinary life: history not as chronicle of the dead, or an anima to be illuminated by some doctrine, but as an immense, sometimes subtle force inhering in what people see and feel every day — and in the ways we see and feel.”

More on Zagajewski can be found in this New York Times obituary from March 2021.

Remembering Javier Marias

24 September 2022 by Toby Brothers

Writer, translator and journalist

*Photo: Javier Marias, Wikimedia Commons*

20 September 1951 – 11 September 2022

I had the wonderful opportunity to study two of the works of Javier Marías in Valencia in the years before the pandemic. Veteran Salonista Robin Tottenham hosted our gatherings on her lovely terrace overlooking Valencia’s glorious Mercado Centrale; Salonistas Keith Fosbrook and Ellie Ferguson had been emphatic in their urging me to dive into the works of Marías—and I am so glad that I did.

At first, I struggled to get a grip on his aesthetic vision. With his works, I often felt that I was a voyeur observing the lives of contemporary people struggling in spaces of passion and betrayal—his characters felt like people I had come to know, the entanglements dramatic but recognisably arising from all-too-common blindspots in human behaviour. But the work of studying Marías with a committed group paid off: I came to understand that what Marías offers is an acute understanding of how human consciousness is revealed in all the forces that press upon our fragile integrity: desire, history, injustice, guilt, betrayal…and how we employ narrative to give a shape to what has happened—even when we cannot shape what has happened into coherence.

I think this quote from a Guardian article on Marías in 2013 gives a sense of his profound probing:

“As a columnist I write as citizen and maybe have too many opinions” – he has published a whole book of just his football articles – “but writing as a novelist is different. I don’t like the journalistic kind of novel which is now rather fashionable. If a book or film takes a good subject from the everyday press – say domestic murders in Spain, which are a historic disgrace – everyone will applaud, but it is easy applause. Who will say it is bad? People say the novel is a way of imparting knowledge. Well, maybe. But for me it is more a way of imparting recognition of things that you didn’t know you knew. You say ‘yes’. It feels true even though it might be uncomfortable. You find this in Proust, who is one of the cruellest authors in the history of literature. He says terrible things, but in such a way that you know that you have experienced those thoughts too.”
Nicholas Wroe, The Guardian, 22 February 2013

We have lost a wonderful writer and philosopher in the death of Javier Marías. I hope to re-visit the works I have read and expand my knowledge of his writings in the coming year. I am grateful to Robin, Ellie and Keith who inspired the Marías studies—and I look forward to more.

“Marías also wrote movingly about old age, and cast an unflinching eye on male-female relationships. The novels often begin with a shocking scene – an unexplained suicide, the sudden death in bed of a lover, a complex love triangle – plunging reader and narrator into the plot-to-be.
The main characters are often translators or interpreters – or, latterly, spies – people who have renounced their own voices, but who are also, in a sense, interpreters of people, which is, of course, precisely what any good novelist aspires to be. In Your Face Tomorrow, the narrator, Deza, is recruited to become exactly that, “an interpreter of people”, whose job it is to write detailed reports on the people he has seen only in videos or via a two-way mirror.”
Margaret Julla Costa, The Guardian, Obituary 15 September 2022

‘A war of narratives’ . . . honouring Sir Salman Rushdie today

18 August 2022 by Toby Brothers

The jacket of the first edition of *Midnight’s Children*

I have taught Midnight’s Children for three decades, in three countries and to readers of many ages and nationalities. The humour and poignancy of the work – as well as its epic vision – buoy the reader through complex history and multiple cultures. The strongest aspect of the book is how Rushdie uses the body and mind of his protagonist Saleem as a canvas on which to illustrate the birth of India as an independent nation, with all its bloody communal tensions and its incredible possibilities. Although it is given to a cruel teacher to point to how Saleem’s physiognomy symbolically represents the continent of India, this is just the more crude slippage between symbol and actuality that Rushdie employs. Saleem’s ongoing struggle for identity and agency – and his cry that the blows he suffers are “not fair” – these more crucially reflect the struggle of India for independence against the forces of other national and tribal power struggles.

This is what narrative can do: in a deft way, a carefully crafted narration makes comprehensible and digestible the huge political and historical forces that impact us all.

The brutal attack on Salman Rushdie, as he was preparing to speak about the importance of providing sanctuary to exiled writers – and appreciating the United States for this – is a reminder of just how threatening free speech is seen to be by regimes of intolerance.

As usual, the author himself says it better:

‘We are engaged in a war of narratives, incompatible versions of reality, and need to learn how to fight it. A tyrant has arisen in Russia and brutality engulfs Ukraine, whose people, led by a satirist turned hero, offer heroic resistance and are already creating a legend of freedom. Meanwhile America is sliding back toward the Middle Ages, as white supremacy exerts itself not only over black bodies, but women’s bodies too. False narratives rooted in antiquated religiosity and bigoted ideas from centuries ago are used to justify this, and find willing audiences. In India, religious sectarianism and political authoritarianism go hand in hand. Violence grows as democracy dies. False narratives of Indian history are at play that privilege the majority and oppress minorities, and are popular, just as the Russian tyrant’s lies are believed.
‘This is the ugly dailiness of the world. How should we respond? It has been said that the powerful may own the present but writers own the future, for it is through our work—or the best of it the work that endures—that the present misdeeds of the powerful will be judged. How can we think of the future when the present screams for our attention, and if we turn away from posterity and pay attention to this dreadful moment, what can we usefully or effectively do? A poem will not stop a bullet. A novel cannot defuse a bomb. Not all satirists are heroes.
‘But we are not helpless. Even after Orpheus was torn to pieces, his severed head, floating down the river Hebrus, went on singing, reminding us that song is stronger than death.
‘We can sing the truth and name the liars.
‘We can stand in solidarity with our fellows on the frontlines and magnify their voices by adding our own. Above all we must understand that stories are at the heart of what’s happening, and the dishonest narratives of oppressors have attracted many.
‘So we must work to overturn the false narratives of tyrants, populists, and fools by telling better stories than they do, stories in which people want to live. The battle is not only on the battlefield. The stories we live in are also contested territories. Perhaps we can seek to emulate Joyce’s Dedalus, who sought to forge in the smithy of his soul the uncreated conscience of his race. We can emulate Orpheus and sing on in the face of horror, and not stop singing until the tide turns, and a better day begins.’
Salman Rushdie’s words delivered at PEN America’s 2022 Emergency Writers Congress

Closer to Fine

8 August 2022 by Toby Brothers

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

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2022

5 June 2022 by admin

Congratulations to Salonista Farah Ahamed, who has been shortlisted for the prestigious Commonwealth Short Story Prize. The overall winner will be announced on 21 June.

You can hear Farah speaking about her story Hot Chutney Mango Sauce here.

The story is included in an anthology of writing about menstruation in South Asia, Period Matters, which Farah has also edited and which is due for publication on 28 June.

Bloomsday – a play for radio

31 May 2022 by Nick Midgley

Have you noticed the way in which, when there is more than one child in a family, each of them tends to be given a particular role? In my case, my mother always used to say that she hoped I would become a banker, or a lawyer – someone who would earn enough money to look after her in her old age. My brother, by contrast, was expected to be ‘an Artist’. It wasn’t entirely clear what this should involve, but clearly included him being somewhat unstable but brilliant, bringing reflected glory to his parents because of his talent, even if the consequence might be a painful (and impoverished) life… It didn’t really matter than I wrote poetry (and had no interest in banking), or that my brother quite liked the idea of having a comfortable and stable life (and maybe even helping to look after his parents in old age). In both our cases, growing up involved us having to work out our own responses to the expectations we were born into…

It won’t come as any surprise, then, that when I started reading about the life of James Joyce, I quickly became fascinated about his relationship to his younger brother, Stannie. As the eldest son of an eldest son, James was his father’s favoured child, carrying all his father’s frustrated hopes for fame and glory. Stannie did his best to follow in his brother’s footsteps, but that meant he was always a step behind – looking up with admiration (and some envy) at his brother’s achievements. From his teenage years onwards, Stannie kept a diary, much of which was filled with commentary on his brother’s life. Some of this was published posthumously, as The Dublin Diaries. He became Joyce’s first reader and critic – and gathered materials for his brother to use in the short stories that were eventually to be published as Dubliners. When Joyce went into exile in Trieste with Nora Barnacle, Stannie followed them out there; working tirelessly to earn enough money to allow his brother to write, often ‘rescuing’ him from the bars of Trieste, where he feared his brother was dissipating his talents. Joyce never fully acknowledged his brother’s contribution. Indeed, he cut the character based on him (Maurice) almost entirely from the final version of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Oh, and when it was finally published, he forgot to include the promised dedication to his brother in Dubliners.

Even today, with biographies and novels about the lives of Joyce’s father, John, his wife Nora, and his daughter Lucia, there is still no full-length book about Stanislaus Joyce. So when I joined the Lit Salon to re-read Ulysses, which I’d first had a go at when I was at university, it was no surprise that I also started to remember my fascination with James Joyce’s brother…

Eighteen months later, and I’m delighted to say that my radio play about the relationship between the brothers, Stannie and James Joyce, is going to be broadcast on RTE, to coincide with this year’s Bloomsday celebrations on 16 June. The play is called ‘Bloomsday’ and tells the story – in a fictionalized form – of the ten years when Stannie lived with James Joyce and Nora Barnacle in Trieste, between 1905 and 1915. Joyce wrote in Ulysses that ‘a brother is as easily forgotten as an umbrella’, and in some ways my play was an attempt to bring Stannie back into the story – indeed, to tell his story, the one that he never really got to write.

A small coda however. After finishing work on the play, and having had so much pleasure reading Ulysses again, I decided to have a go at reading Finnegans Wake with Toby in the Lit Salon. Although I hadn’t known about it at the time I was writing my play, it turns out that Finnegans Wake puts the relationship between two brothers – Shem and Shaun – at the heart of the book. Shem is an artist; and Shaun is a postman, one who can only deliver letters, not write them. So even in his final work, the family roles were still being played out. But I think Finnegans Wake is also a reckoning with these family scripts too. Indeed, despite the contempt in which Shem seems to hold his brother, and the sense of disapproval that Shaun shows towards his irresponsible sibling, in the end they both recognise that they need each other. And love each other. The family roles each were asked to play is part of what makes them who they are; but in questioning and challenging those roles, they also each become the person they should truly be.

Nick Midgley’s radio play, ‘Bloomsday’, will be broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 on Sunday 12 June at 8.00 pm (BST) and will be available online at rte.ie/dramaonone.

More about James Joyce . . .

29 May 2022 by Toby Brothers

Continuing my long association with the City Lit, starting on 13 June I am leading a four-week ‘sampler’ course introducing the first four chapters of Ulysses.

For those who can’t get enough of Joyce – or for those who would like to know what all the fuss is about – this course will immerse you in the realm of Modernism and Joyce’s experimentation with language. Ulysses is the huge book that sits atop most ‘best novels of all time’ lists, but few people have actually managed to read this work. The writing is challenging – but when discussed with a group of readers, with carefully chosen resources, you will be amazed at how much this work will develop your perspective on language, love, nationhood, identity, history and lemon soap. And funny – it is a deeply humorous and at times absurd book. We will consider just the first four chapters of the work: this will introduce readers to the vast wealth of material that the book offers. Most readers, once they have engaged with the book the first time, return repeatedly, finding more with each read.

More Joyce reminders:

On Sunday 12 June Nick Midgley’s radio play Bloomsday will be broadcast on RTE’s Drama on One.
On the same day in London the Balloonatics (joined by, ahem, me) will enact the second annual Tufnell Park Bloomsday Walk.
Meanwhile, a group of Ulyssians and Wakians from the Salon will head to Dublin to experience the carnival in the streets that celebrates this bounding work.

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November 2024

sun03nov4:00 pmsun6:00 pmThe Waste Land by T.S. Eliot4:00 pm - 6:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized BySean ForesterType of studyPoetryDurationFive meetingsVIRTUAL - VIA ZOOM

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*Il Sole,* *Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons*

“In Eliot the very images and the sound of the words—even when we do not know precisely why he has chosen them—are charged with a strange poignancy . . . . And sometimes we feel that he is speaking not only for a personal distress, but for the starvation of a whole civilization.”

Edmund Wilson

This is how Edmund Wilson describes T.S.Eliot’s The Waste Land, one of the most significant poems of the 20th century. The LitSalon has recently studied the Divine Comedy, a poem of psychological depth and crystalline order. Dante was one of T. S. Eliot’s poetic heroes, and Eliot’s poems also contain philosophical and psychological complexity, but crystalline order? No: rather a kaleidoscope of imagery and allusions, a tapestry of mythology, history, and literature, that speaks to a broken modern world.

Yes – Eliot’s poetry is difficult, but that is what makes him an excellent author for a LitSalon study. His poems contain vivid images and memorable language; they challenge us to wrestle with questions that still matter today.

JOINING DETAILS:

Five meeting study (on Zoom) led by Sean Forester

Sundays, 4.00-6.00 pm (UK), 3, 10, 17, 24 November & 1 December

£150 for five meetings, including opening notes and resources

Participants are welcome to use any edition of the poem as long as it has line numbers for reference.

Organizer

Sean Forester

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3 November 2024 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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10November 4:00 pm17November 4:00 pm24November 4:00 pm1December 4:00 pm

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mon04nov1:00 pmmon3:00 pmTHE GUERMANTES WAY (early)The third volume of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time1:00 pm - 3:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby BrothersType of studyLiteratureDurationThirteen weeksVIRTUAL

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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

Facilitator Toby Brothers writes:

Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time is one of the mountains of Modernism. This is my seventh tour through the Search and each visit reveals new nuggets and gasping moments. This third volume considers closely the draw of the social dance and the realm of social power: you might not think the anxious aristocracy of the Belle Epoque will teach you something about the world you live in – you will be surprised. The groups who have made it through the first two volumes in the last six months are lively and welcoming and we have room for two or three more to join us. If you have not read the first two 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.”

While another observes: “I feel really privileged to be gaining a better understanding of Proust’s amazing work and be able to enjoy the intricacies of his language and thoughts . . . the meetings allow plenty of time and space for exploration and our study is reinforced by emails and relevant essays in between meetings. I am very grateful to have this opportunity to join the study.”

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, idealised experience (dreams) and relationships with what our senses perceive that moulds our consciousness.

JOINING DETAILS:

It may be possible for new members to join this group of readers. If you are interested please email litsalon@gmail.com using the subject heading: ‘Joining Proust Group’.

Facilitated by Toby Brothers

Mondays, 1.00-3.00 pm (UK time)

Thirteen meeting study: 5 weeks from 3 June – 1 July 2024, resuming for 8 weeks from 9 September (beginning with a free ‘regathering’ session for all three Proust groups together from 6.00-8.00 pm) and then 16 September – 18 November 2024 at the normal times (N.B. no meetings on 30 September and 7 October)

Recommended edition: Vintage Classics (Moncrieff/Kilmartin/Enright) ISBN-13: 978-0099362418

£390 for thirteen meetings, includes background materials, literary criticism, opening notes and discussion notes

Organizer

Toby Brothers

Salon Director

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4 November 2024 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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mon04nov3:30 pmmon5:30 pmTHE GUERMANTES WAY (for second timers)The third volume of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time3:30 pm - 5:30 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby BrothersType of studyLiteratureDurationThirteen weeksVIRTUAL

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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

This ‘second time around’ study is designed specifically for people who, having completed their journey through Proust’s monumental creation at least once, have the urge to do it again.

Facilitator Toby Brothers writes:

JOINING DETAILS:

It may be possible for new members to join this group of readers. If you are interested please email litsalon@gmail.com using the subject heading: ‘Joining Proust Group’.

Facilitated by Toby Brothers

Mondays, 3.30-5.30 pm (UK time)

Thirteen meeting study: 5 weeks from 3 June – 1 July 2024, resuming for 8 weeks from 9 September (beginning with a free ‘regathering’ session for all three Proust groups together from 6.00-8.00 pm) and then 16 September – 18 November 2024 at the normal times (N.B. no meetings on 30 September and 7 October)

Recommended edition: Vintage Classics (Moncrieff/Kilmartin/Enright) ISBN-13: 978-0099362418

£390 for thirteen meetings, includes background materials, literary criticism, opening notes and discussion notes

Organizer

Toby Brothers

Salon Director

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4 November 2024 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm(GMT+00:00)

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mon04nov6:00 pmmon8:00 pmVirginia Woolf's Short Stories6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByKarina JakubowiczType of studyLiteratureDurationSix weeksVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Event Details

*Portrait of Virginia Woolf by Roger Fry*

Virginia Woolf is deservedly classed as one of the best novelists of the early twentieth century, but what of her short stories? This study is designed to give these shorter texts the time and attention they merit. Participants will discover that they yield the same expansive meanings and levels of complexity as her longer works, and are arguably even more mysterious and engaging.

Far from being mere experiments, these texts serve as expertly and precisely crafted philosophical and aesthetic explorations. Each piece is captivatingly jewel-like, showing off Woolf’s expert handling of imagery and style.

We don’t often offer lectures in the Salon, but this particular study will begin with an introductory lecture by Dr Karina Jakubowicz on Woolf and the short story form. She will provide some background to Woolf as a short story writer before diving into some of the complexities (and controversies) behind her best known shorter works. Participants will then read and discuss one short story per week, covering such seminal texts as Kew Gardens, Mrs Dalloway on Bond St and the fictionalised essay, Street Haunting.

Follow this link to book to join the lecture alone without the following study sessions on individual stories.

Introductory lecture by Karina Jakubowicz (on Zoom)

The Mark on the Wall

Kew Gardens

Mrs Dalloway on Bond St

Solid Objects

Street Haunting

JOINING DETAILS:

Six-week study of Virginia Woolf’s short stories led by Karina Jakubowicz on Zoom

Mondays 6.00-8.00 pm (UK time), 28 October, 4, 11, 18 & 25 November, 2 December

Introductory lecture Karina Jakubowicz followed by five study meetings devoted to individual stories (as listed above)

£200 for six week study including lecture or £30 for the two-hour lecture alone

Please email litsalon@gmail.com for options to add ongoing assessment and certification and/or to access a recording of the lecture.

Organizer

Karina Jakubowicz

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Time

4 November 2024 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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mon04nov6:00 pmmon8:00 pmWilliam Shakespeare's The Tempest6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByJane WymarkType of studyDramaDurationEight weeksVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Event Details

In 1741 a statue in memory of William Shakespeare was erected in Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner. The poet leans on a pile of books and points to a scroll on which are quoted lines from Prospero in The Tempest. By 2012, when the actor Kenneth Branagh – dressed as Isambard Kingdom Brunel – recited a speech of Caliban’s as part of the opening ceremony for the London Olympics, Shakespeare’s reputation as England’s greatest poet and playwright had long been written in stone.

Even so, until the mid 19^th century, adaptations of the play dominated. Foremost was John Dryden’s The Enchanted Island which added several characters – Dorinda, a sister to Miranda, Sycorax became Caliban’s sister, and Prospero was given a foster son Hippolito (a popular ‘breeches’ role for an actress) – and heavily emphasised monarchy as the natural form of government. The actor-manager Charles Macready reinstated Shakespeare’s original text in 1838, but in Charles Kean’s 1857 production the play had to again be heavily cut to allow for many lavish set changes and stage effects.

In the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries Caliban became regarded as the star role, with the actor Frank Benson much admired for hanging upside down in a tree. It was not until the 1970s that a colonial reading of the play emerged, with Jonathan Miller’s production described as ‘the tragic and inevitable disintegration of a more primitive culture as the result of European invasion and colonisation’.

Over the years the play has been adapted as an opera, a ballet, a film and a Bunraku puppet show. In the RSC’s 2016 production, cinematic performance capture projected Ariel onto the stage in real time.

Although it appears as the opening play in the First Folio, in the canon The Tempest is always listed as the last play that Shakespeare wrote entirely alone. It is a fascinating text that we will read and discuss over eight sessions, beginning on Monday 16 September.

JOINING DETAILS:

Eight meeting study on Zoom led by Jane Wymark

Mondays, 6.00-8.00 pm (UK), 16 September to 4 November 2024

Recommended edition: The Tempest, The Arden Shakespeare, edited by Virginia Mason Vaughan and Alden T. Vaughan, ISBN: 978-1408133477

£240 for eight meetings, to include opening notes and background resources.

Organizer

Jane Wymark

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4 November 2024 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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mon04nov6:00 pmmon8:00 pmTHE GUERMANTES WAY (later)The third volume of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby Brothers & Ralph KleinmanType of studyLiteratureDurationThirteen weeksVIRTUAL

Event Details

“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

Facilitator Toby Brothers writes:

JOINING DETAILS:

It may be possible for new members to join this group of readers. If you are interested please email litsalon@gmail.com using the subject heading: ‘Joining Proust Group’.

Facilitated by Toby Brothers and Ralph Kleinman

Mondays, 6.00-8.00 pm (UK time)

Thirteen meeting study: 5 weeks from 3 June – 1 July 2024, resuming for 8 weeks from 9 September (beginning with a free ‘regathering’ session for all three Proust groups together from 6.00-8.00 pm) and then 16 September – 18 November 2024 at the normal times (N.B. no meetings on 30 September and 7 October)

Recommended edition: Vintage Classics (Moncrieff/Kilmartin/Enright) ISBN-13: 978-0099362418

£390 for thirteen meetings, includes background materials, literary criticism, opening notes and discussion notes

Organizer

Toby Brothers & Ralph Kleinman

Salon Director

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Time

4 November 2024 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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tue05nov12:00 pmtue2:00 pmThe Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, by José Saramago 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByDesma LawrenceType of studyLiteratureDurationSeven meetingsVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, published in 1984, was the first best-selling novel of Portuguese Nobel laureate José Saramago.

Set in 1935-1936, Saramago brings Ricardo Reis, one of the heteronyms (literary creations) of Portugal’s great modernist poet Fernando Pessoa, back to Lisbon from his exile in Brazil. Reis reacquaints himself with the city of his childhood, wrestles with love and desire, and converses with the ghost of his old friend Fernando Pessoa, who has recently passed away. Meanwhile the clouds of fascism gather in Europe, and in Portugal.

In the words of its translator, Giovanni Pontiero, this novel is “like some great book of life” ranging over ideas and “issues that no thinking person or artist can ignore.” There are many threads to pull on, and in the course of the study we will converse with Saramago, Reis and Pessoa on truth, on love and death, art, existence and nothingness, solitude and politics, philosophy and the nature of the self.

This study is for anyone interested in engaging in a wide-ranging conversation on these universal themes. But there is also much in this novel that is historically and contemporarily salient as Saramago, not content to merely contemplate the world, engages us in a deep examination of values, personal and political, against the threat of menacing forms of xenophobia and ultra-nationalism.

If you have already participated in the LitSalon Introduction to Fernando Pessoa, this study is an ideal sequel. If you have not yet encountered Pessoa’s work, or if you are interested in doing a future Pessoa study, Saramago’s book is a wonderful entry point into the incredible multiplicity of Pessoa’s literary achievement.

JOINING DETAILS:

Seven week study led by Desma Lawrence

Tuesdays, 12.00-2.00 pm (UK time), 24 September – 5 November 2024

Recommended edition: The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis by José Saramago, Vintage Classics, ISBN: 9781860465024

£210 for seven two-hour meetings, to include introductory notes and resources.

Organizer

Desma Lawrence

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5 November 2024 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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tue05nov2:30 pmtue4:30 pmULYSSES BY JAMES JOYCE - The Slow Read (section 8, Cyclops . . .)THE 'SLOW READ' PART 82:30 pm - 4:30 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby BrothersType of studyLiteratureDurationEleven meetingsVIRTUAL

Event Details

“You should approach Joyce’s Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith.”

William Faulkner

First published on 2 February 1922 – James Joyce’s 40th birthday – UIysses was immediately controversial, described by one Irish critic as “The most infamously obscene book in ancient or modern literature”.

The ‘Slow Read’ is an opportunity to read and relish of one of the greatest novels of all time in the company of others. The ‘Slow’ approach has proved popular within the Salon as our approach is not driven by completion of the text within a defined timescale, rather we focus on full enjoyment of the material.

In a typical session we might discuss – inter alia – the immaculate conception (who does or does not have a navel?), language as a tool of colonialism (and how to subvert it), space between thought and speech, amor matris, cubist paintings, Thoth (Egyptian bird-headed god), changing understandings of Hamlet, Shakespeare’s sex life, the occult, cypher jugglers, Norse mythology, the dialectic within Stephen’s head, the Daedalus-Icarus myth . . . We are all here for the tangents!

Every time I run a study of Ulysses, there is SO much we do not get to consider: I know we may still not get to everything, but this will be an opportunity to go deeper and wider in this amazing work than ever before in Salon studies. Our run rate is about 5-8 pages a week, with frequent check- ins to see if, as a group, we want to slow down, speed up or just wallow.

The ‘Slow Read’ is served in tranches of two-hour sessions – usually between six and ten in number. As long as there is continued interest, I will keep offering this study until we reach the final notes on the text.

If you are interested in this study but have not previously read Ulysses, please contact us to discuss using the enquiry form below.

“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 skilfully 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 marvellous work was immense.”

Ulysses Salon participant

I offer many resources for reading around, but the richness of our work comes from the contributions and independent research from participants. This study is particularly opportune given the abundance of new resources available thanks to the 2022 Ulysses centenary, including the offerings of the recently published Cambridge Centenary Ulysses, the brainchild of Catherine Flynn.

Toby Brothers, Director, London Literary Salon

JOINING DETAILS:

This is the eighth section of the ‘Slow Read’ Ulysses study led by Toby Brothers and occasional guest facilitators from within the group, 11 two-hour sessions, Tuesdays from 2.30-4.30 pm (UK), starting on 17 September and ending on 3 December 2024 (no meeting on 1 October, see full dates below).

If you are interested in joining this study but have not participated in the first seven sections please email the facilitator toby@litsalon.co.uk.

The total cost for this section with all notes and resources is £300.00, we expect to read an average of 8 pages per week.

Please have available these editions in preparation for our study:
- Ulysses, by James Joyce, Annotated Students’ Edition, Penguin Modern Classics 2011, ISBN: 9780141197418. 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

Organizer

Toby Brothers

Salon Director

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Time

5 November 2024 2:30 pm - 4:30 pm(GMT+00:00)

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wed06nov1:00 pmwed3:00 pmShakespeare's Richard II1:00 pm - 3:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByJane WymarkType of studyDrama,LiteratureDurationEight meetingsVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Event Details

*Image © 2022 Dean and Chapter of Westminster*

“ What is your substance, whereof are you made
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?”

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 53

Shadow and substance — and the contrast between them — are recurring preoccupations in the works of William Shakespeare. In Richard II these ideas take centre stage and, as Emma Smith observes in her book This is Shakespeare, go on to spread an ‘unquiet legacy’ over the entire sequence of eight plays concerned with Plantagenet monarchs.

The questions raised by the play are fundamental in the context of a hereditary monarchy. Is there a Divine Right embodied in a crowned monarch? Is it best to dethrone an inadequate ruler, or will the ripples from that lead to an even worse situation?

Richard II is thought to have been written in 1595 and is the first of a tetralogy — followed by Henry IV parts 1 and 2 and Henry V — sometimes called the Henriad. The production history of the play is fascinating: possibly the most famous performance was the one commanded by the followers of the Earl of Essex, which took place the night before his failed rebellion and very nearly got Shakespeare’s company into serious trouble.

Given the politically controversial inclusion of a scene portraying the king being deposed, it is perhaps not surprising that after this the original play languished in the shadows for centuries, appearing only in various Bowdlerised versions. The bias against it continued into the eighteenth century with only two productions recorded, although at least one of these – John Rich’s Covent Garden production of 1738/9 – is reported as using the text “in something near a complete form”.

In the nineteenth century the play became a star vehicle, but yet again the text was sacrificed, in this case to Victorian spectacle rather than to radical rewriting. It was not until the early twentieth century that the play was brought back into the spotlight in its original form by leading producers and actors, including John Gielgud, since when it has been regularly produced.

As we read the play in our own turbulent times and the House of Windsor faces bruising internal conflicts, we will consider, amongst other questions, why is this play so interesting to a modern audience and how relevant are the issues it raises to contemporary rulers?

STUDY DETAILS:

Eight-meeting virtual study (on Zoom) facilitated by Jane Wymark

Wednesday afternoons, 1.00-3.00 pm (UK), starting 9 October 2024

Recommended editions: The Arden Shakespeare, ISBN-13: 978-1903436332 or Folger Shakespeare ISBN-13: ‏ 978-1501146282

£240.00 for eight meetings

Organizer

Jane Wymark

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Time

6 November 2024 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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wed06nov6:30 pmwed8:30 pmMarcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time Volume 6: FINDING TIME AGAINTHE FINAL VOLUME OF PROUST'S IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME - 11 MEETINGS6:30 pm - 8:30 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby BrothersType of studyLiteratureDurationEleven meetingsVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Event Details

“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

With this final volume of In Search of Lost Time we reach the end of the journey for the groups that have been studying Proust for the past two years, and I complete my seventh tour through this mountain of modernism. Each visit reveals new nuggets and gasping moments.

If you are interested in reading Proust from the beginning, please watch our website for the next Proust cycle that will commence early in 2025 and make sure you are signed up for our newsletter in which we announce new studies.

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.”

JOINING DETAILS:

Facilitated by Toby Brothers

Wednesdays 6.30-8.30 pm

Eleven meeting virtual study (on Zoom) from 18 September – 11 December 2024 (N.B. no meetings on 2 and 30 October)

Recommended edition: Penguin Classics Finding Time Again (Patterson/Prendergast) ISBN: 9780141180366 (the Vintage Classics edition: Time Regained ISBN: 978009936271 5 is also acceptable)

£330 for 11 meetings, includes background materials, literary criticism, opening notes and discussion notes.

Organizer

Toby Brothers

Salon Director

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6 November 2024 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm(GMT+00:00)

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thu07nov5:30 pmthu7:30 pmJames, Jim & Huckleberry Finn . . . history reframed5:30 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby BrothersType of studyLiteratureDurationSix meetingsVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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With publication of his latest novel, James, the philosopher, writer and teacher Percival Everett has recharged conversations around race, history and literature. By harnessing that venerable but creaking grandfather of American literature, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Everett has illuminated the space of Black Americans in the historical dialogue of the United States, transcending the silence historically imposed on the enslaved population.

For this study, we will consider some of the sections of Huckleberry Finn that Everett reenvisions in James, but our focus will be on how James centres Black experience in this world of violence and dehumanisation. Twain’s work has been celebrated across generations, but in recent decades the book’s problematic aspects – always present, if we have been attentive – have become the focus of discourse and re-consideration of the text. We have reached the point where a new edition removes all the n-words, as though this might fix the structural racism of that time and of our own.

Focusing on the distinctive power of his portrayal of characters in James, we will explore how Everett dismantles the dehumanisation of Twain’s portrayal of Jim, Huck’s mentor and friend. We will explore how the strange contradictions of Twain’s writing that sought to normalise the racism and violence of the South are brilliantly addressed in Everett’s work.

Our study of these two works will involve far more than just a backwards glance to the oppression of the past. In James, Percival Everett deftly demonstrates how the act of signifying – a practice described by the American literary scholar and cultural theorist Henry Louis Gates Jr. – draws on formidable writings and representations of the past while establishing a more expansive understanding of human identity through language and creative design.

JOINING DETAILS:

Six week study (on Zoom) led by Toby Brothers

Thursdays, 5.30-7.30 pm (UK), 10 October-14 November 2024

Recommended editions: James by Percival Everett (hardback), ISBN-13: 9781035031238; The Adventures Huckleberry Finn Penguin Classics 2014, ISBN-13: 978-0142437179.

£180 for six meeting study

Organizer

Toby Brothers

Salon Director

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7 November 2024 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+00:00)

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wed13nov6:00 pmwed8:00 pmThe IliadHomer's Iliad, translated by Emily Wilson6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized BySusanna Taggart & Caroline HammondType of studyClassical,LiteratureDurationTwelve meetingsVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Event Details

The Iliad is one of the first written works in Western literature, and undoubtedly one of the greatest. Although the story of its composition and recording remains a subject of scholarly debate, we can tentatively date it to the late 8^th or early 7^th Century BCE. It is impossible to overestimate its importance which extends beyond literature to influence art, culture, society and morals – Alexander the Great carried the copy given to him by Aristotle on his campaigns, and John Keats was inspired to write one of his most perfect sonnets after a night of reading.

The Iliad is a thrilling and heart-wrenching poem about war, human mortality and loss. But it is also about friendship, families, the natural world, love and redemption. One of the joys of the work, and perhaps why re-reading is so rewarding, is the richness and relatability of Homer’s world. Richness takes many forms, including a huge cast of characters, vivid language and similes, and how invested we become in this epic story. Homer invites us into a world that is both familiar and strange. The society is patriarchal, slave-holding, monarchical and polytheistic. The text is more than two and a half thousand years old, yet the characters speak directly to our own experience. Who hasn’t feared for a loved one? Or been mad at their boss (hopefully not mad enough to draw a sword against them)? Or wondered at the beauty of the sunrise?

Emily Wilson’s new translation of The Iliad was published to critical acclaim in 2023:

“Wilson’s approachable storytelling tone invites us in, only to startle us with eruptions of beauty… Wilson’s transformation of such a familiar and foundational work is astonishing.”

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, The Atlantic

Using iambic pentameter – the rhythm of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton – Wilson’s translation has the lyrical quality the Ancient Greeks would have experienced as the work is so closely linked to performance. Her writing is brisk and readable and brings a fresh perspective to an ancient tale. It offers additional resources – including maps, footnotes and introduction – which support our reading and engagement with the text.

“Wilson’s translation, in iambic pentameter, runs as swift as a bloody river, teems with the clattering sounds of war, bursts with the warriors’ hunger for battle, and almost every line pulses with endless, terrible loss and mourning: death after death after death.”

Charlotte Higgins, The Guardian

We will combine a close reading of the text with bonus features: poems and art inspired by the epic, consideration of the psychology of war and images of museum exhibits.

The study is divided into two sections: the first six sessions will cover books 1-12, followed by a two-week break and then six further sessions for the final 12 books.

JOINING DETAILS:

Twelve meeting study on Zoom facilitated by Caroline Hammond and Susanna Taggart

Wednesdays, 6.00-8.00 pm (UK), six meetings from 18 September to 23 October (books 1-12), NO meetings on 30 October and 6 November, six further meetings from 13 November to 18 December (books 13-24).

We’ll use Emily Wilson’s translation of The Iliad by Homer (ISBN-10: 1324076143 ; ISBN-13: 978-1324076148)

£420 for 12 meetings with two facilitators, to include opening notes and resources. It may be possible to book the two sections separately, please email litsalon@gmail.com if you would prefer this option.

Organizer

Susanna Taggart & Caroline Hammond

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Time

13 November 2024 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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thu21nov5:00 pmthu7:00 pmPlato's Symposium5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByKeith FosbrookType of studyClassical,Classics & PhilosophyDurationFour weeksVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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It has often been said that Plato’s Symposium is the greatest prose work to survive from the Ancient Greek world. It portrays a group of intellectual men at a dinner party talking about sexual desire and the mysteries of love. Almost all of the men clearly have experience of same-sex relationships and are candid about what this means to them. As a result, the text has sometimes been thought of as a dangerous work, because, to use E M Forster’s ironic phrase, it is frank about the ‘unspeakable vice of the Greeks’. Nowadays, it is easier for us to appreciate the subtlety of Plato’s analysis of gender roles.

A major aspect of Plato’s perspective relates to his view of love as a kind of mystical force which is connected to our sense of beauty and plays an important role in moral education. This vision was very attractive to the Renaissance humanists, and has influenced Christian apologists over the thousands of years in which the book has been read.

For readers who are not particularly interested in philosophy, the text has appeal because Plato, unlike most philosophers, was a gifted writer. He offers us a variety of characters, all doing their best to account for the role of love in our lives. The modern world can boast many self-appointed experts here – including artists, philosophers, doctors, the therapeutic community, gurus, agony aunts and charismatic influencers to name but a few – and Plato presents us with a very similar kind of range, skilfully satirising them all. He finally presents a startling conclusion, when the person who is portrayed as having the deepest understanding turns out to be a woman . . .

There’s a great deal to ponder here, much of it very Greek (whatever that means), but much also that speaks to us with stunning directness across the millennia, and which may even lead you to question what philosophy is.

One final point: the text is riddled with irony, which is not always easy to spot if you are reading silently to yourself. There is much to be gained from reading The Symposium together as a group.

JOINING DETAILS:

Four-week study led by Keith Fosbrook

Thursdays, 5.00-7.00 pm, 21 & 28 November, 5 & 12 December

Please note that it is important we all use the same translation: The Symposium by Plato, Penguin Classics, translated by Christopher Gill, Penguin Classics, ISBN: 9780140449273

£120 for four meetings, to include introductory notes and resources

Organizer

Keith Fosbrook

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Time

21 November 2024 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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tue26nov6:30 pmtue7:30 pmWhy Read Ulysses?Lecture & discussion led by Toby Brothers6:30 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby BrothersType of studyLiteratureDurationOne hourVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Event Details

First published on 2 February 1922 – James Joyce’s 40th birthday – UIysses was immediately controversial, described by one Irish critic as ‘the most infamously obscene book in ancient or modern literature’. This huge and for some readers intimidating text has topped lists of the greatest books of all time since its first publication. It has also developed a reputation as one of literature’s most lauded but least read books, often cited by writers and celebrities in answer to the question ‘what book are you most ashamed (or sorry) not to have read?’

More than a century on, is Ulysses still worth reading? Will it repay the effort required to get through such a massive tome? In this one-off lecture (with plenty of opportunity for questions from and discussion with the audience), London Literary Salon founder Toby Brothers – who in January will lead what is probably (she has lost count) her 25th group of readers through this extraordinary novel – will explain why she believes the answer remains emphatically ‘Yes (yes, yes)!’

And here is a comment from one current participant in our Ulysses ‘Slow Read’ study:

“I am thoroughly enjoying this journey. I feel wide open, exposed and receptive to new ways of thinking. What could be better than that? I enjoy the links with the classics and their current counterparts such as the agony of Sisyphus and the trials of thoughtful, surely sad, Martin Cunningham. And then Bloom with his many pockets reminded me in an amusing way of the Artful Dodger.

The classes I have taken with the Literary Salon have been extraordinary.”

JOINING DETAILS:

One-off lecture and discussion on Zoom led by Toby Brothers

6.30-7.30 pm, Tuesday 26 November 2024

£15.00 (redeemable against the cost of either of our Ulysses studies starting in January 2025 if you decide to join one of two options: early or later)

Organizer

Toby Brothers

Salon Director

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26 November 2024 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+00:00)

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December 2024

mon02dec6:00 pmmon8:00 pmThe Wind in the WillowsA Christmas Special Salon in aid of The Woodland Trust6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByJane Wymark & Caroline HammondType of studyLiteratureDurationThree weeksVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Event Details

Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.

When Mole decides to venture out of his burrow and explore the riverbank he discovers a new world of friendship and adventure. As we share his discoveries we’re reminded of the beauty of the natural world, the importance of witnessing the changing seasons and the power of friendship. And of course, there’s Mr Toad.

This year, in the run up to Christmas, facilitators Jane Wymark and Caroline Hammond will be exploring The Wind In The Willows to raise money for the Woodland Trust. Join us over three sessions with lots of chances to read aloud as we enjoy this enduring classic.

In order to make the study accessible for all we’re not setting a fixed price, but we ask you to be as generous as possible with your donation (as a guideline our courses usually cost £25-£30.00 for each two-hour session and this study comprises three sessions). Please note that neither Jane, Caroline nor the Salon will take any payment and all proceeds will be donated to the Woodland Trust.

JOINING DETAILS:

A Christmas Special Study in aid of The Woodland Trust, facilitated by Jane Wymark and Caroline Hammond.

Monday evenings, 6.00 – 8.00 pm (UK/GMT) 2, 9 and 16 December 2024.

The proceeds from this study will be donated to The Woodland Trust so we ask participants to please be as generous as possible in deciding what to pay. Please use the booking form below.

Please use any edition of the book you have available.

Organizer

Jane Wymark & Caroline Hammond

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2 December 2024 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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tue03dec6:00 pmtue7:00 pmWhy Read Proust in 2025?A lecture & discussion led by Toby Brothers6:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby BrothersType of studyLiteratureDurationOne hourVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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Why is this seven volume French novel: A la recherche du temps perdu – in English Remembrance of Things Past or In Search of Lost Time – regarded as such an iconic work? First published in French between 1913 and 1927, and in English translation between 1922 and 1931, why is it still so admired and respected? What does it offer to the twenty-first century reader in a world that has changed so much?

Who hasn’t gazed at this mountain of Modernism and felt daunted, or wondered what could possibly take any writer more than three thousand pages and six or seven volumes to say? In January 2025 I will start leading the ninth group of readers with whom I have explored this work. For myself, I have to report that I always find something new when reading Proust and that my time in his writing has transformed the way I understand the interplay of memory, imagination, intellect and sensory experience.

In this lecture I will explain why I believe that reading Proust is genuinely life-changing and an unmissable rite of passage. Curious readers are welcome to join me!

A comment from a previous Proust participant:

” . . . brilliant, frustrating, revealing, engrossing and I am part of what has become a special community of equally frustrated and hugely encouraging students of different ages and backgrounds. Guided by Toby we are full of insights and laughter. We read aloud and discuss the week’s reading. Time flies, brains feel rejuvenated and the weeks go by much more speedily with the Salon to look forward to. Encouragement is key, there are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ opinions. In fact the best thing about the Salon is that we all feel valued. What’s not to love!”

JOINING DETAILS:

One-off lecture and discussion on Zoom led by Toby Brothers

6.00 -7.00 pm, Tuesday 3 December 2024

£15.00 (redeemable against the cost of joining our study of Volume 1: The Way by Swann’s starting in January 2025)

Organizer

Toby Brothers

Salon Director

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3 December 2024 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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sun08dec3:00 pmsun6:00 pmThe Art of Film #2: The Graduate3:00 pm - 6:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByJulie Sutherland & John AllemandType of studyThe Art of FilmDurationThree hoursVIRTUAL - VIA ZOOM

Event Details

The Graduate was a massive critical and commercial success on release in 1967, becoming the highest grossing film of that year in North America, winning the Best Director Oscar for Mike Nichols and receiving six other Academy Award nominations. Based on the 1963 novel of the same name by Charles Webb, it is a coming of age story with a twist that is full of both comic and tragic possibilities.

A young Dustin Hoffman plays newly graduated Benjamin Braddock – naive, awkward, uncertain what to do next and deeply embarrassed by his proud and conventional family – as he navigates the challenges of adult life that unexpectedly include seduction by the bored and worldly Mrs Robinson, wife of his father’s business partner. Complications ensue when Benjamin falls for the one woman that Mrs Robinson will do anything to keep him away from, her daughter Elaine. The ensuing conflicts lead to a memorable conclusion when Benjamin finally takes action and goes all out to capture Elaine’s heart on the very day she marries another man . . .

We want to consider this film as it was at the time – described by renowned critic Roger Ebert as “the funniest American comedy of the year” – and returning to it (or viewing for the first time) more than half a century later. Has it aged well?

Just some of the questions we will discuss in our review of the film as a whole and the selected clips we will watch together:

What can we learn about the social mores of middle-class North America in the 1960s? How much have things changed? Does the scandal of an extramarital affair resonate with us differently in the 2020s?

How do we perceive Mrs Robinson – cheating wife, sexual predator, unfulfilled domestic prisoner – and how differently would we respond if the seducer were an older male and the graduate female? Incidentally, Anne Bancroft was just 35 to Dustin Hoffman’s 30 when the film was made!

How do the life challenges facing a twenty-one-year-old in 2024’s digital world compare to those of 1968 (when the Vietnam War was ongoing and young men in the US were still liable to be drafted into the armed services)?

JOINING DETAILS:

A three-hour LitSalon Study on the Art of Film.

Sunday 8 December 2024, 3.00-6.00pm (UK/BST) on Zoom.

Discussion led by Julie Sutherland and John Allemand.

£65 for three hour study, including background notes and resources (N.B. participants in this study will be limited to a maximum of 14).

The Graduate is widely available on DVD/video and to download from Amazon and other platforms.

Organizer

Julie Sutherland & John Allemand

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Time

8 December 2024 3:00 pm - 6:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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tue10dec6:30 pmtue8:30 pmPortals to Past Women's VoicesA British Library Workshop6:30 pm - 8:30 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByThe British Library & London Literary SalonType of studyLiteratureDurationTwo hoursThe British Library, London NW1 2DB

January 2025

wed08jan5:00 pmwed7:00 pmThe Best of The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByJulie SutherlandType of studyDramaDurationSix meetingsVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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Awash in murder, madness and revenge, Hamlet has spoken to the ‘beast’ in humankind for over four centuries. Written around the turn of the 17^th century, Hamlet – in its fullest version – runs for over four hours. Even then, good productions of the sensational play can hold audiences in thrall. But, despite its preoccupation with violence and vengeance, Hamlet is also deeply philosophical, and bloodlust often takes a back seat to considerations of ethics and the moral course of action. It is the tension between these two aspects of humankind – part base, part noble – that has made this protagonist and the host of characters who come into his sphere so magnetic.

In this six-session study participants will engage in reading and discussing key scenes in Hamlet, including all seven of his soliloquies. As we undertake a close analysis of the play, we will examine the elements that make it a great revenge tragedy, but we will also consider ways in which Shakespeare makes it about so much more than revenge alone.

This study launches a series on English Renaissance revenge tragedy. Each study will be completely self-contained, but participants are welcome (and encouraged!) to consider taking part in the entire series. Next up will be Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy beginning on 19 February.

JOINING DETAILS:

Six session study on Zoom led by Julie Sutherland

Wednesday, 8 January-12 February 2025, 5.00-7.00 pm (UK/GMT)

£180 for six two-hour meetings, to include opening notes and resources

Recommended text: we strongly encourage participants to acquire the Arden Shakespeare Hamlet, revised edition, editors Ann Thompson & Neil Taylor: https://www.bloomsbury.com/ca/hamlet-9781472518385/. Variations between texts can be significant, having the same version will facilitate reading and discussion. N.B. Contrary to what Amazon says in its description, this edition presents an authoritative, modernised text based on the Second Quarto text (1604/5), which was printed from a manuscript believed to be Shakespeare’s ‘foul papers’ (his rough drafts).

Organizer

Julie Sutherland

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Time

8 January 2025 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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15January 20255:00 pm - 7:00 pm22January 20255:00 pm - 7:00 pm29January 20255:00 pm - 7:00 pm5February 20255:00 pm - 7:00 pm12February 20255:00 pm - 7:00 pm

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mon13jan7:00 pmmon9:00 pmThings Fall Apart . . .Two reading workshops & optional reflective writing workshop7:00 pm - 9:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByAlison CableType of studyLiterature,Reading & Writing for WellbeingDurationTwo meetingsVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Event Details

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.

from The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats

Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart offers an intimate and sweeping view of Igbo life in Nigeria during the late colonial period, capturing the complexities of family, tradition, and the forces that shape communities. Through the story of Okonkwo and his village, Achebe creates a world that is at once specific and universal, exploring how personal and cultural identities are built and challenged.

In this study, we’ll journey through Achebe’s rich narrative, discussing his powerful storytelling, his nuanced view of colonialism, and the ways he invites us to see both the beauty and fragility of human experience. Together, we’ll delve into the themes of tradition, resilience, language, and the complex encounter between cultures, reflecting on how these themes resonate with us today.

The workshop offers a space for all readers—whether you’re discovering Achebe for the first time or returning to his work—to come together in curiosity, empathy and open dialogue.

JOINING DETAILS:

Monday 13 and 20 January 2025, 7.00–9.00 pm GMT

Led by by Alison Cable, two meeting workshop on Zoom + optional additional reflective writing session* on 27 January (also on Zoom, 7.00-9.00 pm GMT)

£60 for two meetings + FREE optional meeting*

Recommended edition: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Penguin Modern Classics, ISBN: 9780141023380

*In this optional reflective writing session, we will be inspired by the novel to deepen the reading experience through a variety of guided writing prompts.

Organizer

Alison Cable

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Time

13 January 2025 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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20January 20257:00 pm - 9:00 pm27January 20257:00 pm - 9:00 pm

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wed15jan7:00 pmwed9:00 pmMadame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert7:00 pm - 9:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByRalph KleinmanType of studyLiteratureDurationSeven weeksVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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“La Bovary, c’est moi.“

Gustave Flaubert

“Quand Mme Bovary parut, il y eut toute une révolution littéraire… Le code de l’art nouveau se trouvait écrit.“

“When Mme Bovary appeared, there was a whole literary revolution . . . the code of a new art was written.”

Emile Zola

Gustave Flaubert (1821 – 1880) is often referred to the first modern novelist and the inventor of literary realism. Madame Bovary arrived on the scene (trailing generally negative reviews and a lawsuit for offence against public morals and religion, of which Flaubert was acquitted) misunderstood and undervalued, but Flaubert knew that he had written a masterpiece. Time proved him correct.

Flaubert wrote precise fiction in reaction to idealism and romanticism. His goal was to present the world as it really was; there are no heroes in Madame Bovary. He used clear and concise language (he wanted to remove all poetry from his writing), a meticulous attention to detail, a crystalline structure, and brilliant psychological insights into his characters. Flaubert rejected the idea of artistic inspiration, and laboured like a mole for fifty-three months, testing every word for its aptness, and reading and rereading each sentence. But he wasn’t interested in merely creating the perfect form. He entered the emotional life of his characters, feeling his way through the novel. It was written in the early days of France’s industrial age, and Flaubert wanted literature to aid in the understanding of human nature, just as the natural sciences and social sciences did.

Although Madame Bovary is completely embedded in its time and place, I believe it has much to say about how we live now, and this is something we will explore in this study. There are many young girls today who are living completely in the world of internet influencers, lost in a dream disconnected from any reality. Will they emulate Emma Bovary in our own age as they attempt to navigate the world as it really is?

JOINING DETAILS:

Seven-meeting study led by Ralph Kleinman

Wednesdays, 7.00-9.00 pm UK (BST)

15 January to 26 February 2025

Recommended edition: Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, translated by Lydia Davis, Penguin Classics, ISBN-13: 9780143106494 (to avoid confusion we ask that all participants use the same translation during study meetings)

£210 for seven meetings, to include opening notes and resources

Organizer

Ralph Kleinman

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15 January 2025 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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tue21jan11:30 amtue1:30 pmULYSSES BY JAMES JOYCE -January 2025 (early)2025 EARLY STUDY11:30 am - 1:30 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby BrothersType of studyLiteratureDurationTwenty-one meetingsVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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“You should approach Joyce’s Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament:
with faith.”

—William Faulkner

*Aerial photograph of Dublin and the ‘Forty Foot’ by Paul Costello on Unsplash*

We offer an opportunity to read one of the greatest novels of all time in the company of others. Our work with this book will widen your perspective and deepen your experience of the power of language.

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 best 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.

Here are comments from two Ulysses participants:

“I am thoroughly enjoying this journey. I feel wide open, exposed and receptive to new ways of thinking. What could be better than that? I enjoy the links with the classics and their current counterparts such as the agony of Sisyphus and the trials of thoughtful, surely sad, Martin Cunningham. And then Bloom with his many pockets reminded me in an amusing way of the Artful Dodger.

“The classes I have taken with the Literary Salon have been extraordinary.“

“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 skilfully 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 marvellous work was immense.“

JOINING DETAILS:

We are offering this study early in the day, from 11.30-1.30pm (UK time), comprising 21 meetings starting on Tuesday 21 January and finishing on Tuesday 17 June 2025, with four Sunday afternoon meetings (4.30-6.30pm on 2 February, 30 March, 18 May and 8 June) and NO meetings on 29 April, 6 and 13 May.

The total cost for the 21 meeting study, with all notes and resources materials, is £500

Please purchase these editions in preparation for our study:
- Ulysses, by James Joyce, Annotated Students’ Edition, Penguin Modern Classics 2011, ISBN: 9780141197418. 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

Organizer

Toby Brothers

Salon Director

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Time

21 January 2025 11:30 am - 1:30 pm(GMT+00:00)

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28January 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm2February 20254:30 pm - 6:30 pm4February 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm11February 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm18February 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm25February 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm4March 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm11March 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm18March 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm25March 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm30March 20254:30 pm - 6:30 pm1April 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm8April 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm15April 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm22April 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm18May 20254:30 pm - 6:30 pm20May 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm27May 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm8June 20254:30 pm - 6:30 pm17June 202511:30 am - 1:30 pm

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tue21jan5:30 pmtue7:30 pmULYSSES BY JAMES JOYCE -January 2025 (later)2025 LATER STUDY5:30 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby BrothersType of studyLiteratureDurationTwenty-one meetingsVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Event Details

“You should approach Joyce’s Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament:
with faith.”

—William Faulkner

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.

Here are comments from two Ulysses participants:

“I am thoroughly enjoying this journey. I feel wide open, exposed and receptive to new ways of thinking. What could be better than that? I enjoy the links with the classics and their current counterparts such as the agony of Sisyphus and the trials of thoughtful, surely sad, Martin Cunningham. And then Bloom with his many pockets reminded me in an amusing way of the Artful Dodger.

“The classes I have taken with the Literary Salon have been extraordinary.“

“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 skilfully 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 marvellous work was immense.“

JOINING DETAILS:

We are offering this evening study from 5.30-7.30pm (UK time), comprising 21 meetings starting on Tuesday 21 January and finishing on Tuesday 17 June 2025, with four Sunday meetings (4.30-6.30pm on 2 February, 30 March, 18 May and 8 June) and NO meetings on 29 April, 6 and 13 May.

The total cost for the 21 meeting study, with all notes and resources materials, is £500

Please purchase these editions in preparation for our study:
- Ulysses, by James Joyce, Annotated Students’ Edition, Penguin Modern Classics 2011, ISBN: 9780141197418. 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

Organizer

Toby Brothers

Salon Director

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Time

21 January 2025 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+00:00)

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VIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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28January 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm2February 20254:30 pm - 6:30 pm4February 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm11February 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm18February 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm25February 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm4March 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm11March 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm18March 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm25March 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm30March 20254:30 pm - 6:30 pm1April 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm8April 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm15April 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm22April 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm18May 20254:30 pm - 6:30 pm20May 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm27May 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm8June 20254:30 pm - 6:30 pm17June 20255:30 pm - 7:30 pm

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wed29jan5:30 pmwed7:30 pmVolume 1 of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time: The Way by Swann's5:30 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby BrothersType of studyLiteratureDurationNine weeksVIRTUAL

Event Details

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 more than three thousand pages and six or seven volumes to say?

In our study, we enter the Proustian universe through the first volume: this will give readers a glimpse of the breadth and purpose of this carefully constructed creation that Proust uses to reflect on the workings of the mind, memory, imagination and the role of art. Harold Bloom cites In Search of Lost Time 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 acquire the tools needed to complete the epic on your own if you are inspired, or continue with the Salon study if this is working for you. We continue to ask, could there be a better moment in history to go in search of Lost Time?

This will be the ninth troop I have led through Proust’s massive work. Please be assured that registering for the first volume does NOT commit you to continuing, but even though completing the entire cycle with us involves two and a half years of reading together, most people do choose to stay the course (some might say become addicted) and find the work immensely satisfying.

For myself, 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.”

SALON DETAILS

Nine week virtual study, 29 January – 2 April 2025 (N.B. no study session on 12 February), for first time readers of In Search of Lost Time (please note that we sometimes offer a ‘second time around’ study for those who have already completed their first encounter with Proust’s work, please email us if this is of interest).

Wednesdays 5.30 pm-7.30 pm (UK)

Possible second session: If there is demand we may offer an additional study from 3.00-5.00 pm (UK) on the same dates, please email if this is of interest.

Facilitated by Salon Director, Toby Brothers

Cost £300 (includes 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

A little background and encouragement:

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, but 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 reimagined through the lens of perception.

Reading Proust teaches the reader to observe how the world is experienced, to be aware that although we may be tempted to give greater weight to the perceptual universe, it is the entwining of memory, idealised experience (dreams) and relationships with what our senses perceive that moulds our consciousness.

A comment from a previous Proust participant:

” . . . brilliant, frustrating, revealing, engrossing and I am part of what has become a special community of equally frustrated and hugely encouraging students of different ages and backgrounds. Guided by Toby we are full of insights and laughter. We read aloud and discuss the week’s reading. Time flies, brains feel rejuvenated and the weeks go by much more speedily with the Salon to look forward to. Encouragement is key, there are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ opinions. In fact the best thing about the Salon is that we all feel valued. What’s not to love!”

Organizer

Toby Brothers

Salon Director

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Time

29 January 2025 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm(GMT+00:00)

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Location

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thu30jan5:00 pmthu7:00 pmBreakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby Brothers & Deborah LawunmiType of studyLiteratureDurationTwo meetingsVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Event Details

‘Give me an example,’ I said quietly. ‘Of something that means something. In your opinion.’
‘Wuthering Heights‘ she said without hesitation . . .
‘But that’s unreasonable. You’re talking about a work of genius.’
‘It was, wasn’t it? My sweet wild Cathy. God, I cried buckets. I saw it ten times.’
I said ‘Oh’ with recognizable relief, ‘oh’ with a shameful, rising inflection, ‘the movie.’

Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s

Ironically, this exchange between the unnamed narrator of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and its unlikely heroine, Holly Golightly, prefigures the eclipse of Truman Capote’s original 1958 novella by the 1961 film. Whether you love or loathe the iconic movie starring Audrey Hepburn, the book is different – romantic but devoid of sentimentality – painting a complex, funny and poignant portrait of a 1940’s New York demi-monde.

Credited as the inventor of the ‘non-fiction novel’, Capote’s prose style in Breakfast at Tiffany’s prompted Norman Mailer to describe him as “the most perfect writer of my generation”. In our two-meeting study we will consider whether and why this judgement was justified, as we discuss how the author evokes character – most notably the unique and irrepressible Holly Golightly – and, in less than a hundred pages, immerses the reader in his plot.

Please note, the book contains some language and cultural tropes that are true to the period described but which some readers may find offensive today.

JOINING DETAILS:

Two-meeting study on Zoom led by Toby Brothers and Deborah Lawunmi

Thursday 30 January & 6 February, 5.00-7.00 pm UK (GMT)

Recommended edition: Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Penguin Modern Classics, ISBN: 9780141182797

£70 for two meetings to include opening notes and resources

Organizer

Toby Brothers & Deborah Lawunmi

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Time

30 January 2025 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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VIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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6February 20255:00 pm - 7:00 pm

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February 2025

wed26feb5:00 pmwed7:00 pmThomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+00:00) View in my time Event Organized ByJulie SutherlandType of studyDramaDurationSeven meetingsVIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

Event Details

During the late reign of Queen Elizabeth I, an English writer penned a revenge tragedy for the public theatre, which unfolded like this:

Spurred on by the murder of a kinsman, a bereaved man, brought to the brink of madness by grief, seeks revenge on a royal. The information he receives urging him to exact vengeance is potentially legitimate, yet he is filled with doubt and is compelled to put it to the test. The grief-stricken man is then confronted by a terrifying vision about his delay. Growing more self-assured, he publicizes the nature of the crime through a play-within-a-play. The tragedy closes with the bloody and violent deaths of numerous characters.

Not Hamlet, this is Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy.

Kyd’s immense influence on English Renaissance drama cannot be overstated. To the playwrights already writing in the revenge tradition of the Roman Seneca (1^st century CE), Kyd added a flair and formula that was all his own and brought into sharp relief questions about life, death and justice that were pertinent to the age in which he wrote.

A box office blockbuster, The Spanish Tragedy was the third most performed play in 1590s London (after The Jew of Malta and the now-lost The Wise Men of West Chester). Its publication history was equally phenomenal. Going into at least 11 editions between 1592 and 1633, the revenge tragedy’s life in print outstripped any of Shakespeare’s plays.

In this 7-session study, participants will engage in an exhaustive reading of an edition based on the play’s earliest quarto (not dated). Pre-session resources will include the additions Ben Jonson was commissioned to write, which appeared in the 1602 edition of the play, and were a testament to The Spanish Tragedy’s ongoing popularity. Kyd himself did not live to see its astounding success.

As we examine this play together, we will consider a question central to the period’s revenge tragedies: How far must we go, what options do we have, when we must take the law into our own hands?

English Revenge Tragedy Series

“Revenge is a kind of wild justice; which the more man’s nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.”

Francis Bacon

The Spanish Tragedy is the second in a series of studies on English Renaissance revenge tragedy led by Julie Sutherland, which begins with Hamlet (8 January to 12 February 2025). Each study is completely self-contained, but participants are welcome (and encouraged!) to consider taking part in the entire series.

JOINING DETAILS:

Seven week study led by Julie Sutherland

Wednesdays, 5.00 -7.00 pm UK time

26 February-9 April 2025

£210 for seven meetings

Recommended edition: Five Revenge Tragedies: The Spanish Tragedy, Hamlet, Antonio’s Revenge, The Tragedy of Hoffman, The Revenger’s Tragedy, Penguin Classics, ISBN: 9780141192277

Organizer

Julie Sutherland

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Time

26 February 2025 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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Location

VIRTUAL - ON ZOOM

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5March 20255:00 pm - 7:00 pm12March 20255:00 pm - 7:00 pm19March 20255:00 pm - 7:00 pm26March 20255:00 pm - 7:00 pm2April 20255:00 pm - 7:00 pm9April 20255:00 pm - 7:00 pm

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April 2025

thu10apr(apr 10)4:00 pmsun13(apr 13)12:00 pmVirginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway - celebrate the centenary with us in Alfriston!4:00 pm - 12:00 pm (13)(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby Brothers & Karina JakubowiczType of studyLiterature,TravelDurationSix meetings over four daysWingrove House, High Street, Alfriston, East Sussex, BN26 5TD

Event Details

This will be our third Virginia Woolf study in East Sussex, a county which in many ways became the writer’s spiritual home. What better way to celebrate the passing of 100 years since the first publication of Mrs Dalloway in 1925 than an in-depth study in her beloved Sussex countryside?

The centenary of the publication of Mrs Dalloway affords a perfect opportunity for us to approach the text with an invigorated exploration. This study will be enriching for those who have read and re-read this multi-layered text (including those who have previously studied it with the Salon) and readers who are new to the book. Karina and Toby will open up the many issues this subversive work considers, including sanity and madness, the treatment of mental illness and the limitations of medical techniques, tensions between social classes, queer relationships in a homophobic society, the sanctity of and threats to the private self . . . We will delve into the rich language and images that Woolf uses to unpack these and consider how this work speaks to us today.

We are planning a number of events to celebrate one hundred years of this book which opened up narrative form in an entirely new way and remains profoundly influential today. A viewing of The Hours in a London cinema followed by an audience discussion is one of the projects in the works, keep checking our newsletter for more announcements.

As one of the key members of the celebrated Bloomsbury Group, Woolf is often seen as a London writer, but she and her husband Leonard had an abiding love for the South Downs. Together they purchased Monk’s House near Rodmell in 1919 and used it as their writer’s retreat. Virginia wrote some of her major works there and the Sussex landscape was integral to her writing as she tried to capture what she saw as its unsurpassable beauty. There are a number of other Bloomsbury outposts in the area: in 1916 Virginia’s sister, Vanessa Bell, moved to Charleston Farmhouse with the painter Duncan Grant, while John Maynard Keynes and his wife Lydia Lopokova also settled locally.

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’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.

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 enquiring 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.”

JOINING DETAILS:

To ask questions please email us at litsalon@gmail.com using ‘Mrs Dalloway 2025’ as the subject line. To reserve a place please use the form below to pay an initial deposit of £20. Full payment may be made later by bank transfer (N.B. we will supply bank details which will be different from any you may have used on previous occasions).

Four-day in-person study facilitated by Toby Brothers and Karina Jakubowicz

Thursday 10 – Sunday 13 April 2025, Alfriston, East Sussex

This is an opportunity to enjoy the locale, including visiting Charleston House, Charleston in Lewes and Monk’s House, as well as joining with other readers in discussing Mrs Dalloway and its relationship to Woolf’s other works. We are in the process of investigating particular outings in the area based on what exhibits will be available at the time of our visit, these will be added to the schedule as we confirm the best options.

We are also in conversation with our fellow enthusiasts at Much Ado Books in Alfriston, who have created a great community that celebrates reading and the art of books in wonderful ways. Together we will offer an event celebrating Woolf and Mrs Dalloway during our stay there.

£480 for twelve hours (or more) of study in six meetings spread over four days, plus accommodation costs (please see details below)

We will stay at Wingrove House, a 19th century colonial-style country house hotel set in the beautiful and historic village of Alfriston, East Sussex in the South Downs National Park. We will be within easy reach of sites associated with Bloomsbury, making it the ideal choice for Woolf-related Salons. We expect the cost per night, including breakfast, to start at £182.50 per room (charges vary across a wide range) rising to a maximum of £257.50, but please check this with the hotel when booking, mentioning the London Literary Salon to receive a special 10% discount.

Please note that participants are responsible for booking their own accommodation and any insurance required.

Recommended edition: Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf; Oxford World’s Classics edition; ISBN-13: 978-0199536009

Organizer

Toby Brothers & Karina Jakubowicz

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Time

10 April 2025 4:00 pm - 13 April 2025 12:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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Location

Wingrove House

High Street, Alfriston, East Sussex, BN26 5TD

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Mrs Dalloway in Alfriston 2025 (10-13 April)

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mon28apr(apr 28)5:00 pmmon05may(may 5)12:00 pmAgistri 2025: Homer's Odyssey on the Greek island of Agistri(April 28) 5:00 pm - (May 5) 12:00 pm(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby Brothers, Caroline Hammond & Jane WymarkType of studyClassical,TravelDurationSeven daysAgistri, Greece

Event Details

In 2025 we will return for our fifth visit to the enchanting island of Agistri on the Saronic Gulf. This year we will study Homer’s Odyssey and Euripides’ Trojan Women in a location that evokes the landscape and environment in which these extraordinary and enduring works were written. Join us if you can!

“Tell me about a complicated man.
Muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost
when he had wrecked the holy town of Troy.
and where he went, and who he met, the pain
he suffered on the storms at sea, and how
he worked to save his life and bring his men
back home.”

The opening lines of Emily Wilson’s translation of Homer’s Odyssey

In 2019 the London Literary Salon travelled to Agistri to read The Odyssey and in 2024 we completed the Homeric cycle by reading The Iliad on the island, using Emily Wilson’s powerful contemporary translations for both studies. In 2025 we will return to Agistri to revisit The Odyssey in all its vivid and gripping glory.

Our Odyssey study 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 Hammond will join Salon Director Toby Brothers in leading this week-long study, sharing their insights into the spoken word, metre and translation and how to read out loud to greater effect. 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.

Our chosen venue is a small family-run hotel that is easily accessible (just one hour by ferry from Athens) on the beautiful and quiet island of Agistri. It provides the perfect setting for our study, offering a relaxing atmosphere, excellent food and opportunities for additional cultural and recreational activities.

STUDY DETAILS:

Seven-day study of Homer’s Odyssey on the island of Agistri: 28 April – 5 May 2025.

Facilitated by Toby Brothers, Jane Wymark and Caroline Hammond.

Cost: £700 for the Salon study, to include preparatory meeting in April (via Zoom, date to be confirmed), background materials and opening notes. Opening notes will be sent after registration.

The study programme will run for four to five hours per day for five days, with one day left open and travel at each end. There will be time for other optional activities including kayaking adventures, a trip to the Temple of Aphaia on Aegina, or pure relaxation.

Before you arrive on Agistri we will ask you to read Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey (WW Norton & Co, ISBN-10: 0393356256; ISBN-13: 978-0393356250). Ian McKellen’s audio reading of Robert Fagles’ translation is also a great way to experience The Odyssey.

Payment: we understand that you may not want to pay the entire charge at once, so we ask for an initial (non-returnable) deposit of £20 on registration followed by £180 within 28 days and the balance of £500 by 31 January 2025.

Refunds: please note that any refunds will be entirely at the discretion of the London Literary Salon, dependent on our ability to fill the place, and will be subject to a charge to cover our administration costs.

BOOKING

To ask questions please email us at litsalon@gmail.com using ‘Agistri 2025 – Odyssey’ as the subject line. Payment will be by bank transfer (N.B. we will supply bank details). If the study sells out early we will maintain a waiting list as we do sometimes find that people have to withdraw for reasons beyond their control.

ADDITIONAL COSTS

Room and half board (breakfast and dinner each day) will be arranged by each participant with the hotel and paid for directly to them. A deposit to cover two nights accommodation will be required by the hotel. We will send you full contact details for payment on registration. We have set out the anticipated charges below, but these may be subject to change at the time of booking at the discretion of the hotel.

Accommodation prices per night at the hotel – Rosy’s Little Village – estimated on the basis of figures available in October 2024:

Single – €77 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per day

Double – €87 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per person per day

Triple – €77 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per person per day

Family room for two people – €97 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per person per day

Family room for three people – €107 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per person per day

Please consider sharing accommodation with another participant as this helps us to ensure everyone can stay on site; double and triple rooms offer split levels and so allow sharers a significant degree of privacy.

Flights to Athens: when booking please make sure you can arrive in Piraeus by 15.00 local time on the first day of your study to catch the ferry. We will not be meeting formally on the final day of each study, so you have choices about your return (ferries are frequent and the travel time to Piraeus is one hour).

Ferry to Agistri: normally around €14 each way, but may be €30 for arrival if the group chooses to use a private water taxi.

Incidental expenses: drinks, lunches, extra trips etc.

Insurance: we hope this will be entirely redundant, but we do ask you to arrange your own travel and health insurance to protect you in case of anything untoward happening. We will ask you for details of the insurance provider and reference number, as well as your mobile phone number and details of next of kin to add to our (confidential) records for use during the study.

Organizer

Toby Brothers, Caroline Hammond & Jane Wymark

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Time

28 April 2025 5:00 pm - 5 May 2025 12:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

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Location

Agistri, Greece

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Booking deposit - £680 balance payable by bank transfer, details will be emailed on registration.

Enquire before you buy

May 2025

wed07may(may 7)5:00 pmwed14(may 14)12:00 pmAgistri 2025: Euripides' Trojan Women on the Greek island of Agistri5:00 pm - 12:00 pm (14)(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby Brothers, Caroline Hammond & Jane WymarkType of studyClassical,TravelDurationSeven daysAgistri, Greece

Event Details

“The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must.”

Thucydides’ Melian Dialogue

When, in 458 BC, The Oresteia of Aeschylus – a trilogy in which the climax of the third play, The Eumenides, upheld the Athenian traditions of liberality and the rule of law – triumphed at the Dionysia, it must have been exhilarating for the audience to witness the exaltation of their own city. Much had changed just forty-three years later when Euripides’ Trojan Women was performed and won the second prize in the contest.

For the last ten of those years Athens had waged the hugely destructive Peloponnesian War against Sparta and several Greek cities had suffered a fate not unlike that of Troy. Although a truce with Sparta was just about holding, the Athenians were still trying to expand their martial capability through colonisation. In the summer of 416 BC, less than a year before Euripides’ play appeared, Athens laid siege to the small but wealthy island of Melos in the South Aegean (which had already donated much to the war effort but drew the line at being occupied and exploited) and, once the Melians were defeated, massacred its male population and enslaved the women and children.

The audience at the theatre of Dionysus in Athens would have included veterans of the Melian campaign, and it speaks for the Greek respect for theatre and artistic freedom that performance of the play was permitted at all. That openness is not always matched by our own society today: In 1980 A Short Sharp Shock! a play by Howard Brenton and Tony Howard satirising British politics of the time led to outrage, questions in the House of Commons and an attempt to close down the Royal Court Theatre. Four years after the UK’s 1982 Falklands War, a verse play by Steven Berkoff, Sink the Belgrano!, caused a similarly huge controversy.

During our 2023 visit to Agistri we considered the theatrical representation of the Trojan War and its aftermath in The Oresteia. In 2025 we will embark on the study of Trojan Women with Salon Director Toby Brothers, actor Jane Wymark and poet Caroline Donnelly bringing their considerable talents and energy to exploring the dramatic possibilities of the text and the poetry contained within this phenomenal work.

STUDY DETAILS:

Seven-day study of Euripides’ Trojan Women on the island of Agistri: 7 – 14 May 2025.

Facilitated by Toby Brothers, Jane Wymark and Caroline Hammond.

Cost: £700 for the Salon study, to include preparatory meeting in April (via Zoom, date to be confirmed), background materials and opening notes. Opening notes will be sent after registration.

The study programme will run for four to five hours per day for five days, with one day left open and travel at each end. There will be time for other optional activities including kayaking adventures, a trip to the Temple of Aphaia on Aegina, or pure relaxation.

We will ask you to read the recommended translation of Trojan Women by Emily Wilson contained in this volume: Greek Plays: Sixteen Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides (Modern Library Classics – Paperback, ISBN 978-0812983098) before arriving on Agistri.

Payment: we understand that you may not want to pay the entire charge at once, so we ask for an initial (non-returnable) deposit of £20 on registration followed by £180 within 28 days and the balance of £500 by 31 January 2025.

Refunds: please note that any refunds will be entirely at the discretion of the London Literary Salon, dependent on our ability to fill the place, and will be subject to a charge to cover our administration costs.

BOOKING

To ask questions please email us at litsalon@gmail.com using ‘Agistri 2025 – Trojan Women’ as the subject line. Payment will be by bank transfer (N.B. we will supply bank details). If the study sells out early we will maintain a waiting list as we do sometimes find that people have to withdraw for reasons beyond their control.

ADDITIONAL COSTS

Accommodation prices per night at the hotel – Rosy’s Little Village – estimated on the basis of figures available in October 2024:

Single – €77 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €50 per day

Double – €87 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per person per day

Triple – €77 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per person per day

Family room for two people – €97 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per person per day

Family room for three people – €107 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per person per day

Family room for four people – €120 per night plus half board (breakfast and dinner) estimated at €55 per person per day

Please consider sharing accommodation with another participant as this helps us to ensure everyone can stay on site; double and triple rooms offer split levels and so allow a significant degree of privacy to sharers.

Flights to Athens: when booking please make sure you can arrive in Piraeus by 15.00 local time on the first day of your study to catch the ferry. We will not be meeting formally on the final day of each study, so you will have choices about your return (ferries are frequent and the travel time to Piraeus is one hour).

Ferry to Agistri: normally around €14 each way, but may be €30 for arrival if the group chooses to use a private water taxi.

Incidental expenses: drinks, lunches, extra trips etc.

Organizer

Toby Brothers, Caroline Hammond & Jane Wymark

Learn More

Time

7 May 2025 5:00 pm - 14 May 2025 12:00 pm(GMT+00:00)

View in my time

Location

Agistri, Greece

Other Events

Book this Salon

Booking deposit - £680 balance payable by bank transfer, details will be emailed on registration.

Enquire before you buy

July 2025

sat05jul(jul 5)3:00 pmfri11(jul 11)9:00 amHerman Melville's Moby Dick afloat!3:00 pm - 9:00 am (11)(GMT+01:00) View in my time Event Organized ByToby BrothersType of studyLiterature,TravelDurationSix daysMallaig, Scotland

Event Details

A not-to-be-missed opportunity to complete reading one of the greatest books ever written in English – an extraordinary story of obsession and maritime adventure – over the course of a six-day voyage aboard a traditional sailing ship. Four online meetings will introduce Moby Dick, followed by six study sessions at sea on the Eda Frandsen, a lovingly restored and maintained gaff cutter, originally built in Denmark in 1938. This unique study will allow readers to complement their appreciation of Herman Melville’s text with a practical understanding and experience of the reality of seafaring life under sail.

“I am half way in the work . . . It will be a strange sort of book, tho’, I fear; blubber is blubber you know; tho’ you might get oil out of it, the poetry runs as hard as sap from a frozen maple tree;—and to cool the thing up, one must needs throw in a little fancy, which from the nature of the thing, must be ungainly as the gambols of the whales themselves. Yet I mean to give the truth of the thing, spite of this.”

Herman Melville

First published in 1851, Moby Dick ranks on almost any list as one of the greatest works in the English language. Its three famous opening words ‘Call me Ishmael . . .’ together with the image of the one-legged Captain Ahab in mad pursuit of the great white whale, have become cultural icons. This grand—and occasionally grandiose—adventure tale unites the many voices of Herman Melville in a mongrel mix of epic poetry, Shakespearean tragedy, encyclopaedic cataloguing, biblical oratory, and not a small dose of comedy. Melville presents an insightful study of obsession, madness and charismatic leadership that anticipates many of our contemporary conversations about democracy, cosmopolitanism, capitalism and environmentalism.

In 2019, celebration of the 200th year since Herman Melville’s birth initiated a particularly auspicious moment to study this great work, generating rich responses and reconsiderations of a truly amazing book. Philip Hoare (mentioned below as one of the curators of the Moby Dick Big Read project) writes on the contemporary importance of this work in this article Subversive, queer and terrifyingly relevant: Six reasons why Moby Dick is the novel for our times.

“The book features gay marriage, hits out at slavery and imperialism and predicts the climate crisis – 200 years after the birth of its author, Herman Melville, it has never been more important.”

Philip Hoare

Together, artist Angela Cockayne and writer Philip Hoare convened and curated a unique whale symposium and exhibition at Peninsula Arts, the dedicated contemporary art space at Plymouth University. This grew into an extraordinary compilation of art and voices (Tilda Swinton, Stephen Fry and more) – the Moby Dick Big Read – to illuminate each chapter, inspiring and inspired by this vast book.

SALON DETAILS:

Four two-hour meetings online, followed by six-day study with six nights on board the Eda Frandsen from 3.00pm on Saturday 5 July 2025 to 9.00am on Friday 11 July 2025

Facilitated by Toby Brothers, Salon Director

Recommended edition: Moby Dick (Norton Critical Edition, Third Edition 2018), by Herman Melville, edited by Herschel Parker; W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN-13: 978-0393285000

Cost for four online meetings and six-night voyage with study sessions, including opening notes will be £1,850 per person.

Participants will be responsible for arranging their own travel to and from our departure and end point, the port of Mallaig on the west coast of the Scottish Highlands, as well as insurance to cover their trip.

We have just seven places available and we anticipate that this study is likely to be over-subscribed. If you are interested in joining, please email us using the subject line Moby Dick 2025 giving your name and a phone number on which we may contact you if necessary.

Please note that the voyage will involve sharing confined living and sleeping space while onboard. We do not require you to have nautical skills, but some time spent on sailing boats or camping would be useful so you know what to expect. We ask you to let us know in your email whether you have such experience and to confirm that you are in good physical health.

Even in summer it is possible that there may be rough seas and weather, so please consider carefully whether you are likely to be adversely affected by these conditions.

If we are able to offer you a place we will ask for an initial deposit of £100 per person, with the balance due by 31 December 2024.

Organizer

Toby Brothers

Salon Director

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Time

5 July 2025 3:00 pm - 11 July 2025 9:00 am(GMT+00:00)

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Location

Mallaig, Scotland

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