Even though days are getting longer, mornings lighter and sunsets later, February can be a grind. As we await the arrival of Spring we’re looking forward to getting away from it all in the coming months, so here’s a reminder that this year we have more opportunities to read great literature in evocative locations than we’ve ever offered before.
Some of our travel studies – Jacob’s Room on the Sussex Downs, The Oresteia in Greece, ‘Reading the Body’ in Umbria – are already fully booked, but there are still a few places left to read Homer’s Odyssey on the gorgeous Greek island of Agistri, and Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouseand Between the Acts in St Ives.
Some feedback from participants in previous travel studies gives an idea of what to expect:
The Odyssey on the island of Agistri, April/May 2022
“Discussing Homer whilst gazing out at the Aegean . . . heaven!”
“Rested? Not really, as there was simply so much to do, all of it interesting. Energised? Definitely . . . “
“Agistri and Rosy’s provided a wonderful setting which was both peaceful and invigorating. I so appreciated being surrounded by the beauty – bees buzzing in orange blossom – and being by, and in, the sea. This scenery that Homer would have known really enhanced the experience of studying the text.”
“The group was amazing and I loved your insights and questioning of the text. It was an amazing and enriching experience.”
“It was a wonderful trip . . . I think the landscape, especially around the islands, is so seductive that you can see how these wonderful texts were written.”
To the Lighthouse in St Ives, September/October 2022
“The collaboration between facilitators and participants was rich indeed and I wonder how it was accomplished that everyone in the group was so insightful and intelligent and I might even say soul-searching.”
“Wonderful . . . The studio where the discussion took place is a beautiful, extraordinary place, the participants were imbued with the light and landscape, creating a friendly and committed atmosphere. The two facilitators were wonderful – knowledgeable and sensitive, understanding in depth not just the book but the group as a whole.”
Meanwhile, if writing is your preferred route to escaping the February blues, your creative juices are stirring and you fancy some armchair travel, there is still time to register for Alison Cable’s ‘Writing for Wellbeing’ workshopJourneys beginning on 20 February.
Email us if you are tempted by any of our studies and would like to know more!
And, last but not least, although it’s not part of our own schedule, we’d like to mention Salonista Harriet Griffey’s Writers’ Retreat in Spain from 10-17 June. Harriet explains:
Writers’ retreat with Harriet Griffey at Las Chimeneas, Spain, 10-17 June 2023
Whether you are completely new to writing or are trying to begin, develop or complete a piece of work, this writers’ retreat facilitated by Harriet Griffey (ex-publisher and author of Write Every Day) offers creative space to do so, along with one-to-one feedback and optional group opportunities to share and discuss your writing progress.
Set in the peaceful village of Mairena in the beautiful Alpujarra region of Spain, prices including full board and airport transfer (excluding flights) for a week’s retreat range from €860-€1050. Further details and booking at:
“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom”
Of course I didn’t make that up. It’s one of Marcel’s quotes which, I think, sums up the glorious weekend we all had in the City of Light (and not a little rain too – just enough to make us appreciate the gorgeous blue sky on Sunday).
We all saw so much, eyes wide open and heads spinning with pages of handwriting, scrawly, spidery, crossings out, reworkings, work in progress. We looked at photographs, information, paintings – so many paintings, books, artefacts and yes, even exquisite embroidery. Painstakingly stitched and secured pearls and sparkles on fabrics woven by fairies, spun by silkworms and coloured by artists much greater than Elstir. The purple opera coat which our man from the hotel said was too heavy for his wife to wear. What a lark! As VW’s imagination might have said.
We threw ourselves into Marcel’s world of suffering and lethargy, neurotic creativity, excess, music, madness and memory.
We definitely achieved our 10,000 steps each day. And let’s not forget the food which was so central to our study (ha ha!) and sustenance. We tasted foams, pearls, shavings and aromas of fermented Iranian lemons, liquorice. We ordered perfect scallops languishing in sea salty green puddles of unctuous who knows what? Fricassee and blanquette de veau, frites and farm cheeses. And the soufflé – the melting chocolate middle of the perfect sugared cake, the framboise birthday panna cotta with only one candle to symbolise the hundreds of candles representing Toby’s circle of curious readers. The metro carriage where everyone, almost on the dot of midnight sang Bonne Anniversaire to the amazing teacher who dreams up these treats for us all. Did I say there was wine? There was. Bien sûr!!
Le Swann Hôtel Littéraire was a treasure. “I created the Sociéte des Hôtels Litttéraires to share my love of books with the thousands of visitors whom I do not know, but who, I am sure, would be happy to find an author or a book by chance on a trip to Paris.” (not to mention many other French cities) explains Jacques Letertre, President.
Monsieur L came to talk to us over tea and madeleines. He reminded me of a plump, pink, favourite uncle from Dickens. This former banker and très sérieux collector of Proust books and much more, lives in an apartment in the factory where Marcel’s favourite coffee beans were roasted. The hotel, he told us, still serves coffee from the same company. It is situated in the heart of the area where Marcel lived.
The hotel madeleines however (this is a hotel with sweet cakes and excellent breakfasts) are, he admitted, slightly more ordinary. The original moulds and recipe from Remembrance etc proved too expensive They are, trust me, perfectly delicious for the weary, sugar-deprived Proustian visitor whose head is swirling with Albertine, Charlus, Swann and Odette. They are what Francoise would have given everyone before they set off for a morning at the Bibliothèque Nationale or the Jacquemart André where, we were assured, 1000 guests could attend a soirée with no danger of one barouche crashing into another on the grand drive to the entrance.
By the way, we all had rooms with names of characters from the volumes. As probably the oldest participant, perhaps it was fitting that I was aunt Leonie….aaaargh! I must rise from my couch and exercise… and, to quote MP “try to keep a patch of sky above your life”.
Others must relate the Musée Carnavalet. I only have the delicious photos and reports from the WhatsApp group. I ran out of steam and time, filled my rucksack with mustards, fig jam and memories, hailed a taxi. No porter or Françoise to report that “Madame has gone.”
Going away with Toby on one of her magical study holidays – because, no apologies, these are holidays from everything you do and think about in real day-to-day life, is possibly a form of internet dating. You don’t know who you will meet. But you know it could work because there is a common theme. We are all Toby’s students. For me, meeting up with Proustians 1,2,3,4,5,6 – who knows how many! – was such a joy. Crossing paths with new friends who have no ‘baggage’ apart from the carry-on kind, with wheels.
Perhaps the best treat of all was getting to know some of Toby’s closest friends from when she lived in Paris. Friends who have been on life’s journeys with her and continue to light up their lives. They certainly lit up ours.
I think it was the ‘light’ in the darkest month of the year which I have taken away from our Paris adventure. The light of everyone who was so game, so generous of spirit, who, in their own unique way, added something special to our beautiful time together.
To end on a low note… I lost my Freedom Pass somewhere along the way. Quelle horreur! to arrive in the underground and no travel pass (young things won’t understand, a Freedom Pass allows geriatrics to go free on London tubes and buses.) The complications of applying for a replacement online brought me back to real life with a bump, that and having to find the fridge and something to eat. But the magic stays a little longer and I feel that Le Swann Hôtel Littéraire could be a Paris homecoming in the not too distant future. If only Scott, who is a human Google walking map of Paris, would come along too! Thank you, Scott, for always leading us in the right direction.
“My destination is no longer a place, rather a new way of seeing.”
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.
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.”
Co-facilitator of the study, Sarah Snoxall, expressed concerns shared by all of us that we should consider carefully the possibility of withdrawing it and the extent to which the proposed boycott might be relevant to our work. After much discussion, we agreed that we all oppose the idea of cancelling any kind of cultural activity unless it can be shown to be harmful. On reflection, we also concluded that reading what Freud described as “the most magnificent novel ever written” and examining, within the study group, the profound moral questions posed by Dostoevsky, would do nothing to flatter Putin’s regime or to undermine the right of Ukraine to resist invasion.
Much has been written about Russia and Ukraine since the launch of Putin’s ‘special operation’ earlier this year, but a 2014 article in the Los Angeles Review of Books, written in the aftermath of the annexation of Crimea, draws on images from The Brothers Karamazov of two intertwined and opposing abysses – the basest and the highest – to portray the essence of the Russian soul, underlining the political and moral relevance of this work to the contemporary world.
Dostoevsky is allegedly (with Tolstoy) Vladimir Putin’s favourite author, and The Brothers Karamazov is reputedly his favourite novel. Sarah’s co-facilitator, Keith Fosbrook, makes the point that the meaning of a work of art is always contestable and, as a result, art can always be used for the purposes of political propaganda . . . An article on Lit Hub, Dear Vladimir Putin: If You’ve Read Dostoevsky, You’ve Tragically Misunderstood Him examines this in more detail, the author, Austin Ratner, concluding: “Those who have read and understood The Brothers Karamazov know exactly how to measure Dostoyevsky—and how to measure Putin.”
If you would like to decide for yourself, there are still a few places left on The Brothers Karamazov, which promises to be an engrossing exploration of this extraordinary work of art.
A recent surge in Proust references, responding to the 100th anniversary of the writer’s death on 18th November 2022 has given me a moment to reflect on all the Proust studies I have led – and all the wonderful minds (more than 70!) that have joined along the way. Some have stayed for the whole two-and-a-half-years/seven volumes, some for just parts of that, some returning to revisit, some expanding into other literary realms. All of you have moved the discussion forward, giving me so much richness in my own grappling with our Marcel. Along the way I have peeled back layers in my own mind about the mind and memory, prejudice, the aquarium of social relationships, social power, the space between sleep and waking, the unknowable, multiple self, the unfathomable beloved . . . and I have become more attentive to the wonder of the world (and hawthorns).
I am currently running two Proust cycles. The Proust 5s are in the agonising pages of The Captive, we are at the Verdurins’ and Morel has just finished playing Vinteuil’s unknown Septet . . . Proust 6 have just started The Guermantes Way and we are alive to the sound of the fire, the stimulus of a soldier’s life in Doncieres. I am hoping to host a Salon special with Lucy Raitz whose new translation of Swann in Loveas a standalone novella has just been published. She is a friend of Salonista and facilitator Keith Fosbrook and we are lucky to have that connection!
My dear friend Sheila, who curates the wonderful Swimming by the Book posted this loveliness to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the passing of Marcel Proust, while current Proustians (thanks Kaye, Sue, Caroline, et al) alerted me to the following (thanks Kaye, Sue, Caroline…)
Please see below a piece on Proust being best left to ‘snobs’ – you will giggle, i think.
The Guardian had this lovely piece which includes:
Although Marcel – after four years I can call him that – and I are separated by a century and by nationality, class, sexuality and sensibility, and despite regularly finding him exasperatingly obsessive and neurotic, I did come to regard him as a friend, though not one I could open my heart to fully. He watched me too sharply for that. I was in awe of his unending desire and unmatched capacity to recreate each moment, each fluctuation of existence – I just wouldn’t trust him once I’d left the room.
The reading pleasure was not to do with the narrative, which despite being at times, mind-meltingly slow, did eventually form an intricate pattern, nor the fascinating and often hilariously repellant characters, it was the sudden moments of what I can only call “satori”, the Japanese word for a sudden jolt out of the mundane surface into a the bright clarity of awareness of being.
. . . As it is read aloud, every moment hangs in the air, an extraordinary architecture of light, always in flux but always precise . . .
I hope that wherever you are, life is full of orangeade and hawthornes, madeleines and humming memories. I leave you with this last reflection from Nabokov on reading and re-reading.
See you in the pages…
Good Readers and Good Writers
Incidentally, I use the word reader very loosely. Curiously enough, one cannot read a book: one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader. And I shall tell you why. When we read a book for the first time the very process of laboriously moving our eyes from left to right, line after line, page after page, this complicated physical work upon the book, the very process of learning in terms of space and time what the book is about, this stands between us and artistic appreciation. When we look at a painting we do not have to move our eyes in a special way even if, as in a book, the picture contains elements of depth and development. The element of time does not really enter in a first contact with a painting. In reading a book, we must have time to acquaint ourselves with it. We have no physical organ (as we have the eye in regard to a painting) that takes in the whole picture and then can enjoy its details. But at a second, or third, or fourth reading we do, in a sense, behave towards a book as we do towards a painting. However, let us not confuse the physical eye, that monstrous masterpiece of evolution, with the mind, an even more monstrous achievement. A book, no matter what it is—a work of fiction or a work of science (the boundary line between the two is not as clear as is generally believed)—a book of fiction appeals first of all to the mind. The mind, the brain, the top of the tingling spine, is, or should be, the only instrument used upon a book.
Vladimir Nabokov, 1948
N.B. The complete essay is gorgeous, and it’s hard to just choose one passage or line!
In troubled times we all hope for better things. The current state of the world and its problems – global warming, pandemics, political extremism, economic crises to name just a few – lead many of us to speculate with dread about a dystopian future.
So, could there be a better time to reflect on the concept of Utopia, the perfect and ideal state? Seductive but unobtainable, what did Thomas More, the originator of Utopia (literally ‘no place’) really mean when he wrote his most famous work, published in 1516? How much have things changed over the centuries? How much can they change when the fundamentals of human nature and motivation remain the same?
Vivien Kogut’s four-week exploration of Thomas More’s Utopia will discuss society, power and freedom. Subjects of relevance in the sixteenth century remain just as topical in today’s world: social inequality, individual freedom, the motivation of politicians, how to limit power.
Ultimately the study will consider whether a more egalitarian society is viable, what would an ideal world look like and where we are today.
Vivien Kogut’s Thomas More’s Utopia (part of a series on The Renaissance through texts and objects) begins on 18 October 2022.
Everything we do at the London Literary Salon is in some way about the power of words. Often this means reading and sharing responses to literature with others, but we are also committed to the idea of providing opportunities for people to use writing as a means of promoting their own mental wellbeing and resilience.
Our ‘Reading and Writing for Wellbeing’ workshops led by Alison Cable help participants to write, with the primary aim of encouraging self-development. Some people regard it as a kind of literary yoga!
The focus is always on process rather than product. People may be invited to share their work with others in the group – and many choose to do so – but this is entirely voluntary. Sessions often begin with a short free-writing warm-up which Alison describes as “a continuous blurt” with no worries about grammar, spelling, content, form or audience. She explains “Start with your grocery list, or a doodle, if that’s where you are. Anything at all. No one will read it unless you want them to.”
For many of the writing exercises Alison uses prompts from poetry and prose by well-known writers which members of the group read together. For example, the theme of ‘place’ inspired by Virginia Woolf’s eerie and puzzling story The Haunted House in which a ghostly couple search for their ‘hidden joy’. Writers are free to use fantasy, reality, metaphor – anything that works – with no pressure to label or focus on personal experience.
These workshops provide a safe and supportive environment in which to cultivate self-exploration and expression. The groups are guided by principles embodied in the acronym CARE – confidentiality, attention, respect and empathy. Participants are welcome to share their writing and reflections without judgement or criticism, Alison stresses that “whatever you write is right!”
Some feedback from past participants:
“Alison Cable creates such a safe, fun, non-judgmental space that even I can’t turn it into a struggle . . . In this space both reading and writing are joyful.”
“A great experience. Alison strips away the pressure and self-criticism often associated with writing and enables participants to write first and foremost for themselves.”
Writing for Wellbeing workshops currently booking:
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
For Ulysses readers past, present and future who didn’t catch Adam Low’s film James Joyce’s Ulysses on BBC2 last night, it will remain available to view online for the next eleven months.
Over an hour and a half the film visits Trieste, Zurich, Paris and Dublin, telling the tale of how Joyce came to write his masterpiece, the struggle to get it published and how he and Nora Barnacle lived their lives together. With archive footage and contributions from scholars and writers including Salman Rushdie, Colm Tóibín, Anne Enright, Howard Jacobson, Eimear McBride, Paul Muldoon, John McCourt, Nuala O’Connor, Vivien Igoe and many others. Apologies to those who can’t access the BBC but catch it if you can!
