“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”.

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 23 February, 30 March, 18 May and 8 June) and NO meetings on 4 March, 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

Widely regarded as one of the greatest works of literature in any language, Crime and Punishment is a murder story in which we know the name of the murderer (Raskolnikov) right from the start. Even the title indicates that there will be some punishment in store and we are offered a straightforward reason for why he did it, but Dostoevsky’s tale takes us far beyond such a simple narrative, and it is in the complex vision which he unravels for us that the greatness of his novel is achieved.

Perhaps his most important decision as a writer is to tell the story from the murderer’s perspective. The character of the detective whose deciphering skills are often at the centre of such tales, is seen from the outside and may seem rather puzzling to us, whereas the inner psychological world of the murderer is exposed in astonishing detail. In Dostoevsky’s conversations with his fellow convicts in Siberia, he heard disturbing details of real life murders, and, it seems, wanted to include some of this acquired knowledge in his book. The result is a central character who has the power to intrigue, disturb and move us, despite being in the grip of dark, misguided ideas. From one angle, as readers, we may find him self-centred, bitter, repellent, even wicked, or in the grip of an evil spirit. On the other hand, we may discover a sensitive, impulsive and compassionate man of ideals, struggling with grief and poverty, and pursuing existential ideas around freedom and moral autonomy. We may of course oscillate in our judgment.

Dostoevsky’s complex skill is also evident in his creation of a chorus of vividly depicted characters, reacting in a variety of ways as they respond to Raskolnikov’s increasingly erratic behaviour. The resulting polyphonic effect in which, as suggested by the Russian critic Bakhtin, characters interact without a controlling authorial voice, reflects the fact that very general ideas have a place in the world of this novel, written in the 1860s when the liberalisation of Russian society went into reverse following an attempt on the life of the Tsar. Western political ideas and the growth of nihilism were seen to be in conflict with traditional Russian ideas, especially those concerning the role of the Tsar and the Russian Orthodox church. These conflicts provide a background to the events of the novel.

In the end, however, what is front of stage and stays with us is the extraordinarily vivid presentation of the characters, their confusions, their sense of being thrown from side to side by destabilising events. We may certainly include here the character of the city itself, St Petersburg, with its orderly neo-classical exteriors and dark complex interiors. It is no surprise that Dostoevsky’s exploration of the depths of the human psyche has been seen as a precursor to psychoanalysis, as well as to the literary experiments of modernism.

JOINING DETAILS:

• Seven week study on Zoom led by Keith Fosbrook and Sarah Snoxall
• Tuesdays, 5.30-7.30 pm (UK), 25 February to 8 April 2025
• Recommended edition: Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, Vintage Classics, ISBN: 9781784871970
• £240 for seven meeting study

“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”.

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 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 23 February, 30 March, 18 May and 8 June) and NO meetings on 4 March, 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

Absalom, Absalom! is arguably Faulkner’s most difficult, but also his most brilliant work. It presents the story of Thomas Sutpen, an enigmatic stranger who came to Jefferson in the early 1830s to wrest his mansion out of the muddy bottoms of the north Mississippi wilderness. He was a man, Faulkner said, “who wanted sons and the sons destroyed him.”

Described as ‘hard-core Faulkner’, one review says: “The words and writing are critically acclaimed since your parents were in school. The examples of how a war can raze an entire culture’s edifice of identity are compelling, each person’s doom and curse being common among her kin and her countrymen: ghosts and sex and violence and cruelty, gut wrenching drama to challenge any soap opera or miniseries or movie. There are themes and studies aplenty within the nightmare realm of Faulkner’s masterpiece.”

Some feedback from participants in a previous study of Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury:

“I am so happy to have had this opportunity to immerse myself in The Sound and the Fury in such a structured way and with such expert guidance!  . . . While I probably would have found my way there eventually, the Salon gave me a container, a holding space and chorus of passionate and challenging voices with which to engage the difficult psychological, emotional, and artistic questions it raises.”

“You can get guidance elsewhere – with a discussion group you get more of a creative interaction and that’s what to me is important and exciting . . . you’re really involved in the reading so much more actively.”

“I always finish these sessions with insights I would never have reached on my own.”

“The support to read these difficult books is one of the things I come here for.” 

JOINING DETAILS:

• Seven-week study led by Toby Brothers & John Allemand on Zoom
• Wednesdays, 5.00-7.00 pm (UK)
• 12 March – 23 April 2025
• £280 for seven-week study
• Recommended edition: Absalom, Absalom!, Vintage Classics, ISBN: 9780099475118

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

In response to demand for our previously announced third Virginia Woolf study in Alfriston, devised to celebrate the passing of 100 years since the first publication of Mrs Dalloway in 1925, we are offering a second event in Woolf’s beloved Sussex countryside. Where better to mark the centenary of this ground-breaking book than in the county that in many ways became the writer’s spiritual home?

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 #2’ 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 3 – Sunday 6 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

To coincide with the National Gallery’s exhibition: Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300–1350 (8 March – 22 June 2025), organized with New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it was shown to great acclaim in the autumn of 2024, we are offering two online Salon studies led by Washington-based art historian Aneta Georgievska-Shine. Each study will continue the exploration begun in her lecture At the threshold of the Renaissance: The ‘Rise of Painting’ in fourteenth century Siena, providing an opportunity to examine aspects of this astonishing flowering of creativity in greater depth as part of a small group of participants.

Study 1:  Sienese Painting: The Art of Story Telling

One of the most interesting developments in the Sienese painting of the 14^th century is the pronounced turn towards story telling. In addition to creating pictorial narratives based on canonical sources such as the Bible, the artists of this city explored various ways of addressing abstract topics – such as the battle between virtue and vice – in elaborate allegorical composition.

JOINING DETAILS:

• Two-hour study on Zoom led by Aneta Georgievska-Shine
• Sunday 6 April 2025, 4.00-6.00 pm (UK/BST)
• £35.00 for two-hour study
• An additional study: Sienese Painting: Simone Martini – Elegance & Refined Realism may be booked individually.

“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

After completing incredibly satisfying studies of Ulysses and Magic Mountain, we have turned to the next big mountain of Modernism, Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. This is my seventh tour through the Search and each visit reveals new nuggets and gasping moments. This fourth volume, Sodom and Gomorrah, 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 anything about the world you live in, but you will be surprised. The group that has made it through the first three volumes in the last six months is lively and welcoming and we may have room for two or three more participants. If you have not read the first three 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.”

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, together with what our senses perceive, that moulds our consciousness.

I’d  like to share with you part of Edmund White’s essay on this section from Andre Aciman’s collection The Proust Project:

“In these pages, Proust alludes to so many conflicting theories of homosexuality that they end up by casting doubt on one another — and on all such theories.  In fact they suggest, finally, that only the conventions of a few cultures (but not all or even most cultures) determine the definition of normality; mere convention and nothing more absolute defines the status of homosexuality.

On the face of it nothing could seem further from the Proustian position.  He starts out with the most extreme (and the most offensive) theory; that male homosexuals are inverts, i.e., women disguised as men.  this whole initial disquisition on homosexuality is triggered by Marcel’s realization that Charlus’s face in repose is that of a woman since ‘he was one.’  This is the theory of ‘the soul of a woman enclosed in the body of a man’ first worked out by the German sexologist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs in 1868.

Proust plays with the theories and homophobia of his time – and exposes societal hypocrisies in all forms.”

JOINING DETAILS:

• Facilitated by Toby Brothers
• Mondays, 1.00-3.00 pm (UK)
• Thirteen-meeting study on Zoom starting on 27 January 2025 (N.B. no meetings on 3 March, 14 & 28 April, 5 & 12 May)
• Recommended editions: Penguin, ISBN 9780141180342, Christopher Prendergast (Editor), John Sturrock (Translator) OR Vintage Classics, ISBN 9780099362517
• £390 for thirteen meetings (includes background materials, literary criticism, opening notes and discussion notes)

“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:

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 fourth 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, but you will be surprised. 

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.”

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, together with what our senses perceive, that moulds our consciousness.

I’d  like to share with you part of Edmund White’s essay on this section from Andre Aciman’s collection The Proust Project:

“In these pages, Proust alludes to so many conflicting theories of homosexuality that they end up by casting doubt on one another — and on all such theories.  In fact they suggest, finally, that only the conventions of a few cultures (but not all or even most cultures) determine the definition of normality; mere convention and nothing more absolute defines the status of homosexuality.

On the face of it nothing could seem further from the Proustian position.  He starts out with the most extreme (and the most offensive) theory; that male homosexuals are inverts, i.e., women disguised as men.  this whole initial disquisition on homosexuality is triggered by Marcel’s realization that Charlus’s face in repose is that of a woman since ‘he was one.’  This is the theory of ‘the soul of a woman enclosed in the body of a man’ first worked out by the German sexologist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs in 1868.

Proust plays with the theories and homophobia of his time – and exposes societal hypocrisies in all forms.”

JOINING DETAILS:

• Facilitated by Toby Brothers
• Mondays, 3.30-5.30 pm (UK)
• Thirteen-meeting study on Zoom starting on 27 January 2025 (N.B. no meetings on 3 March, 14 & 28 April, 5 & 12 May)
• Recommended editions: Penguin, ISBN 9780141180342, Christopher Prendergast (Editor), John Sturrock (Translator) OR Vintage Classics, ISBN 9780099362517
• £390 for thirteen meetings (includes background materials, literary criticism, opening notes and discussion notes)

“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

After completing incredibly satisfying studies of Ulysses and Magic Mountain, we have turned to the next big mountain of Modernism, Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. This is my seventh tour through the Search and each visit reveals new nuggets and gasping moments. This fourth volume, Sodom and Gomorrah, 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 anything about the world you live in, but you will be surprised. The group that has made it through the first three volumes in the last six months is lively and welcoming and we may have room for two or three more participants. If you have not read the first three 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.”

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, together with what our senses perceive that moulds our consciousness.

I’d  like to share with you part of Edmund White’s essay on this section from Andre Aciman’s collection The Proust Project:

“In these pages, Proust alludes to so many conflicting theories of homosexuality that they end up by casting doubt on one another — and on all such theories.  In fact they suggest, finally, that only the conventions of a few cultures (but not all or even most cultures) determine the definition of normality; mere convention and nothing more absolute defines the status of homosexuality.

On the face of it nothing could seem further from the Proustian position.  He starts out with the most extreme (and the most offensive) theory; that male homosexuals are inverts, i.e., women disguised as men.  this whole initial disquisition on homosexuality is triggered by Marcel’s realization that Charlus’s face in repose is that of a woman since ‘he was one.’  This is the theory of ‘the soul of a woman enclosed in the body of a man’ first worked out by the German sexologist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs in 1868.

Proust plays with the theories and homophobia of his time – and exposes societal hypocrisies in all forms.”

JOINING DETAILS:

• Facilitated by Toby Brothers and Ralph Kleinman
• Mondays, 6.00-8.00 pm (UK)
• Thirteen-meeting study on Zoom starting on 27 January 2025 (N.B. no meetings on 3 March, 14 & 28 April, 5 & 12 May)
• Recommended editions: Penguin, ISBN 9780141180342, Christopher Prendergast (Editor), John Sturrock (Translator) OR Vintage Classics, ISBN 9780099362517
• £390 for thirteen meetings (includes background materials, literary criticism, opening notes and discussion notes)

In this Springtime study we will read T.S. Eliot’s groundbreaking modernist poem The Waste Land. Over the course of four weeks we will celebrate the poem’s complexity, dig into its intertextuality and (above all) observe how it resonates with us today.

Questions we might consider include: ‘How does this poem present modernity?’, ‘How does it explore the concepts of waste and the environment?’, ‘Is it a product of gritty realism or sublime mysticism?’ and, last but not least, ‘Why does it endure?’

JOINING DETAILS:

• Four-week study on Zoom led by Karina Jakubowicz
• 7-28 April, Monday evenings 6.00-8.00 pm (UK)
• £120 for four two-hour meetings
• Schedule:
  7 April – Epigraph & The Burial of the Dead
  14 April – A Game of Chess
  21 April – The Fire Sermon
  28 April – Death by Water & What the Thunder Said

“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 ninth section of the ‘Slow Read’ Ulysses study led by Toby Brothers and occasional guest facilitators from within the group, 13 two-hour sessions, Tuesdays from 2.30-4.30 pm (UK), starting on 14 January and ending on 22 April 2025.
• 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 £390.00, 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

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

To coincide with the National Gallery’s exhibition: Siena: The RIse of Painting 1300-1350 (8 March-22 June 2025) organized with New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it was shown to great acclaim in the autumn of 2024, we are offering two online Salon studies led by Washington-based art historian Aneta Georgievska-Shine. Each study will continue the exploration begun in her lecture At the threshold of the Renaissance: The ‘Rise of Painting’ in fourteenth century Siena, providing an opportunity to examine aspects of this astonishing flowering of creativity in greater depth as part of a small group of participants.

Study 2:  Simone Martini – Elegance & Refined Realism

Simone Martini (c. 1284–1344) was a master of elegance, grace and refined realism. A key figure in the Sienese School, much admired by Petrarch, his works are characterised by fluid lines, delicate figures and luminous colors. His attention to naturalistic detail, expressive gestures and atmospheric depth brought a new emotional sensitivity to religious art and helped shape the International Gothic style.

JOINING DETAILS:

• Two-hour study on Zoom led by Aneta Georgievska-Shine
• Sunday 13 April 2025, 4.00-6.00 pm (UK/BST)
• £35.00 for two-hour study
• An additional study: Sienese Painting: The Art of Story Telling may be booked individually.

“Then on the centre of the shield itself

Through his extraordinary skill he fashioned

Numerous images as decoration.

On it he made the earth, the sky, the sea

The sun that never wearies, the full moon,

And all the wonderous stars that crown the sky-

The Pleiades, the Hyades, Orion

The mighty warrior, and the Great Bear,

Known as the Wagon, which revolves in place,

The only constellation never washed

By Ocean’s streams.”

In Book 18 of The Iliad, Achilles – devastated by the death of his beloved Patroclus – vows to take revenge on his killer, Hector, who has also stolen the armour that Patroclus had borrowed from him. Thetis, his mother, makes him promise not to return to battle until she has obtained a new set of armour from Hephaestus (Vulcan in Roman mythology). At her request the craftsman god creates an immortal set of armour with a stunning decorated shield.

In the middle of his epic poem Homer has set a description of the shield itself, creating one of the earliest examples of Ekphrasis, the use of a detailed account of a piece of art as a literary device. Achilles’ shield contains heaven and earth and two cities, one at peace and one at war, farmland with fields being ploughed and harvested, vineyards, cattle menaced by a lion, a wedding, and a man on trial for murder.  At the end of the passage Homer describes a group of young men and women dancing in the open air.  

Over the centuries this section of the Iliad has struck many readers and listeners with its beauty and the power of the images described.  It has been interpreted in many different ways and has inspired poets from Hesiod to W.H. Auden. 

As we look at these lines in detail, we will examine the elements that make it such a memorable description and consider ways in which it underlines the themes of the Iliad as a whole. 

This study is suitable for people who are not familiar with the Iliad as well as those who have already read the poem. 

JOINING DETAILS:

• Single meeting study facilitated by Caroline Hammond
• Wednesday 16 April, 6.00-8.00 pm BST
• £30 to include background materials and opening notes