Parisian Literary Salon

The Parisian Literary Salon
presents a one-day intensive study on
Housekeeping
By Marilynne Robinson
On June 7 I will be offering an evening Salon study of Marilynne Robinson’s haunting first work. Each line is so carefully crafted and ice-sharp. Through Ruth’s narration we learn more about the impermanence of things – people, places, home – and watch her struggle to adulthood with the awareness that nothing stays in place. Ruth’s Aunt Sylvie tries to guide her, but Sylvie cannot break the habits of transience: crackers in her pocket, coat always on. Ultimately the home they share welcomes the outdoors - leaves rattle in the corners, birds nest in the cupboards. There is
a freedom found here - and this book reveals profound possibilities in a spare world.
The one-day Salon goes for 5 hours, with a break for a pot-luck meal in the middle – it is a wonderful marathon for the mind. If you have not done a Salon but have been interested, this would be an exhilarating foray. The study is structured around a close reading of the book supplemented by auxiliary materials and fuelled by participants’ questions, observations and reactions. You will want to complete Housekeeping before the meeting.
Date & time Sunday June 7, 5.00-10pm. Registration is happening now – space is limited to 9 participants (currently 3 spaces available)
Location North London
Cost £40, including supplementary materials
A playful and in-depth seminar, the Parisian Literary Salon gathers an intellectually curious and diverse group to study a work of literature. We use the experience and questions of each participant to broaden our understanding of the book… and of ourselves. Discussions are led by a dynamic literature instructor with years of experience leading Salons in Paris and London in classical and world literature, poetry and creative writing. Come deepen your understanding of the beauty and art of literature and connect with other lively thinkers.
Feedback from previous Housekeeping Salon participants: “I have been meditating for years on how to loosen those boundaries we mentioned between real and imagined, and this was the first time all of it seemed to come up in a book. I so appreciated the flow and the resonance of our discussion last night, that we all knew what we were talking about and had yet another point of view on the same scene.” // “What a rollercoaster ride! Sometimes I felt as if Robinson took us so far under (or upside down) that we wouldn’t be able to come up for air. But Toby was there with her rubber ducks and rescue buoys.”

The Owl Bookstore in Kentish Town has copies of the Picador text at a discount- tell them you are buying for Toby’s Salon…
see you in the pages!

Last evening it was my pleasure to watch a large group of students present poetry they had chosen and learned. The performances were vivid; many had found how to embody the words that they spoke. I have lots of poetry energy after these remarkable presentations: the relish for language the students communicated was palpable. I am thinking hard about the question someone asked after the performances: “How do we read poetry (as adults)? No one does- we read novels, histories, autobiographies, but poetry? ” I got to thinking how rich poetry is as a shared experience- a recitation, performance, words put into the public space and chewed…how that is the way to read poetry. Some of the students (including my own) lamented that we can’t do a poetry evening more regularly…but luckily for Londoners, there is an opportunity to eat poetry this Monday:
The Parisian Literary Salon Presents
An Evening of Poetry Exploration
At the Dragonfly Organic Café in Highgate
Interested in discussing pathless woods…mythology… hope… sin… poetic form…tenuous, dark earth… narrative perspective…birch-swinging boys…talking stoves…crying teakettles… adolescence … abandonment… shattering glass…boundaries between the living & the dead?
All may surface at the Parisian Literary Salon where we use the experience and questions of each participant to broaden our understanding of literature and of ourselves. Whether you are a lifelong student of poetry or someone who is interested in talking about ideas but not sure how to read a poem - you will find this evening illuminating and pleasurable. Come spend one evening deepening your understanding of the beauty and art of poetry- feeding your mind while connecting with other lively thinkers.
Poems to be discussed (available on the this website): E. Bishop’s Sestina, L. O’Sullivan’s The Cord & R. Frost’s Birches
Date: Monday May 11th from 7 to 8:30 PM
Location: Dragonfly Organic Café
24 Highgate High Street
Details and registration: http://www.villagewholefoods.co.uk/about.html

If you could copy me on your registration through Dragonfly- and I can send you some thoughts and musings in preparation and notes afterwards. I just read this in the paper this morning- and got a jolt of recognition. From Alan Bennett’s play The History Boys:
“The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things—which you thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.”

See you in the pages…
Toby