Parisian Literary Salon
Paris News- January 19, 2009
Somewhere in the heart of experience there is an
order and a coherence which we might surprise if we
were attentive enough, loving enough, or patient
enough. Will there be time? –Lawrence Durrell: Justine.
Balancing between Salons in Paris and London, balancing between the artist self and the working self, between parenting and self-fulfillment- the whispers of patience, love and attention can sometimes be ignored- at my peril, I find.
The last two intensive Salons in Paris (Lives of Girls and Women and Housekeeping) presented moments of transcendent attention and fellowship with truly amazing people. How wonderful to continue to explore the power of language and the poignancy of ideas with such lively and diverse thinkers.
Below you will find the upcoming Salon events with brief descriptions. To sign up, please email me to reserve your place- if this is your first Salon, I require a 15 euro deposit (total cost is 45) as well. Each of the afternoon/evening Salons will include a potluck meal- location details to follow. The last few Salons have been full; I accept participation on a first-come first serve basis so do email me soon if you would like to join. Many thanks to all who have helped make each all-day Salon a success- the hosts and logistics supporters whose contribution goes beyond words and lists of tasks: Barbara, Jennifer, Lizzie and Pam in particular.
The soon-to-be new President of the USA has been revealed as a lover of reading and words- experienced Salon participants will recognize many of his favorite works- check out the article in today’s New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/books/19read.html?_r=1&hp
Paris Salon Events Spring 2009
* January 24th- Book Launch for Salonist Denise Larking-Coste & other writers of Babel-details below
* Weekend March 6-8
Friday night American Library Poetry workshop (proposed)
Saturday Housekeeping Salon afternoon/evening with optional writing workshop earlier
Sunday Mrs. Dalloway Salon afternoon evening
Weekend April 17-19 Reading the Body Weekend Workshop details available by request- email litsalon@gmail.com
Housekeeping
ON March 7th I will be offering an afternoon/evening Salon study of Marilyn Robinson’s haunting first work, Housekeeping. 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 worn inside, shoes under her pillow- 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 December study found ourselves immersed in questions around ‘right’ parenting, interior vs. exterior worlds, freedom and its cost, resurrection and apocalypse. But this listing of terms seems to reduce the conversation- below I offer some of the feedback –and words from the book itself-from the previous Salon. It was magical. Many Salon regulars who were unable to be there have asked to participate in this March Salon- please confirm your attendance now.
Feedback:
I have been meditating for years to loosen those boundaries we mentioned last night between real and imagined, (maybe to transubstantiate ????) 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, 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.
First a thousand thanks for the reading of that extraordinary book and for such a deep, wide ranging and enriching discussion on Saturday! I did want us read out aloud the following, which I felt was one of the most extraordinary – in every sense of the word – and highly significant passages in the book. But somehow there was so much being said there didn’t seem to be time to put this forward! Chapter 4, P. 73 in Faber edition:
(This is during the flood of Fingerbone)
“During those days Fingerbone was strangely transformed. If one should be shown odd fragments arranged on a silver tray and be told, ‘That is a splinter from the True Cross, and that is a nail paring dropped by Barabbas, and that is a bit of lint from under the bed where Pilate’s wife dreamed her dream,’ the very ordinariness of the things would recommend them. Every spirit passing through the world fingers the tangible and mars the mutable, and finally has come to look and not to buy. So shoes are worn and hassocks are sat upon and finally everything is left where it was and the spirit passes on, just as the wind in the orchard picks up the leaves from the ground as if there were no other pleasure in the world but brown leaves, as if it would deck, clothe, flesh itself in flourishes of dusty brown apple leaves, and then drop them all in a heap at the side of the house and goes on. So Fingerbone, or such relics of it as showed above the mirroring waters, seemed fragments of the quotidian held up to our wondering attention, offered somehow as proof of their own significance.”
And finally, from an interview with Marilynne Robinson in the Sunday Times (Sept. 08):
“Now let me be clear - I’m not saying that you’re actually dead if you haven’t read Marilynne Robinson, but I honestly couldn’t say you’re fully alive. ”
Mrs. Dalloway
I have always threatened to offer a Salon on Mrs. Dalloway, and now several happy accidents make this the moment. My intensive studies of Modernism and the Modernist aesthetic have brought this novel into a sharper focus for me- and I am convinced again of Woolf’s fundamental role in shifting the narrative voice from the objective to the subjective world and discovering aspects of the workings of the mind that psychological studies are still unraveling.
Here is Julia Briggs from her exquisite 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—its comedy, tragedy, love interest, its concern with secrets, marriage and death. For Woolf, fiction’s traditional focus on highly charged moments threatened to devalue daily experience. In Mrs Dalloway, she set out to restore ‘the life of Monday or Tuesday’ to its proper, central place in fiction. At the same time, avoiding familiar narrative sequences made greater demands on her readers, requiring them to take a more active role in the process of interpretation.”
From Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life by Julia Briggs (Penguin, 2005) pg. 131
Doesn’t this sound like a perfect Salon book??
See you in the pages….
Toby
Book Launch and Reading
“Writing off the Wall”
Saturday 24th January 2009 19-21h
We would love the pleasure of your company at a book launch of “Writing off the Wall” by the Paris writer’s group Babel, on Saturday January 24th 2009.
Writers Angel Howard, Denise Larking-Coste, Martin Lewis, Tom O’Brien, Murray Simpson and Vivienne Vermes will be reading, and there will be an exhibition of paintings by artist Maureen Pucheu. Some of our pieces have been inspired by her paintings.
The launch and reading will take place at a charming art gallery: Pavé d’Orsay, 48 rue de Lille, 75007 Paris Metro : rue du Bac No entrance fee, Drinks can be purchased at the wine bar - as can our book! RSVP to Denise at: larskview@aol.com