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 Leah Jewett |
Book talk brings the classics to life
THIS is a book group with a difference, a sitting-room seminar that goes by the name of the Parisian Literary Salon.
In a comfortable house in Kentish Town, seven of us draw up an armchair or settle onto a sofa with a glass of wine or cup of tea to discuss a work of literature.
The Salon meets for five Tuesday nights in a row from 7.45pm to 10pm, costs £65, and includes a break midway through for snacks.
Masterminded by Toby Brothers – an experienced teacher with degrees in education and psychology – it draws together people who are interested in talking about a book both informally and in depth.
Brothers, 44, is an inspiring one-woman show. Clear and enthusiastic, she brings to the table an easygoing sense of humour. It can be a tall order, keeping a conversation on course – but knowing the books inside and out, Brothers brings up themes, asks thought-provoking questions and puts things into a cultural and historical context. She interweaves her insights into the text with participants’ comments and queries.
The books covered in the Salon can be challenging – Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie; William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury; King Lear – but that makes tackling them with an inquisitive group all the more rewarding. Brothers also hands out relevant essays and interviews. As one participant put it: “Sometimes I felt as if the book we were reading took us so far under that we wouldn’t be able to come up for air. But Toby was there with her rubber ducks and rescue buoys.”
Another participant, Sheila Fitzgerald, 51, says: “That Toby has the passion to do the Salon is wonderful. I never knew I was missing this until it came along.”
“An opportunity to chat to bright, educated people about books” is how LJ Filotrani, 39, put it. “It makes your brain work.”
An American in Paris, Brothers created her first Salon – which she calls a “marathon for the mind” – in the French capital in 2004, and continued the format here when she moved to London last year. She recently held a poetry session at Dragonfly, the café on Highgate Hill, and is also offering a six-month-long study of Ulysses that will end with a trip to Dublin.
It quickly becomes addictive – translating the solitary pleasure of reading into an exchange with other people. I go back home exhilarated.
Leah Jewett
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