Thursday, January 25, 2018

Reading Shakespeare in the fall, Woolf in winter

We went ahead with our Shakespeare in the fall and Woolf in the winter: Antony and Cleopatra in October, Macbeth in November, then A Room of One's Own in January, with a break in December to read Dickens' A Christmas Carol. We continue to meet in the downtown library 3rd floor boardroom. We continue to be mostly Steph and me and Paul, but the group is open to anyone. You don't even have to have read the book (because it turns out it's sort of difficult to do all the time, and who's to say, after all, what the threshold is for having read, as Brian likes to point out.)

Octavia’s role in the play, entrances and exits, the murder of Pompey, interruptions and unheard speeches were all things we discussed in October. In Macbeth we looked at motivations and ghosts, dreams and reality, Lady Macbeth and the witches and whose idea it was really to do, and do, and do, who does what and who's the victim. A Room of One's Own prompted some reflections on the frame narratives and the thread of thought interrupted at the beginning and perhaps returned to at the end.

Next in February we're reading A Brave New World. We'll meet on the last Saturday at 4 pm.

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