ONLINE SEMINAR
May 19 | Novels of Penelope Fitzgerald
$175.00
In this seminar we undertake a careful reading of three of Fitzgerald’s greatest novels: The Bookshop, The Beginnings of Spring and The Blue Flower. We do so with an eye on how it is Fitzgerald captures the complexity of experience in so few pages, why it is she made experience rather than its “getting over” the subject of her works and what the affect of such writing is on the reader, especially in an era of the interior novel.
When: Three weekly sessions on Wednesdays at 7:00 p.m. Eastern, starting May 19, 2021
Duration: 2 hours per session
Cost: C$175 plus 13% HST (approx. US$135 plus 13% HST)
Group Size: 12-participant limit
How: We will be using Zoom; you will receive instructions on how to join upon registration. For your privacy, all our Zoom seminars are password-protected and are never recorded.
All seminar payments are nonrefundable. If you are interested in applying your Toronto Pursuits 2020 deposit to this seminar, please contact us.
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Description
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LEADER
Wendy O’Brien is a philosopher with over 30 years’ experience teaching in academic and non-academic environments, including Humber Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, Wilfrid Laurier University, the University of Waterloo, Harvard, Oxford and the Art Gallery of Ontario. Her work explores subjects including power, violence, the relation to the Other, home, silence, and creativity. She is presently working on a long-term project on the concept of wonder. An active member of the Ontario literary scene, she has been an interviewer for organizations including By the Lake Book Club, the Toronto International Festival of Authors and GritLit, as well as hosting Bourbon and Books book club in both Toronto and Hamilton.
BOOKS
The Bookshop, by Penelope Fitzgerald
(Mariner Books, 2015)
ISBN-13: 978-0544484092
The Beginning of Spring, by Penelope Fitzgerald
(Mariner Books, 2015)
ISBN-13: 978-0544484115
The Blue Flower, by Penelope Fitzgerald
(Mariner Books, 2014)
ISBN-13: 978-0544359451
These editions are encouraged but not required.
We encourage you to support local bookstores or other independent sellers, especially as alternatives to Amazon.
In the US and the UK, try Bookshop.org World of Books, or Ebooks (electronic books only)
In the US and Canada, try Powell’s Books, IndieBound, and Thiftbooks (used books only in Canada)
In Canada, try McNally Robinson or Indigo
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“Experiences aren’t given us to be ‘got over’ otherwise they would hardly be experiences.” This quote from Penelope Fitzgerald is characteristic of all her writing. Short and seemingly obvious, you find yourself coming back to it time and again. You know that there is something more there … The words, they linger, for in their directness and simplicity, in their brevity…. well, there is life — life as we live it — life written small. There is life as we experience it—not life made neat and tidy, not life with heroes and heroines. No, in Fitzgerald’s writing there are people, ordinary people trying to do their best with all that they have, all that they understand… and all that they don’t. The words, the stories of Penelope Fitzgerald reveal to us the world writ small. In exquisite detail, she creates a particular world in which we find something universal.
In this seminar we undertake a careful reading of three of Fitzgerald’s greatest novels: The Bookshop, The Beginnings of Spring and The Blue Flower. We do so with an eye on how it is Fitzgerald captures the complexity of experience in so few pages, why it is she made experience rather than its “getting over” the subject of her works and what the affect of such writing is on the reader, especially in an era of the interior novel.
All online seminar payments are nonrefundable.
Classical Pursuits does not record seminars and requests participants to also refrain from making their own recordings.
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Additional information
| Choose registration type | Standard registration, Toronto Pursuits 2020 credit |
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