Reading Group Autumn 2011

James Joyce Society of Sarasota

A n n o u n c e m e n t

We would like all you Joyceans to know that we have been preparing for our reading group sessions for this fall season. The THEME is:

“The Lost Generation in Paris”

The literature of the most influencial writers who were part of
this exciting literary period.

PLACE: North Library
TIME: 10:00 AM – Noon
DATES: The 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of October, November,
December, and January.

* * * *

Why this theme? Well, it is a lead-up to Joyce’s 130th Birthday Celebration.
and the 90th Anniversary of Sylvia Beach’s publication of Ulysses. It is a pleasure to announce that the speaker at this February Birthday Event will be:
Professor Noel Riley Fitch
author of
Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation
“A History of Literary Paris in the Twenties and Thirties”

Noel Riley Fitch has taught at the American University of Paris for two decades. She has written other books, most of which have Paris as a theme. They include:
Anais: The Erotic Life of Anais Nin (1993), Appetite for Life: the Biography of
Julia Child (1997), Walks in Hemingway’s Paris, and Literary Cafes of Paris.
Her books have been translated into several languages including French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Italian, and Dutch.
Ms. Fitch was presented with the Prix Tour Montparnasse 2011 for the recent translation in French under the title, Sylvia Beach: Une Americaine a Paris.

Sylvia Beach, as many of you know, founded Shakespeare and Company
Bookshop, on the Rue de L’Odean in Paris, and it soon became the center of international literature. Beach was also the publisher of Joyce’s Ulysses, working assiduously with Joyce through all the vicissitudes attending the preparation and printing of the novel. Carlos Baker (who wrote the authorized biography of Hemingway) observes that “[Beach] also served as cheerful den-mother to hundreds of writers, artists, and composers. Ms. Fitch tells the story of these friendships, specifically with those ex-patriots whom we identify with the “Lost Generation.”

So, our fall sessions will focus on the writers of “The Lost Generation”
by way of preparation for Professor Fitch’s presentation.
* * * *

The Lost Generation is the label applied to the American writers, most
of whom were born around 1900, and many who fought in the First World War.
These were writers who came of age during the war years and established their reputations in the 1920s – more broadly, the entire post-World War I American generation.
The writers considered themselves “lost” because their inherited values could not operate in the postwar world and they felt spiritually alienated from a country they considered hopelessly provincial and emotionally barren. In addition, many of them were disillusioned with the world in general and unwilling to move into a settled life. They wanted to divorce themselves from the 19th century in order to find new means of expression—writing which would soon become 20th century modernism.
The term “lost” embraces many writers, among those were Ernest Hemingway, F.Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, Ford Madox Ford, Ezra Pound, Djuna Barnes, E.E. Cummings, Archibald MacLeish, Hart Crane and, later, Henry Miller. They were significantly influenced by T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, and Gertrude Stein.

The selections being considered for this fall’s sessions will include novels, short stories, poems, and essays. The complete list of reading selections will be announced at a later date.
We do suggest, however, that you get a head start and read over the summer Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises (novel) and A Moveable Feast (memoire). These two works will definitely be included. [Both are offered at bargain prices on-line at Amazon and Barnes and Nobles.]
We also recommend you see Woody Allen’s entertaining Midnight in Paris,
and for those of you who use Netflix order Paris was a Woman, an impressive documentary.

We also believe that reading, as a reference work, Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation, would be useful in understanding the literary works that we will be reading in the study group as well as the complex relationships between Joyce and Beach. Used/new copies are available on-line through Barnes & Nobles starting at $1.50 + shipping and from Amazon starting at $4.41 + shipping.

We expect this to be an exciting study group and hope that you will join us. If there are any questions, contact one of the coordinators below:

Ray Matienzo . . . . . . (941) 922-4445
Margaret Hoffman. . . (941) 358-5827
Tom Steiner . . . . . . . (917) 843-4190


Enjoy the rest of your summer . . . and remember that October 5th (the first meeting date) will be here before you know it!