No Anna Karenina, We Read Short Stories Instead

The two secretaries, recording and corresponding, were again missing in action. Jacquie reprised her former position as corresponding secretary. The minutes are a compendium of emails and notes from Kathy, written up by Frances.

Jacquie's Email Hello Literary Ladies! FYI regarding tomorrow's program, our fearless leader and retired Hastings High School English teacher extraordinaire, Laura, writes, “In honor of Carla and our Russian afternoon, I would like to read two stories. The first, quite brief, is Three Hermits by Leo Tolstoy. It is direct and affecting. The second, Gooseberries by Anton Chekov, is more complicated, but rich for discussion. I will take care of having copies for everyone. I hope these choices meet your approval!”

Carla, we will all mis your presentation, but we will be in good hands, so not to fret. 

I hope everyone gets a chance to enjoy this beautiful day! x Jacquie

Minutes Christine, for the third time this year, welcomed us into her elegant 19th century house. Carla sent us an email the day before, full of regret, and also as wonderfully amusing as she is, explaining her absence and why she couldn't present: 

My presentation tomorrow was going to take a playbook from Jeff Spurgeon/WQXR’s 3 minute opera synopsis. Here goes!
Long ago, far away, a beautiful woman and handsome man fall in love. No happy ending in store. She was married, with pompous husband and a child. An affair follow, she is snubbed by her aristocratic peers. The pair leave their land, have a child together, she can’tget a divorce from her spouse, can’t be with her son. She begins to doubt her lover, becomes distraught and kills herself. He mourns and goes off to join his regiment! The End!
Yes. Much more to amplify! It’s Tolstoy!

And responses followed:

 

Carla, that is an EXCELLENT synopsis of Anna Karenina! I should do that for some of the books I've read but can't remember! Hope you're feeling better! — Diana

I always thought Anna Karenina would be so much more “fun” without all that stuff about farming! —  Jacquie

 

Carla, there is your wit and humor where I thought it would not tread! Thanks!  — Laura

 

Thank you, Carla. I love Jeff Sprugeon's opera synopses, and I love yours.   — Linda

At 1 PM, President Laura called the meeting to order.

Connie discussed a gift of books to Children's Village in Dobbs Ferry. Former member, Susan Meigs, taught reading there for many years. Susan passed away last month. In her memory, we are thinking of having a bookshelf dedicated to her at the Children's Village library. 

We read the two stories suggested by Laura. We have decided to continue short story or play readings at one or two of our meeting next year. 

This is the last meeting of the year. We will have our traditional summer meeting around Christine's pool, date TBD. Next year's topic will be New York: Writers, Novels, Stories.

Gita Presents James Joyce's Ulysses

A little change up here. Both secretaries, recording and corresponding, were unable to fulfill their duties. Frances was in Santa Fe; Carla had a health issue. Kathy replaced Frances. Carla is irreplaceable.

Kathy's Minutes Ten or so members and one associate attended. Jackie was a kind host who served an extraordinary breakfast-like meal. Her house’s interior is lush; with paintings, books and photographs, every which way you looked. It was the proper setting for what was about to come.

Around 1:00 PM the president rang the bell. The hostess was thanked. The minutes were read. The treasurer reported; our account is flush.

Members report:

Carla will participate next year as an associate member.

The club is interested in recruiting new members. The numbers are down. A near term consequence will be fewer meetings.

Presentation:

Gita introduced the members to James Joyce and his masterpiece Ulysses. She read it for the first time, and she found it very funny

Joyce was born on February 2nd, 1882, in Dublin, Ireland. His father’s drinking caused financial issues and Joyce had an interrupted early education. At one point, he just stayed home and read books. At University College in Dublin, he studied language. He read widely, in particular books that the Jesuits did not recommend.

Ulysses was thought to be pornographic by some and Joyce had difficulties publishing in the United States.

Gita threw us into the book.

Ulysses chronicles the experiences of three Dubliners over the course of a single day, 16 June 1904 (which its fans now celebrate annually as Bloomsday).

Jackie’s richly layered house was a backdrop to the tracing of memories in the stories. Gita directed the readings, introducing us to the different types of interior monologue and construction.

When asked where they should end a reading, Gita would reply: it makes no difference.

(Because it's an interior monologue, you are just keep on reading it—flies from place to place—from person to person—and there were two memorable points—two members were enraptured, for a time read back and forth to each other—were enjoying the language just enjoying what they read the to each other, what passages about these characters and we all listened to it—another member was asked by Gita to stop and then requested asked—well demanded very impatiently asked to continue until she finished saying all the G sounds that she was enjoying saying—it appeared very mediative.)

“Before Joyce, no writer of fiction had so foregrounded the process of thinking. Its stream of consciousness technique, careful structuring and prose of an experimental nature—replete with puns, parodies, epiphanies and allusions—as well as its rich characterization and broad humor have led it to be regarded as one of the greatest literary works.” — Declan Kiberd

The book’s ending is famously known for its lack of punctuation and using sentences of extended length.

Gita had us end with these words:

yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

Respectfully submitted,
Kathy Sullivan

Acting Recording Secretary

Kathy Presents Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here

 Carla's Email: Paper bag players all, bring your lunch to our April 8 meeting at Joanna Reisman’s lovely home at noon. Our hostess will provide desserts and beverages. And more treats to follow, with Kathy Sullivan’s always engaging presentation, this time on Sinclair Lewis.
      As usual, members please tell Joanna if you can’t attend; associate members, please reply to her if you can’t attend. Best, Carla

Frances' Minutes Ten members met in Joanna’s living room. It was the third time in the 2025-26 term that Joanna has hosted; we appreciate her willingness to fill in when the scheduled hostess had a conflict. Our plans were upset several times this year by illness or accidents, ours or our families.

 It was a brown bag lunch; Joanna supplied a tableful of cookies & cakes.

 Vice-president Jacquie called the meeting to order at 1 PM. President Laura was traveling in China.

 Lori gave the treasurer’s report:  $413.12. A hefty sum for us, owing to the payment of our $20 annual dues.

 Carla announced that she would now become an associate member.

 We discussed the upcoming year’s schedule. With only 13 full members, our 2026-27 term will fall short of presentations to go from September to May. Jacquie suggested one of our meetings be a short story reading; we’ve done that several times, and it’s been a success.  Sharon suggested we might consider a play reading. We need new members, we will all think about likely candidates. 

 In the past several years, we have donated children’s books to Family Services of Yonkers. Connie reported that for several reasons – a new director, other donations – Family Services no longer needs books. She suggested that we make an annual book donation to the Children’s Village library.

 At 1 PM Kathy’s presentation on Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here began.

It was all too painfully relevant to current politics. The slow slide to fascism described in the 1939 novel parallels the direction Trump is marching the US towards.

Lewis’s unacknowledged contributor was his wife, Dorothy Thompson. She was a newspaper correspondent, reporting from Germany and Italy, in the 30’s. Her observations were an immense help to his fictional account of the demise of American democracy.  She wrote:

 “No people ever recognize their dictator in advance. He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship. He always represents himself as the instrument for expressing the Incorporated National Will.”

 The novel opens with the Ladies’ Dinner of the local Rotary Club. We meet the honored guest, General Bridgeway, who says “the US only wants to be left alone” but less he be thought a pacifist, the general stresses that the US must arm itself for peace. Mrs Gimmitch, known for her opposition to women’s suffrage, says we need discipline, character and will.

 Doremus Jessup, the editor of the local newspaper, observes, ironically, that we could cure the evils of democracy with the evils of fascism.

Sinclair Lewis writes from Doremus’ point of view. He is the believer in American democracy, watching its collapse. After the Rotarian dinner, at a dinner with friends at the local minister’s home, Doremus predicts what will happen, in a flippant manner, as if he doesn’t believe it could happen in the US.

 Kathy divided the narrative into 3 sections: pre-election; fascism takes hold; persecution and resistance.

First: pre-election is Doremus’ observations of the unease taking hold of Americans, of the opinions people like Mrs Gimmitch and General Bridgeway hold. The way is being subtly prepared for the overturning of democracy. The time is the 1930’s, when Hitler, Mussolini and Franco are consolidating power.

 Second: fascism takes hold details the unlikely rise of Buzz Windrip. He’s supported by the League of Forgotten Men, supposedly 50 million strong—the impoverished, war veterans, the dispossessed (recall the Dust Bowl started in 1930). He promises every American $5000. He writes a book, outlining his 15 point policy for making America strong again. We alternated reading Windrip’s policy and Doremus’ rebuttal.

Third: persecution and resistance begins after the election of Windrip as president. He forms a paramilitary group, the Minute Men, as his private army. Concentration camps are established; arbitrary arrests of perceived government enemies are common. There is no longer a rule of law nor of justice.

 It Can’t Happen Here was actually a question Lewis was asking: could it happen here?

 Respectfully submitted,

Frances Greenberg
Recording Secretary

 

 

 

 

Annual Meeting March 4, 2026

Jacquieʼs Email Hello Literary Ladies! The Literature Club of Hastings-on-Hudson will be enjoying two beloved annual events this Wednesday, March 4th—our Annual Meeting as well as our annual jaunt to Ossining and Laura Riceʼs magnificent bit of Hastings-on-Hudson on Rockledge Avenue. Although Literature Club tradition has been to brown bag our Annual Meeting, we will reserve that for our April 8th meeting at Joannaʼs. Laura will be providing what is sure to be a scrumptious lunch which we are certain to enjoy with a large side helping of her glorious view and good company.

Luncheon will begin at noon, and Joanna will ring the bell at 1 PM to begin the final meeting of her tenure. The order of business will include the announcement from our nominating committee of their recommendations for our new president and vice-president. After the formal acknowledgement of their recommendations, Joanna will pass the bell to her successor for safe keeping and good use. With new officers in place, the vice-president will then hand out a list of potential topics for our 2026-2027 season for us to review, edit, and amend. Please come with any new ideas for possible future topics.

In addition, I'm sure we will all join together in praise and thanks to outgoing President Joanna Riesman, who has led us with grace, punctuality, good humor, and many, many memorable hostessing gigs. It's been a most excellent two years.

I will be driving Carla but have two to four extra seats in my van for anyone who would like a ride. (The additional two seats are if anyone feels nimble enough to climb into the third-row seat.) I will try not to back up into any other cars on the way home as I did last time and make sure everyone gets back without delay!

Please let Laura know if you are unable to attend.

Below are the topics being considered for the theme for the 2026-2027 season. Rather than create some fancy schmancy spread sheet for our first round of voting, I've listed the topics we decided on below. Please email me back with your top five choices. This is not ranked—each vote will have the same weight—but will help whittle our choices down to the top five contenders for our final, ranked vote. And what was that metaphor, Joanna? “No fingers will be on the lever at the voting booth!” Please respond by the end of next week so that I can have a final list by our next meeting on March 18th. Thanks! Jacquie (now the Vice-President)

Possible Topics for 2026-2027

New York Stories

Best Books of the 21st Century—Thus Far
Major Literary Prize Winners and/or Nominated But Never Won
Book Pairs: A Classic and Its Modern Retelling
There Was a Movie? (Books Made into Films - Popcorn Optional)

Politics in Literature

Novels of Place
Haunting
One Topic—Multiple Views
Investigative Journalism
Scandinavian Literature
Canadian Literature
Solely Shakespeare
Villains in Literature
Monsters—Wonderful Literature by Horrid People
Literature About the Arts
Out of Our Comfort Zone—Books in Translation
Obscure Writers Who Need to be Read
Science Fiction
Essays
Banned Books
Enough with the Drama - Let's Do Drama Redux

Frances' Minutes Eleven members and one associate met at Laura’s. The day was clear; the views of the Hudson and the Palisades were panoramic from the living room’s 4 large windows.

Joanna called the meeting to order at 1 PM. Lori reported the treasury at $113.12 but it increased rapidly as many members paid their $20 annual dues. Associates are required to pay dues too.

Joanna announced the new slate of officers.
President: Laura
Vice-President: Jacquie
Corresponding Secretary: Carla

Joanna handed the president’s bell to Laura. We thanked Joanna for her superb leadership as well as her willingness to host more than her fair share of meetings. We are delighted Laura and Jacquie are president and vice-president. Good to have Carla back on the board – she last served as president in 2010.

Recommendations: The Director by Daniel Kellerman; a fictionalized account of film director G.W. Pabst’s life. An Austrian, Pabst worked in Hollywood as a director. In 1939, he returned to Austria and made Nazi propaganda films. Barbara recommended Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xuegin, an 18th century novel considered one of China’s greatest. Jacquie recommended Zadie Smith’s essays, Dead or Alive. Joanna recommended Unless by Carol Shields. A mother tries to accept her daughter’s peculiar life.

We discussed the list of topics passed around by Jacquie. Editing was done; some additions, some removals. Jacquie will send out the final list. Members should pick their five favorite topics by our next meeting on March 18th. We will then rank, from the five, three, in order of our preference.

Onto another year of literary pleasures.

Respectfully submitted,
Frances Greenberg
Recording Secretary

Constance Presents Vanity Fair

Illustration by Thackery for Vanity Fair*

Jacquie’s Email Hello Literary La​​dies! Please note that there is a change of venue for the next meeting of the Literature Club of Hastings-on-Hudson scheduled for this coming Wednesday, February 18th. Christine will welcome us to her exquisite home beginning at noon for luncheon. Joanna will ring the bell at 1 PM to begin our meeting, after which Constance will be presenting on William Makepeace Thackeryʼs masterpiece, Vanity Fair.

So, I'm sure you are all aware of the sad news that publishers will no longer be printing mass-market paperbacks. I donʼt remember the last time I purchased a mass-market paperback, but they certainly played an enormous role in my early years as a reader. I have not been able to part with my high school copies of John Jakes (The Bastard!), Belva Plain (Evergreen!), Colleen McCullogh (The Thornbirds!), Judith Krantz (Princess Daisy!), Victoria Holt (aka Jean Plaidy), James Michner, etc. etc., as well as all of my Penguin and Bantam Classics from college and beyond. And I remember the convenience of carrying my Wordsworth Classics copy of Vanity Fair on my morning commute in the 90s. (Itʼs no Clarissa, but it IS a brick!)

Now, Iʼve often prayed for a minor natural disaster to force myself to throw away all of these books, especially since I am no longer able to read the tiny print, but maybe, for nostalgias' sake, I'm lucky that never happened?!

I look forward to seeing you all on Wednesday! x Jacquie

Francesʼ Minutes Christine had a good fire going in her living room – or should I write, her parlor, considering her house was built in the 19th century. We did wonder if the house was originally built with central heating. Nine members attended. Christine’s lunch included a King Cake, a New Orleans Mardi Gras specialty.

Vice President Laura called the meeting to order at 1 PM. The treasury is unchanged at $113.12. Laura reminded us of two changes: the Annual Meeting will be March 4, at her house, with lunch; the April 8 meeting will be a brown bag lunch at Joanna’s.

Our recommendations: Frances suggested There Were No Windows by Norah Hoult, published in 1944. A novel about aging, dementia, social class, loss of friends, lovers, status; all happening during the London Blitz. Connie recommended Someone at a Distance, by Dorothy Whipple. Both Hoult and Whipple’s novels were out of print until Persephone Books reissued them. In honor of her recent stay in Mexico, Christine read Chistina Rivera Garza’s Lilianna’s Invincible Summer, The Autobiography of Cotton and The Iliac Crest as well as Andrés Neuman’s Once Upon Argentina. Should our next topic be Latin American authors, Christine will have a head start.

Now, to Connie’s presentation on William Thackeray’s Vanity Fair.

Thackeray was born in 1811 in Calcutta. At 6, he was sent back to England, to a boarding school. He spent a year at Cambridge, read law, went to Paris to study art. Financial reversals wiped out his inheritance. He returned to London. To support himself, he became a journalist. He wrote 9 novels, the best-known being Vanity Fair, Barry Lyndon and The Virginians. He published short fiction, travelogues, sketchbooks, writing under his own name as well as pseudonyms. He was a friendly rival of Charles Dickens. Perhaps Charlotte Brontë modelled Mr. Rochester on him—Thackeray had a mentally ill wife. Brontë wrote about him that he “…is a Titan…I regard him as the first of modern masters.” We know little more of her feelings for him, or his for her, except she admired him. Thackeray remained a powerful presence in London literary circles until his death in 1864.

Vanity Fair was a brilliant innovation. Thackeray creates an illusion of living with the characters as the plot—their lives—unfold. His characters fly off the page, alternately charming, annoying, mean-spirited, generous, foolish, compassionate. Thackeray is sometimes the omniscient narrator, sometimes speaking through his characters.

Becky Sharp rarely moves off center stage. She has two feckless parents; they have given her some advantages but no money. Thanks to her French mother, she speaks excellent French. She is educated at a school for well-born girls where her father once taught art. Since no one pays her tuition, she must work at the school. We meet Becky as she leaves Miss Pinkerton’s academy for young ladies in a large coach drawn “by two fat horses.” The Smedley family has sent the coach to take their daughter Amelia and her friend, Becky, home. This friendship, Becky hopes, will be her path to marrying a wealthy man.

The characters make their entrances; the plot unfolds. Jos Smedley, Amelia’s brother, has made a fortune in India. Becky schemes to marry him. Amelia is to engaged to marry George Osborne, from a family as well-off as hers. Nothing will go as planned. Jos, after an embarrassing incident at a party, returns to India. The Smedleys have reached their limit having Becky as a guest, she leaves to work as a governess. Becky’s employer, Sir Pitt Crawley, a widower, has two sons, young Pitt and Rawdon, and a rich elderly aunt. Becky sees a raft of new possibilities. The Smedleys lose all their money; George Osborne marries the impoverished Amelia despite his family’s opposition. The family cuts off support for George and Amelia. Becky finds husband material in Rawdon Crawley, but he has received no money from his family, they must scramble for their living. Children are born in both Osborne and Crawley marriages; the Battle of Waterloo is fought; financial reversals occur. Virtue is rewarded, vice, well, is not precisely punished. Amelia will find a loving marriage, Becky will be financially secure, but with a reputation destroyed by her machinations.

Respectfully submitted,
Frances Greenberg, Recording Secretary

* Illustration by William Makepeace Thackeray entitled: Mr. Joseph entangled. Image scanned by Gerald Ajam and captions by Tiaw Kay Siang and Sabrina Lim. Courtesy Victorian Web.

Laura Presents Three African-American Classics

Jacquie’s Email Hello Literary Ladies! Just a gentle reminder that the next meeting of the Literature Club of Hastings-on-Hudson will be meeting this coming Wednesday, February 4th in Gita’s beautiful aerie, from which, I imagine, we will be able to see the ice floes on the Hudson River. As usual, we will meet at noon for luncheon, though luncheon at Gita’s is never merely “usual” but always a delight for all the senses. Joanna will ring the bell at 1 PM to begin our meeting, after

which Laura will be presenting “Three African American Classics: Cane, Passing, The Invisible Man.” I, for one, am looking forward to revisiting high school reading with one of Hastings’ own English teachers extraordinaire!

Please let our hostess know if you are unable to attend. Stay warm and safe out there! x Jacquie

Frances’ Minutes Eleven members and one associate met in Gita’s sunroom. A cozy place to watch the ice floes on the Hudson River. Joanna rang the bell, business began. The terms of president and vice-president are ending; Joanna has appointed a nominating committee to fill the positions. The committee is Carol, Connie, Jacquie. Several changes made in hostesses. Next meeting Feb 18, will be at Christine’s. The March 4 Annual Meeting will be at Laura’s; lunch will be served. April 8 will be at Joanna’s; it will be a brown bag lunch.

Lori reported our treasury was, as it has consistently been since donating to the Hastings library, $113.12.

A couple of recommendations: Frances thought the Broadway musical Maybe Happy Ending wonderful. Connie recommends two films: A Private Life and Sentimental Value.

The full title of Laura’s presentation was “Three African-American Writers of the Twentieth Century, or Books Not Taught.” Those were Cane by Jean Toomer, Passing by Nella Larsen and Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man.  Of the three, Laura had only read The Invisible Man decades ago, when work and family gave her no time to concentrate.

Laura began with Jean Toomer’s Cane. She showed us one version of the novel; more than ¾ of the book was analysis and criticism. Cane is composed of sketches and poems, a sequence of scenes and portraits, modernist in style, moving from rural Georgia to Chicago and back. Toomer’s work has received much attention since it was first published in 1923.

Toomer was born in 1894 in Washington DC. Toomer’s father had been born a slave who as an adult occasionally passed as white. Toomer’s mother’s forebears were of mixed race and Creole. Toomer resisted racial classification, considered he was “a representative of a new emergent race-a combination of various races.”

Toomer’s formative years were turbulent. He went to six different colleges but never obtained a degree. He worked odd jobs, published essays in a socialist paper. In 1921 he took a job as the principal of a new agricultural and manual labor college for Black-Americans in Sparta, Georgia. Jim Crow laws were violently enforced; lynchings frequent.

Toomer composed most of Cane during that time. He saw beauty as well as cruelty around him. His poem “Karintha” repeats: “her skin is like dusk when the sun goes down.” In November Cotton Flower, he writes “Brown eyes that loved without a trace of fear”

He died in 1967.

Passing was recommended by a former student of Laura’s, who had returned to Hastings HS to teach.

Nella Larsen was born in 1891 in Chicago. Her mother was Danish, her father from the West Indies. Passing is an imaginative recreation of the fluidity of race, which Larsen knew well.

Larsen studied nursing at Lincoln Hospital and began working there. In 1919, she married a prominent Black physicist; they moved to Harlem, became part of the Harlem Renaissance. She published her first novel in 1928. Shortly after, learning of an affair of her husband’s, she separated from him. In 1929, she published Passing.

The novel is about two childhood friends, Irene Redfield and Clare Kendry, who reconnect as adults. Clare passes as white and has even married a white racist. Irene identifies as Black. Clare lives under pressure of concealment. Yet she wants to know more about and to be a part of Harlem’s high life. She sees the friendship with Irene as a pathway. Irene senses the risk Clare is taking, avoids her. Clare comes uninvited to a Harlem party; Irene and her husband are there. The sixth-floor apartment is hot and crowded. Clare’s husband has followed her; he bursts in on the party, enraged, shouting. Clare jumps, or falls, we’re not certain, from an open window.

Larsen’s writing life ended abruptly when she was accused of plagiarizing a story. She divorced; she left her work as a librarian to return to nursing. At her funeral, colleagues came, but no family or friends.

Ralph Ellison was introduced with a quote from The Invisible Man “…one of the greatest jokes in the world is the spectacle of the whites busy escaping blackness and becoming blacker every day, and the blacks striving toward whiteness, becoming quite dull and gray. None of us seems to know who he is or where he’s going.”

Ellison was born in 1913 in Oklahoma City. Ellison was not a good student, he applied 3 times to Tuskegee Institute before being admitted. He left without getting a degree, he went to NYC to study sculpture, in 1936. Living in Harlem, he made important contacts: Langston Hughes, Gordon Parks, and critically, Richard Wright, who encouraged Ellison to write fiction.

The Invisible Man was published in 1952 to popular and critical success; it was given a National Book Award. The first-person narrator, never named, begins his story from a coal cellar where he is hiding from a political rival who intends to kill him. The most heart wrenching scene is of an old couple being evicted from their Harlem apartment, she sobbing, he leaning on his cane. A crowd stands around, watching. The narrator yells “put the furniture back in the house … make their home again!” Ellison could create drama and character, he makes us feel, with first person immediacy, the injustices of racism and of poverty.

Laura concluded, “I only hope that we will find our way… to resist what is happening now and that we can put the furniture back…and right some of the many wrongs we see today.”

Carol Presents I, Claudius

Jacquie’s Email Hello Literary Ladies! A late yet gentle reminder that the Literature Club of Hastings-on-Hudson will be meeting this Wednesday, January 21, 2026, for Carol’s presentation on I, Claudius by Robert Graves. Yesterday at this time I was sitting on the beach as my sons joined a crowd at the water’s edge watching three manatees frolicking in the waves. Sigh. Air travel is truly an amazing thing.

Please note the change of venue: while Carla continues to move into her new digs, Barbara has graciously offered to host us at her beautiful hilltop home. We will meet at noon for luncheon and Joanna will ring the bell at 1 PM to begin our meeting (if I remember to bring the bell to the meeting as it is currently sitting atop my pile of Literature Club programs in my living room, so there's a 50/50 chance said bell will actually be rung...)

I imagine many of us know I, Claudius from the amazing BBC production which first aired in the US on Masterpiece Theatre in 1977 with its haunting dissonant opening music and extraordinary who’s who of British acting talent. With a desire to re-visit the work in the late 80s, imagining a rip-roaring yarn of intrigue and romance, and before easy access to streaming, I read the book one summer. My memory is of very tiny print and pages and pages of the details of army supplies and tactics and other minutia of history, but we’ll see what Carol has to say!

Please let our hostess know only if you will be unable to attend. I look forward to seeing you all soon! xo Jacquie

Frances’ Minutes The sunny winter light of Barbara’s home cheered the 13 members and 1 associate who met there. Logs were burning in the fireplace. Outside the kitchen window, birds were eating greedily at the feeder. We ate more politely from the buffet set out on the kitchen table.

Joanna rang the bell promptly at 1 PM. We began with our recommendations. Thanks to Connie and the Persephone Newsletter, Frances read Dorothy Whipple’s Someone at a Distance. Whipple was a mid-20th century British writer whose books went out of print. Persephone, both a bookstore and a publisher in England, has taken up the work of reprinting works of excellent, forgotten writers, especially women. Turns out Barbara Pym isn’t the only forgotten gem.

Two recommendations from Sharon: The Axeman’s Carnival, by Catherine Chidgey, written from the point of view of a magpie and Maggie Farrell’s I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death, A Memoir. Carol added how much she liked Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait. The NY Times 10 Best Books of the Year was the source for two recommendations. From the 2025 list, a non-fiction memoir, Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy and from 2024, Someone Like Us (a novel) by Dinaw Mengestu.

Laura recommended The Antidote by Karen Russell, about a prairie witch who cures mental anguish with the same finesse as an Upper West Side psychiatrist. Joanna liked Andrew Miller’s The Land in Winter, about the cultural shift taking place in England in the 60’s.

I, Claudius by Robert Graves had always been on Carol’s list of books to read. The length intimidated her, and were it not for Lit Club, she wouldn’t have tackled it.

Robert Graves was born in 1895. He received an excellent education; winning scholarships, including to Oxford. He fought in World War I and was severely wounded at the Battle of Somme. He suffered for years from shellshock. His life had been spared, he believed, because fate intended him to be a poet. He earned his living writing, he was the author of 140 publications, the count includes poetry, novels, essays, criticism, short stories, translations. His criticism led to the close reading method, known as the New Criticism. His poetry influenced Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Philip Larkin and Kingsley Amis

He met Laura Riding, a poet, while married to his first wife. He left his wife and children to live in Majorca with Riding. He stayed there from the 1920’s to his death, in 1986, except for 10 years back in England. Riding had a great influence on Graves; their relationship was volatile and not lasting. There were other lovers for both, and for Graves, another marriage, more lovers, more children.

I, Claudius was published in 1934 to immediate popular and critical success. Claudius was part of a “cruel and debauched ruling class” whose members “sought and maintained power through systematic murder.”  Claudius wrote an autobiography, now lost, which inspired Graves to write this first-person narrative. Graves researched Claudius’ life and times carefully; most events are factual. The inner lives of the men and women in this circle of Roman autocrats and their families are Graves’ imaginative recreation. It is historical fiction.

Claudius was a sickly child. He was lame, possibly due to polio; he stammered, jerked his head, suffered stomach pains. He was reputed to have written over 28 volumes of history while others plotted for power. None of his writing survived. In an era when physical prowess and success in battle was needed to be an emperor, Claudius was believed doomed to obscurity. That Claudius was an incompetent undeserving to become an emperor was the view of 19th century British historian Edward Gibbons, and widely accepted. Graves’ novel challenged that opinion and led to a reassessment of Claudius.

Carol led us skillfully through a maze of poisonings, assassinations, rivalries, incest, executions, and betrayals to the unexpected triumph of Claudius. Graves gave Claudius the following thoughts on becoming emperor:

“No, you would never guess what was passing through my mind. But I shall be frank and tell you what it was, though the confession is a shameful one. I was thinking, ‘So, I’m Emperor, am I? What nonsense! But at least I’ll be able to make people read my books now. Public recitals to large audiences. And good books too, thirty-five years’ hard work in them.’ ”