Frances Presents Oscar Wilde

Jacquie's Email Hello Literary (and Serious and Good) Ladies!
First, I would like to welcome our newest member, Kathy Sullivan, to the group. Kathy, please be prepared for your investiture, which may or may not include a hood and a ride to an undisclosed location... Just kidding, although that is what I expected when I was first introduced to the fabled Literature Club of Hastings-on-Hudson!
   

 

   And now in all Ernest...our next meeting will be this Wednesday, December 14th for an afternoon of Oscar Wilde presented by Frances. Once again, we will be meeting in front of the dramatic backdrop of the Palisades in the Orr Room of the Hastings-on-Hudson Public Library. The doors will open at 12:30pm for pre-show chatter, with the bell to take our seats at 1pm.
   Masks requested but true identities will remain revealed. Fans are optional. Handbags will be checked at the door! xJacquie

Christine's Minutes Ten members of the Literature Club gathered, yet again, in the tried and true Orr Room of our beloved Library, where the chairs may be uncomfortable, or would be but for Jacquie intrepidly schlepping** (note correct use of the word) her cushions every two weeks, but the views are spectacular. Today there were white caps on the Hudson, always a delight to behold.

In the course of introducing ourselves to our newest member – Welcome Kathy Lewis! – we learned a few things about our older members, such as the fact that Fran would like to be called Frances, and Connie would like to be called Constance. Duly noted by your secretary. Kathy is a neighbor of Linda’s, and has lived in Hastings for over twenty years. She is an architect, and has two sons. We are pleased to have her join our select group.

President Constance Stewart rang the bell. The minutes of the previous meeting were read and accepted, with one important correction, regarding the word schlep. To schlep is to carry or haul something along. Schlump was the word used by Joanna, correctly; it describes a slovenly person, which of course Joanna is not, unless she is dressing purposely as a ‘schlump’. Your secretary always enjoys enlarging her vocabulary.

Constance went over the schedule for the coming year. In order to discuss how we would go forward, whether via Zoom, or at the library, or back to some version of normal, a brief Zoom meeting on January 11th was proposed.

Frances then entertained us with an afternoon of Oscar Wilde – who could be wittier? In the spirit of her subject, Frances looked very fin-de-siècle in her black boots, black velvet jacket and red velvet scarf.

But why Oscar? Frances explained that Barbara laid claim to Molière, and Christine scarfed up Stoppard, so quoi faire? We also learned she is possibly the only literate, highly literate, English speaker who has not seen The Importance of Being Earnest.

For the life, Frances referred to Richard Ellman’s canonical biography. Wilde lived in a time of the explosion of literacy, and photography. Frances passed around photos of Wilde’s tomb at Père Lachaise, of Wilde foppishly dressed and splayed upon a bearskin rug, and several other pictures of Wilde, his unenviable wife, and Bosie, his lover.

Nowadays, Wilde is regarded as a homosexual martyr. But naturellement it was more complicated than that, the three trials of Oscar Wilde. The first case was initiated by Wilde. He sued Bosie’s father, the Marquess of Queensbury (by all accounts a violent homophobic brute and philistine) for libel, and misspelling. Queensbury left a card at Wilde’s club, on which he had written that Wilde was a “posing somdomite”. Setting this trial in motion was the first very bad idea. It was Wilde’s younger lover, Bosie, Alfred Lord Douglas, who was eager to see his father humiliated in court. Against all advice and better judgement, Wilde proceeded, and lost the libel suit.

The second trial was launched by the government, accusing Wilde of “gross indecency.” But this time the jury could not reach a verdict – largely because the “rent boys” so vital to the government’s case, did not make credible witnesses. The case was dismissed.

For number three, the government again prosecuted Wilde for gross indecency, and this time they won their case. In 1895 Wilde was sentenced to two years of hard labor. The conditions were dreadful by any standards. After eighteen months, he was transferred to another prison where a humane superintendent allowed him writing paper. Each day he wrote his letter to Bosie, to be later called De Profundis, and each day the superintendent took away the day’s writing. Wilde saw his pages again when he was released.

After two years, Wilde’s life as he knew it was over. He was bankrupt. His wife Constance changed her name, and his two sons – whom he never saw again – grew up as Cyril and Vyvyan Holland.

But back to the beginning. Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854, and died in Paris in 1900, in mortal combat with his wallpaper. “Either this wallpaper goes, or I do,” he said. And we know who went. Wilde’s parents were prominent Anglo-Irish Protestants. He studied at Oxford, and there, having elegantly decorated his rooms, he produced the first of his eminently quotable epigrams: I am finding it harder and harder every day to live up to my blue china.

In London, Wilde was a popular guest at dinner parties, and man about town. To support himself he wrote reviews, gave lectures, whatever he could. Then in 1882 the D’Oyly Carte Company sent him on a lecture tour in the US, to drum up an audience for Patience. One of the characters in the play, Bunthorne, was based on Wilde. In America, he was a great success, and generated publicity, for the play, and for Oscar Wilde, the dandy, the pinnacle of the British Aesthetic Movement. About that time, Wilde was heard to say, “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”

In 1884 Wilde married Constance Lloyd who was, by very good luck for Oscar, wealthy. In 1885 and 1886 their two sons were born.

Around that time Wilde was seduced by the Canadian, Robbie Ross, and became a practicing homosexual. He remained friends with Ross all his life, and it would be the loyal Ross who secured Wilde’s copyrights for his sons, and arranged his burial at Père Lachaise.

From 1888 on, he was immensely productive. The Picture of Dorian Gray came out in 1890. In 1892 Sarah Bernhardt performed in his play, Salomé. Then came A Woman of No Importance, Lady Windermere’s Fan, The Ideal Husband and in 1895, The Importance of Being Earnest.

The plays were all smashing successes. But then came the three trials, and it all came crashing down when he was convicted in 1895.

At last members read four delightful scenes from The Importance, giving us a chance to speak such splendid lines as “I can resist everything except temptation” and “To lose one [parent] may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose two looks like carelessness!” And Algernon regarding his aunt: “Ah! that must be Aunt Augusta. Only relatives, or creditors, ever ring in that Wagnerian manner.” And here is Lady Bracknell remonstrating Jack Worthing: “Mr. Worthing! Rise, sir, from this semi-recumbent posture. It is most indecorous.”

And one last one, just because: “All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That is his.”

Respectfully submitted,

Christine Lehner, Recording Secretary

Joanna Presents Richard Nelson

Jacquie's Email
Hello Literary Ladies! I hope you all had memorable Thanksgiving holidays with very little unnecessary family drama. I was home with the flu (and missed Thanksgiving at my mother-in-law's on Long Island) while the rest of my sisters and their families celebrated in Chicago. I have so far heard one sister's account of the weekend and the various little dramas that occurred, many of which she instigated. (Politics! Driving skills! Appropriate container size for leftovers!) I can't wait to hear from the others. Life really is the stuff of drama. It's going to be a veritable Rashomon!
   And what a perfect segue talk of family gatherings is for Joanna's topic for our meeting this Wednesday, as she will be presenting on playwright Richard Nelson. Since there have been more Literature Club firsts in the past few years than we can count, I wouldn't put it past Joanna to have us all prepare a meal as she presents!
   Once again, we will be meeting in the Orr Room of the Hastings-on-Hudson Public Library at 12:30 PM, with curtain at 1 PM. For all who wish to join us on Zoom, please let us know you will be tuning in, so we know to simulcast the presentation.
   Hoping I'll be joining you in person on Wednesday! -cough-cough-sniffle-sniffle-Jacquie

Christine's Minutes

Ten members of the Literature Club gathered in the Orr Room, where we had an excellent view of the pouring rain. We were joined again by Kathy Sullivan, as a guest. President Constance Stewart rang the sacred bell at 1 PM. Due to the recording secretary’s dereliction of duty, there were no minutes read. Due to the treasurer’s absence, there was no treasury report.

We were all pleased that Gita was able to join us via Zoom. Jacquie suggested that her emails announcing each upcoming meeting, should contain a link to the minutes. We discussed, not for the first time, what should be our Covid-careful protocol over the winter. Whatever we do, it was agreed that there will be no lunches served. Obviously, this remains a very sad thing.

The first words from the day’s presenter, Joanna Reisman, were: “I am not dressed like a schlump.” In fact, she was, untypically, dressed rather schlumpily. But this, she explained, was in homage to several characters in the Rhinebeck plays of Richard Nelson, her subject.

Richard Nelson was born in Chicago in 1950. His family moved a lot. Among his 45 listed plays, ten were produced at the Royal Shakespeare Company, the first in 1975. From 2005 to 2008 he was chair of the playwrighting department at the Yale School of Drama. Working with Russian translators, he has translated and produced several works of Chekhov. Nelson has won several awards. He has also written screenplays. Since the 1980’s he has lived in Rhinebeck. We could just walk down the hill and get on a train and visit him this very afternoon.

Joanna’s presentation focused on the Rhinebeck plays, known as the Rhinebeck Panorama. There are four plays about the Apple family, three plays about the Gabriels, and another 3 pandemic plays, written to be performed on the Zoom medium, revisiting the Apples, and then two plays about the Michaels. Nelson’s style of theater has deep roots in Chekhov. He strives for what he calls verisimilitude. All the plays are staged in the round, in a kitchen, and sometimes a dining room. There is lots of cooking and eating. Real food. A real refrigerator door opens and closes. There are adults, who could be you or me, speaking naturally, about personal experiences, politics, very current politics.

Each play begins with a dark, bare stage. Then the actors enter, bringing in the furniture and props, and setting the stage while the audience looks on.

In Nelson’s plays, there is minimal conflict; his characters do not try to impose their views; there are no great ‘reveals”. The characters already know everything – the drama exists in the audience becoming aware.

Nelson generally works with the same actors, to the extent that they feel like a ‘troupe”. Most notably, MaryAnn Plunkett and Jay Sanders, who are married in real life, appear variously as siblings, or as in-laws.

The actors wear no makeup (or if they do it is damn hard to tell), and they wear casual, often sloppy clothes, – hence we have Joanna’s un-characteristically schlumpy attire today.

The plays require a special very sensitive sound system, involving lots of tiny dangling microphones, so the actors can speak in normal voices.

Members read from Oscar Eustis’s insightful introduction to a collection of the plays.

(Meanwhile, in contrast to the warmth of cooking food in the Apple kitchen, outside the Orr room, the bare branches are whipping in the wind, and the flagpole is issuing an eerie screech in sync with each gust.)

Then, Joanna introduced us to the cast of characters in the first Apple Play: Richard Apple, a lawyer in Albany, his three sisters, Barbara, a teacher in Rhinebeck, Marian, also a teacher, Jane, a writer from the city, Tim, Jane’s boyfriend, an actor slash waiter, and Uncle Benjamin, who was formerly a well-known actor, but recently has had suffered a heart attack and has memory loss.

Members read from scene one, which opens on November 2, 2010, and is called “That Hopey-Changey Thing”.

Scene two is “Acting and Forgetting”. Scene three is called “American Manners.” The last scene ends with Uncle Benjamin reading a Walt Whitman poem, The Wound Dresser.

The third Apple play, called Sorry, occurs on the November 2012 elections. Barbara and Marian, now living together, are taking their Uncle Benjamin to the nursing home because they are unable to care for him any longer.

Members read a short scene.

(Meanwhile, the wind outside is still wailing for her demon lover…)

We also read from the fourth Apple play, Regular Singing. This one is set on the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of JFK, November 22, 2013. We learn that Marian’s husband, Adam, from whom she separated after the tragic death of their daughter, is now dying, somewhere in the house. He remains offstage.

Then Joanna turned to the Gabriel family; these plays take place only months apart. But as in all the Apple plays, each play takes place in a single day. Again, members read a passage from Oskar Eustis’s introduction to the plays. Then we read sections from Boxes, and The Buzzards.

Following the Apple plays came the pandemic Zoom plays, and then the “modest” two-part drama about the Michaels.

Joanna ended her presentation with the program notes from the Apple plays. After which we all had to leave the warm upstate kitchen, and return to the blustery day in Hastings.

Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner
Recording Secretary

Lori Presents Anne Washburn

Jacquie's Email
Hello Literary Ladies! It's time to line up for more great drama! Our next meeting is this Wednesday, November 9th at 12:30 PM at the library. Lori will be presenting on the playwright Anne Washburn.
   If you'd like to join us via Zoom, please let our tech crew... I mean Sharon know. They're not the best seats in the house -- sometimes only partial view -- but certainly worth the price of admission! Sadly, for me, I will not be with you all this Wednesday, but I'll see you next time. Thank goodness for season tickets! Have a joyful Thanksgiving! -- Jacquie

Christine's Minutes
(Written from Laura Rice’s notes)

Eight members of the Literature Club, plus one guest, gathered in the Orr Room of the library on November 9th. The bell was rung at 12:55 PM. Linda introduced her neighbor, Kathy Sullivan. In Christine’s absence, Connie read the minutes. Lori reported that our treasury contains $389.

Linda noted that she has been having trouble with her email. Kate Atkinson’s new book was recommended, and Sharon told members about Plays for a Plague Year.

The day’s program was presented by Lori Walsh, on Anne Washburn. Right off the bat, Lori announced that there would be few biographical details, as they are scarcely available. Her age is nowhere listed, but we can assume she is “our age.”

To prepare us for Mr. Burns Post-Electric Play, Lori reminded us of the old days of TV, when a family might gather round the television in the living room and share the experience. She noted the way that certain episodes, in The Seinfeld Show, or The Simpsons, can become cultural touchstones easily referred to, and how they can connect people.

Anne Washburn was born Berkeley, California; she frequently acted in school plays, and also wrote poetry. She went to Reed College and studied theatre and literature. After college she wrote some radio plays, with success. She moved to New York City and attended NYU’s Dramatic Writing Program.

Washburn is considered an experimental playwright. She has co-founded the theatre company, the Civilians, and received many awards, including a Guggenheim and a PEN theatre awards. She is a risk-taker.

Her play, Ten Out of Twelve, was a love letter to the theater; it consists of direct quotations from tech rehearsals.

Mr. Burns was first produced in 2012 at the Woolly Mammoth Theater, in Washington. In 2013 it came to New York’s Playwrights Horizons, and received rave reviews. Members read aloud from reviews in The New York Times.

Washburn sets Mr. Burns Post-Electric Play in a post-apocalyptic time, after a great nuclear melt down. There is no electricity and people are wandering around, searching. There are three acts, covering 75 years. The first act takes place after the nuclear meltdown. The second act is seven years later, and the third act is seventy-five years later.

Lori then passed out copies of the play and assigned parts. Washburn has explained that she created the first act by inviting a group of actors to remember Simpson episodes, and she made a transcript of their talk. The importance of The Simpsons in American culture – our shared memory – was discussed. The episode that Washburn uses in the play is the “Cape Feare” episode from Season 5 of the The Simpsons.

 Lori played a recording of Washburn discussing significance of the episode.

The second act of Mr. Burns Post-Electric Play contains lessons on capitalism and the nature of art. It is seven years after Act One, and the strangers we met earlier have now formed a theater group which travels around performing Simpson episodes. The troupe has become well known for the quality of their commercials.

Members read several scenes.

The third act is about how cultural mythologies grow, and how they are framed. It is now eighty-two years after the nuclear meltdown. The retelling of the Simpson episode is now presented as a Greek tragedy. Mr. Burns is conflated with Sideshow Bob, as a mythic villain. The play is transformed into a musical, with songs from Britney Spears and Eminem, and of course, Simpsons theme music.

Members read various scenes.

Lori ends by explaining Washburn’s conviction that it is storytelling that will allow us to cope, and even survive the unthinkable.

Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner (from notes by Laura Rice)
Recording Secretary

Jacquie Presents Wendy Wasserstein

Jacquie's email: Hello, Uncommon Women All!!
I don't know about you, but I am SO excited it is finally almost Wednesday, October 26th when I will be giving my presentation on the plays of Wendy Wasserstein -- not just because I think it's going to be a lot of fun, but because after almost two years I will finally make my deadline! 
If the weather cooperates (I'm ever the optimist) we will be meeting in Sharon's lovely backyard at 12:30 pm. If the weather looks bad, we will meet at12:30 pm in the Orr Room of the Hastings-on-Hudson Public Library. Even though Broadway houses, and now the opera and the ballet, will be allowing audiences to be unmasked during performances, numbers are starting to tick up, and it seems like a good time to see if our library option is a comfortable one. (That said, if you have a seat cushion or two you can bring along, that might help make the library's stacking chairs a bit more comfortable. I can bring 11.)
Please look for my email on Wednesday morning for the final decision on where we will be meeting. In addition, carpooling might be helpful for avoiding limited parking options.
Again, if anyone would like to listen along on Zoom please let me know and we'll send you a link. Until then, Jacquie

Christine's minutes: In yet another first in these seasons of firsts, thirteen members of the Literature Club gathered in the Orr Room of the Hastings Library, and Lyn McLean joined us from North Carolina, via Zoom. The day started out foggy and remained weirdly warm and threatening throughout; but we enjoyed magnificent views of the Palisades all dressed up in colors, just for us.

President Connie Stewart rang the bell at 12:50. (I had 1:50 in my notes, but that can’t be right.)

The minutes were read and accepted. Lori, our treasurer corrected last month’s report. We actually have $389.50

There was an effort to keep our discussions brief, knowing that Jacquie had a grand program awaiting, and we did not want her to curtail it in any way. Still.

Sharon reported that she has a list of desired books from Debby Quinn, the Head Librarian, and she noted that they are all – but one – written by white men. The books are already ordered, so that is a done deal. Nor is this to say they are not good books, but the fact remains that women, of all colors, are woefully underrepresented. We all agreed this is an important issue, one that we can easily discuss at great length; it was decided that we will put it on the agenda for our annual meeting in March.

Laura asked what is our policy regarding inviting people who do not live in Hastings? There seems to be a tacit policy that all members either live in Hastings, or originally lived in Hastings (e.g. Louisa, Carla, Laura). Someone who lives in Laura’s building in Ossining has expressed an interest in coming. It is Catalina Danis, who lived in Hastings for decades, so we all agreed that would be fine.

In the spirit of Show & Tell, Diana announced that she has found the most wonderful small, portable light for reading in bed – and she showed it to us – it looked quite fetching draped over her shoulders.

The latest news on Gita: she has been living with a daughter in Long Island, but would like to return home. She does not expect to be attending this year, but that may change.

Now, at last, the lights go down, the chattering stops, cell phones are silenced and the play begins.

It was no surprise to anyone that Jacquie approached her topic with enthusiasm and imagination. She said that upon reading Wendy’s first play, Uncommon Women and Others, she became concerned that this play about the first world concerns of a group of Mount Holyoke alums, could seem, well, trivial, when lined up next to climate change, the war in Ukraine, the Dobbs decision, and the rise of nationalism and xenophobia.

But not at all. Jacquie plunged into Julie Salomon’s biography, Wendy and the Lost Boys (which she recommended highly) and began to see that the plays must be read in the context of their time and place, and also that – Derrida be damned – an understanding of the playwright, described as “complicated, fascinating, amusing, frustrating, intuitive, completely open yet enigmatic” could be, if not essential, an important key to understanding and appreciating the plays. In Jacquie’s view, the plays are not “classics per se”, but sociological studies reflecting the Baby Boomer experience, in real time, aging along with the playwright, reacting in real time. But do they still entertain us – which is, according to Tom Stoppard, the main task of theatre? Oh, indeed they do. We were well entertained all afternoon.

Before delving into the plays, we learned a bit about Wendy’s remarkable life. Beginning at the end, with the memorial service in 2006, attended by everyone in theatre, when Wendy was praised for her talent, her bravery – she had a child, Lucy Jane, at the age of 47, on her own – and her truth telling, as well as her invention.

Wendy Wasserstein was born in 1950, to Morris and Lola. And as was often remarked, she was “born into great material.” The family euphemism for death was that the deceased had “gone to Europe.” Hers was a family of über-achievers, who kept their secrets well. While Morris was a ‘decent, hardworking’ father, tiny Lola was the mythmaker. Wendy the playwright, Bruce the billionaire, and Georgette known as Gorgeous, only learned in adulthood of the existence of another brother, Abner, institutionalized since his childhood.

Wasserstein Brothers was a successful ribbon manufacturer in Brooklyn. While Wendy would describe her childhood as Camelot, her much older sister who was also her cousin, Sandra, experienced the hardscrabble childhood of recent immigrants. Wendy attended Yeshiva in Brooklyn, then Ethical Culture, and then Calhoun in Manhattan. She is described as a mediocre student. Still, she entered one of the Seven Sisters, Mt. Holyoke, in 1967 – just when college life was on the cusp of radical change. After college she returned to New York, studied with Israel Horowitz and wrote her first play, Women Can’t. In 1973 she went to Yale School of Drama where she met William Ivey Long, Christopher Durang, James Lapine, all of whom became fast friends and colleagues. Her play about Mt. Holyoke students, Uncommon Women and Others, had a production at the Phoenix in 1977 and was a great success. Next came Isn’t it Romantic. Then The Heidi Chronicles, her greatest and most indelible success. It opened on Broadway in March of 1989 and closed the following year after 622 performances.

The Heidi Chronicles is a brilliant history and send-up of 25 years in the life of Heidi Holland, art historian, and 25 years of women keeping up the struggle for some kind of equality.

Members were handed copies of the book, and assigned roles, as we would read pivotal scenes in the play. Act one, scene one features a high school dance, and awkward conversations between Heidi and a certain boy. Scene two in another dance, with Heidi and Scoop Rosenbaum.

It must be pointed out that every scene was accompanied by a song, appropriate to the period: we were treated to Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Aretha Franklin, and so many others.

Scene three is set in a church basement, where a women’s consciousness-raising group is meeting. Your secretary enjoyed the chance to read the part of potty-mouthed Fran. Jacquie summarized the next few scenes, each one emblematic of its era: a protest in front of the Art Institute in Chicago; we learn that Nixon has resigned, Peter, now a doctor, comes out, and Scoop is clerking for the SCOTUS; a wedding at the Pierre where Scoop married Lisa Friedlander; Heidi lecturing on art; and onward until Act 2. We read Act 2, scene 3, where Heidi is being asked to consult on a movie about contemporary women. And finally, the last scene in Heidi’s new apartment, with the now very rich Scoop, whom she chose not to marry.

As Jacquie said: “That particular paradox – of being better than everyone else but not good enough – [would become] a recurrent theme in Wendy’s life and in her work.”

Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner

Recording secretary

Barbara Presents Moliére

Google Doodle: Celebrating Molière (google.com)

Jacquie's email: Hello Literary Ladies!!! Wednesday's forecast calls for sunny skies with a high of 69°, so that should make it fine weather to meet outdoors in Carol's lovely garden to hear Barbara's presentation on Molière. As before, the house will open at 12:30pm, with curtain called for 1pm. À bientôt! Jacquie

Christine's minutes: Thirteen members of the Literature Club gathered in Carol’s back yard for our first proper presentation of this year of drama. And it was as proper as any play by Moliere could possibly be.

Your recording secretary arrived late, and quite possibly missed the day’s most exciting news, but alas. She immediately read the minutes of our previous meeting.

Our treasurer, Lori Walsh, reported that the amount in our treasury remains the same, but will soon be lessened by the $275 we will donate to the Hastings Library.

The idle chatter that followed was hardly idle, pertaining, as it did, to the theatre. Sharon loved the new production of Top Dog/Under Dog. We touched the subject of how enormously a play read to oneself from the written page differs from a play performed on stage. We assume that this subject will return in various forms throughout our year.

President Connie Stewart rang the bell at 1:25pm; the lights dimmed, the curtain opened, and the play began. (Brief pause to thank our gracious hostess for her lovely garden setting.)

We might almost say that Molière dominated the stage that afternoon, but not entirely, because our presenter wisely began with Richard Wilbur, the translator par excellence of Molière.

A recent piece in the NYRB inspired Barbara, our presenter, to choose Molière as her topic, using the magnificent Richard Wilbur translation.

Wilbur was born in 1921, and died in 2017, by which time he had won almost every possible award for poetry. Members read selections from Geoffrey O’Brien’s review of his complete translations. We also read from Adam Gopnik’s introduction to the Library of America edition of the plays.

Molière wrote in rhyming alexandrines, a poetic meter of 12 syllables, usually split into two 6-syllable lines. Wilbur transformed Molière's classic French verse (French being a language in which it is notoriously easy to rhyme) into English iambic pentameter. Not only did he also create brilliant rhymes [heaven’s eyes with compromise; pupil with scruple], but he kept the edgy spirit of Molière alive in every play.

Molière, the pen name of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, was born in 1622 (almost 300 years before Wilbur), into the France of the Sun-King, Louis XIV. His father was an upholsterer to the court, but Molière had no interest in his father’s trade, and went directly into the world of theatre. In 1643, he co-founded the Illustre Théâtre, and wrote his first plays. From the beginning, the target of his biting humor was extremism of every kind. He was a poet of common sense. His first success in Paris was Les précieuses ridicules, a comedy of manners satirizing the social climbing of the middle class and their salons. It was so popular that the company was able to move to the Palais Royal in 1660.

Molière was constantly busy writing, directing, acting and perhaps most significantly, staying in favor with Louise XIV. But the power of his ridicule and wit bothered and outraged many clerics, courtiers and other playwrights. Tartuffe was initially banned when it came out in 1664. The ban was lifted in 1669, and since that time it has been regarded as one of Molière's greatest comedies. Moliere was active on the stage until the day of his death, literally. After playing the part of Argan in Le Malade Imaginaire, his last comedy, Molière collapsed on stage and died the same day, at the age of 51. The church, stinging from his criticism, refused to grant him a holy burial. However, in 1804, with great fanfare, Moliere’s earthly remains were translated to Père Lachaise, where he enjoys the company of La Fontaine, Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, Jim Morrison, Marcel Proust, Marcel Marceau, and Abelard and Heloise.

Members read from George Meredith’s 1877 essay “On Comedy”, in which he commends Molière for his “unrivalled studies of mankind in society”, and from Eric Auerbach’s book, Mimesis.

And then to the plays. First, members read from Le misanthrope, written in 1666, and according to Wilbur, “a study of impurity of motive”. Alceste, the main character, is an aristocrat who truly longs for the ‘genuine’, but at the same time he is terribly jealous and critical. We read scenes between Alceste and his friend, Philinte; between Alceste and Celimene, the object of his love; and between Celimene and Acaste, another of her lovers.

On to Tartuffe. The central character, Orgon, is a bourgeois of middle age, with grown children, and a second very attractive wife, Elmire. We learn from Dorine, the maid – and the servants are often the ones to offer common sense explanations in Molière's plays – that recently Orgon has been behaving foolishly, and is compensating with extreme religiosity. At which point he discovers Tartuffe, a brilliant hypocrite and manipulator, who moves into the house and swindles the family.

Members read scenes between Orgon, his brother-in-law Cleante, and Dorine the maid; between Orgon and Elmire, his wife, and a later scene when Orgon learns that Tartuffe has been making passes at Elmire. For our grand finale, we read the famous farcical scene in which Orgon hides under a table in order to spy on Tartuffe’s slimy attempted seduction of Elmire. Finally, Orgon’s eyes are opened.

The meeting was adjourned at 2:45.

Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner
Recording secretary

The Curtain Rises

Jacquie's Email: Hello Literary Ladies!
   Roll out the red carpet! Turn on the klieg lights! Wednesday, September 28th is opening night of the 2022-2023 Season of the Literature Club of Hastings-on-Hudson -- Drama!!!
   Our premier will be held at Joanna's open-air theater, and there has been a change to your programs. This week we will be reading Act I of Top Girls by Caryl Churchill, compliments of Christine. Barbara will present on Moliere at our next meeting. Doors open at 12:30 pm. Curtain goes up at 1pm.
   For those unable to make it in person, Sharon, aka tech crew, would be happy to make the reading available on Zoom. Just let us know if you would like to attend virtually, and she will provide a link and the time it will be live.
   Let's get on with the show!!!

Christine's Minutes: Ten members of the Literature Club gathered dramatically in Joanna’s lovely sunlit garden for the first and exceptionally dramatic meeting of our 2022-2023 season, in which our topic will no doubt be Drama.We missed our esteemed President Connie Stewart, but she was off in Scotland making sure Great Birnam Wood was still moving with deep drama towards Dunsinane Hill.

Our esteemed corresponding secretary, Jacquie, sprinted across highways, through backyards and forests in order to retrieve The Bell, so that Vice-President Joanna, acting as President, could most dramatically call the meeting to order.

The minutes of our May 18th meeting were read and accepted, most undramatically.

Our treasurer reported that the coffers are full with $394.50. There was a brief but dramatic discussion of our donation to the Hastings Library, but it was decided to await the return of our president.

Laura Rice said that the Hudson Valley Music Club, of which she is a member, will be performing on Mondays at 1 pm, at the Irvington Presbyterian Church. The first program on October 24th will feature works by women composers.

Because of scheduling changes there was no official program, which is also why there will be no official minutes.

In lieu of said officiousness, Props-person and Stage Manager Christine arrived with a kimono, a cowboy hat, a papal miter, and a Bruegelian helmet (tea cozies), and several highlighted copies of the first scene of Caryl Churchill’s 1982 play, Top Girls. The first American production was presented at the Public Theatre in 1982, and featured Linda Hunt as Pope Joan.

The casting was done arbitrarily, that is, in alphabetical order, so that anyone whose part did not include costumery should not feel personally neglected. But it will be noted that such a slight will never happen again.

Absent any rehearsal, members read their parts brilliantly: Marlene, the newly appointed Managing Director of the Top Girls Agency; Isabella Bell, the intrepid traveler, naturalist, and explorer; Pope Joan, who inhabited the chair of Saint Peter from 854-856 CE, and ended rather badly; Lady Nijo, a Japanese courtesan and later a Buddhist nun; Dull Gret, also known as Mad Meg, who streaks across the eponymous painting by Bruegel leading a crowd of women through Hell; and Patient Griselda, the pathologically obedient wife we know from Chaucer’s “Clerk’s Tale”. All these women came alive, most dramatically, in our bucolic circle in Joanna’s backyard.

Lee Strasberg would have been proud. The neighbors would have been stunned had they known what shady characters were cavorting in their midst.

Although the casting was in fact done arbitrarily, if dramatically, Linda announced that the fact of her being cast for the role of (the possibly apocryphal) Pope Joan was serendipitous indeed. It turns out that her great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great-grandfather was the one and only Jewish King of Poland.

The meeting was adjourned at 3 pm.

Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner
Recording Secretary


Below, photos from the meeting. Top to bottom, left to right: Christine hands out props and costumes; seated left to right, Linda, Laura, Sharon, Jacquie, Lori; Joanna studies her part (second Lady Nijo); Jacquie and Lori, as Dull Gret and Patient Griselda; Carol; Carla; Laura practicing (first Lady Nijo); Sharon slightly miffed she didn't get the kimono (but was over it in 3 minutes); Linda, Laura and a more cheerful Sharon

Picnic at Christine's Pool

Here we are, enjoying our annual summer picnic by the side of Christine's pool. On one side - the west - it is an "infinity" pool. Over this watery edge, the Hudson Palisades can be seen in all its dramatic beauty. A marvelous setting for talk about what we're reading and what we're doing. Photos from Connie

Carla Presents Margaret Wise Brown

 Jacquie's Email

Hello Literary Ladies! Could it be possible that fortune is smiling down on us and the forecast is looking splendid for our in-person meeting this Wednesday???!!!

For fear of tempting the weather gods, I will not make too big a deal of this and merely say that we will be meeting this Wednesday, May 18th in Joanna's verdant garden for a brown bag get-together to celebrate our final meeting of this 2021-2022 season of the Literature Club of Hastings-on-Hudson, and to hear Carla's presentation on Margaret Wise Brown. To take advantage of the setting, the weather, and the fact that we will be together IN-PERSON, we will be meeting at NOON.

With that, I wish you all a lovely few days before our meeting. I will not bother you all with the tale that has plagued me lo these past 22 years of my mysteriously disappearing copy of Goodnight Moon...

Until Wednesday, Jacquie

Christine's Minutes

At last. Was the sigh of blessed relief audible across the border in Dobbs? It may well have been, as, thanks to some convergence of the planets, there no leaf blowers, no lawn mowers and no earth movers to be heard as fourteen members of the Literature Club gathered in Joanna’s lovely back yard for an in-person meeting. Additionally, a delicious luncheon was served to surprise our outgoing President, Fran Greenberg, along with our newest and very intrepid member, Sharon DeLevie.

President Connie Stewart thanked Joanna for her lovely venue, and thanked Fran for her exceptional leadership during the past two years of COVID 19, Zoom, and all the attendant uncertainties.

The minutes were read and accepted. The treasury is currently flush with $520.11.

For our final program of the year, what could be better than Carla’s presentation of the biography of Margaret Wise Brown, of whom it could safely be said that while we all know her famous Goodnight Moon, we knew nothing at all of her life and who she was. She proved to be a fascinating character.

Carla, in the persona of the “little old lady whispering hush,” wore an apron, a necklace full of vegetables, and rabbit ears.

The two biographies used in the presentation – in elegant juxtaposition – were Margaret Wise Brown, Awakened by the Moon, published in 1992, by Leonard Marcus, a prominent reviewer of children’s books, and In the Great Green Room, 2016, by Amy Gary, a former Director of Publishing at Lucas Films. Carla described the latter’s approach as being novelistic; additionally, it has a foreword written by James Stillman Rockefeller, Jr, MWB’s fiancé at the time of her sudden death.

Margaret Wise Brown was born in 1910 in then-fashionable Greenpoint, Brooklyn, the middle child of well-off parents, both with illustrious ancestors. Later, the family moved to Beechhurst, and then to Great Neck. Margaret attended both public and private schools, and later a Swiss boarding school. She went to Hollins College, her mother’s alma mater, and encountered her early mentor, Marguerite Hearsy, who encouraged her writing for many years. After college, Margaret moved to Greenwich Village, famously filled with writers and artists. She held various jobs and was also subsidized by her father. But then, hearing good things about Bank Street’s education program, she applied and was accepted as a student teacher. While there, she met William Scott, a publisher she would later work for. Margaret joined the Bank Street Writers Laboratory, a group of writers for children who met, read, and critiqued each other’s work. Had our own Carla only been twenty years older, she would have met Margaret, as Carla was in the writers’ lab in the sixties.

While on a ski trip with friends, Margaret grew tired of hiking up the hills (in those halcyon pre-ski-lift days) and returned to the lodge and wrote The Runaway Bunny. The motif and rhythms are based on a French Provençal ballad, of a woman threatening to leave her lover: a love story, recast as a hunt or quest, involving transformations (perhaps with some credit to Ovid?)

Around that time, Margaret met Michael Strange, the pen name of Blanche Oelrichs, a thrice-married older woman and intellectual. For the next ten years, they would maintain a somewhat tortured relationship.

Having been introduced to Vinalhaven by a friend, in 1942 Margaret bought a Wharf Quarry manager’s house, for the princely sum of $1600, the back taxes owed. There was no electricity and no indoor plumbing. She called it “The Only House.”

Margaret also formed a strong friendship with Ursula Nordstrom, the legendary editor at Harper, publisher of The Runaway Bunny and Goodnight Moon. She continued writing – in her short lifetime she wrote over 100 books. Soon many were published by the new imprint called Golden Books. Life magazine printed a profile of Margaret, along with photos. Have I mentioned that she was quite beautiful? She was also commissioned to write about children’s literature for the Book of Knowledge.

In 1952, while on vacation on Cumberland Island, she met the much younger James Stillman Rockefeller, Jr, nicknamed “Pebble”. They fell madly in love and were soon engaged. But then on a book tour in Nice, France, she went into the hospital after experiencing acute pain, and was operated on for an ovarian cyst and appendicitis. As she was recovering, she kicked up her leg to demonstrate her good health, dislodged a blood clot that quickly traveled to her heart and killed her. She was 42 years old. Dozens of her books are still in print and are translated into many languages.

To end this delightful presentation, members read aloud The Runaway Bunny and Goodnight Moon, sharing the illustrations with all, à la library reading time. I think we were all misty-eyed when the readings came to an end.

Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner, Recording Secretary

Carla's presentation in Joanna's garden

Barbara Presents Boswell & Johnson

Jacquie's Email

sigh!

Dear Literary Ladies: Well, if the pandemic has taught members of this club anything, it is flexibility, and I think we've all been successfully doing backflips and somersaults like it's nobody's business! And this week is no exception.

    First, we had plans (hopes?) to meet in Joanna's lovely garden to brown bag it in person. Alas, the forecast was not working in our favor, and our limber president made the difficult call of putting off our outdoor get-together for our final meeting on the 16th. We will be meeting this Wednesday on Zoom.

    Second – though this really only applied to me – I read in our booklet that Barbara was going to be presenting on Evelyn Waugh, which immediately got me excited because I was going to be able to share one of my favorite TV series photos of all time for all to gaze and sigh over

... only to then have the niggling memory that Barbara was not in fact doing Evelyn Waugh. In a confirmation email, she assured me she would be presenting on Boswell's Life of Johnson. This did not immediately bring up a humorous thought or any sigh-worthy images ... until the very writing of this sentence made me think of my favorite Johnson quote: “... when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life...” 

    And remembering that quote made me think of the black and white poster with this quote on it that I had bought at the Museum of London during my junior year abroad in 1985, which I proceeded to collage within an inch of its life with clippings from all of the magazines and brochures I was collecting. And remembering said poster was in the furnace room of my childhood home in Poughkeepsie, I then asked my 91-year-old father to schlepp down into the furnace room and take a photo of it for me to use in this email. 

    Patting myself on the back for this little bit of brilliance, I opened the photo he sent me ... only to realize that I misremembered the quote. This one is by some guy named William Dunbar. Nice, but he's no Johnson.

    Basically, I got nothin’

    Another moment to practice flexibility ...

    Luckily, despite all my nonsense, we will be meeting this Wednesday on Zoom at 12:45 pm when Barbara will be presenting on Boswell's Life of Johnson, which should prove to be a wonderful addition to our exploration of Biography as our year with this topic (and hopefully our need for flexibility!!???) winds down. 

    If you have even made it this far in my email, I apologize for this ramble. Until Wednesday, x Jacquie

Christine's Minutes

On account of your recording secretary’s befuddled state, following knee surgery on her third knee (editor's note: befuddled, yes, she means third knee surgery, not that she has three knees), President Connie Stewart made the following notes.

    Literature Club members attended a Zoom meeting on May 4, 2022. We were joined by Associate Member Jenny Goodrich, but missing Diana Jaeger and Lori Walsh. Recording Secretary Christine Lehner joined us briefly in person, impressive since she was only a few days out of major surgery, and for the most part she was a silent but reassuring presence during our proceedings.

    We have $460.11 in our account. Member Sharon DeLevie spoke to Debbie Quinn at the library about what books they may like us to donate this year. Debbie is going to discuss this with the library staff and get back to us.

    The members did our go round of catch-up chats, and despite the intimidating amount of COVID cases we are all hearing about now, many more of us are venturing out: members described attending the Holbein show at the Morgan Library, and Winslow Homer at the Met, going to the ballet, plans for a lovely green Mother’s Day celebration, and ventures to the theater. Some are traveling: Carol is packing for a trip to France earned many times over, and Joanna told of her plans to go to her high school reunion in Montreal--she attended the unbelievably named Miss Edgar’s and Miss Cramp’s School and filled us in about her days as a prefect handing out demerits for uniform infractions. I am very glad to know Joanna now, because we may not have gotten along in high school. Joanna also described her and Diana's big bike trip in Louisiana, and there may be a lesson learned in their conviction afterwards that they would rather bike a linear course with a clear destination in New York, than a circular route in Louisiana, despite the good music and food.

    Perhaps that echoes back to our discussion of this week’s leak of the Supreme Court draft of an opinion in which the conservative majority is now positioned for the first time in history to end a constitutional right: women's right to an abortion.

    Barbara Morrow began her presentation on Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson, by painting for us an image of the two men: the tall, powerfully built Johnson, indifferent to fashion, next to the short, plump Boswell, a dapper dresser. The two were a gift to caricaturists such as Max Beerbohm, who took full advantage of their odd pairing.

    Johnson, the son of a bookseller, was proud of being self-made, while Boswell relished his descent from the Norman conquerors. Johnson was already in his fifties when he met the twenty-something Boswell in 1763. Though initially put off by Boswell’s pushiness, Johnson soon came to enjoy his energy and optimism, and was pleased that Boswell was assiduously collecting material for the great biography that would emerge. As Shaw pointed out, Boswell was “the dramatist who invented Dr. Johnson.”

    The two men also shared a dread of looming mental illness. Johnson suffered from bouts of depression since his youth and would probably now be diagnosed as OCD. Boswell had radical mood swings that most likely were bipolar disorder.

    Like his famous subject, Boswell kept a diary which he wrote in a “lively, conversational style.” These volumes are now safely stored at the Yale Rare Books Library.

    Johnson was first known as the writer of essays on a wide variety of subjects, from debtors’ prison to first-person accounts of the female experience. Then, in 1746, a group of publishers commissioned him to produce a dictionary. When it came out in 1755, it was immediately recognized as a monument to, and within, the English language. For the first time, the more or less 40,000 words of English were defined and not merely listed.

    Early on in his labors on the dictionary, Johnson realized that his stipend from the publishers would not be sufficient to support him. He then appealed to Philip Dormer Stanhope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield, to be his patron. Chesterfield did not respond to the appeal; though eight years later he was pleased to imply he had supported the great endeavor. Johnson was withering in his famous letter to Chesterfield, regarding his misleading statements.

    Thankfully, in 1762 King George III, a voracious reader and admirer of Johnson’s work, awarded him a royal pension of £300 per year, a very comfortable amount.

    Samuel Johnson died in 1784 at the age of seventy-five, and Boswell immediately set to work on the biography. The first edition came out in 1791 and was a huge success. As with so many occurrences in life and literature this year, Boswell’s Life was a first. Never before had a biographer included in his work his subject’s actual conversation. Never before had a biographer been so uniquely situated to do so. Members read selections chosen from the vast and lengthy biography.

Respectfully Submitted,
Christine Lehner, Recording Secretary

Jacquie and Gertrude and Alice and Pablo and George

Jacquie's Email

“Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose” ‒ Gertrude Stein

“ ‒ neither vegetable nor fruit juice, please ‒ but raw baby artichokes, endives washed and cut in half, radishes and asparagus tips for example; with coffee to end a perfect lunch.” ‒ Alice B. Toklas

Dear Literary Ladies,

I really had the very best of intentions to present to you what I've learned about Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, arguing that one can compare the art created by each ‒ Gertrude her writing and poetry, and Alice, her art in the form of caring for Gertrude Stein herself, as well as her own writing in The
Alice B. Toklas Cook Book ‒ where I found Alice's old fashioned way of writing out recipes and stream of consciousness musing on their lives together reminiscent of her life partner's literary style. Their lives were so expansive, as both witnesses and role players in the many extraordinary events of the first half of the 20th century in both America and France, where they knew everyone there was to know and played an important role in influencing the art and literature of their time, that I found I had bitten off way more than I could chew. I had hoped this single source of exploration would have made it possible for me to meet my deadline for tomorrow, but alas, olʼ Gertrude and Alice will have to be put off for another day. For that, I am truly sorry.
    We will still be meeting tomorrow at 12:45 pm on Zoom, at which time Joanna will unveil next year's theme (!) from NOLA, and we will read together a wonderful short story I'm excited to share with you.
  

 I leave you with one final image of two 18th-century children's armchairs upholstered with petit point sewn by Alice B. Toklas over designs by Pablo Picasso which are in the collection of the Yale University Library.
    I hope you all had a lovely weekend, and I look forward to seeing you all at what I hope will be our final Zoom-only meeting.
    Until then, until then, until then, until then ‒ Jacquie 

Christine's Minutes

In another historic first, in this year of historic firsts, our new Vice President, Joanna Reisman, joined the Zoom meeting from the inside of a car in a casino parking lot, in Houma, Louisiana. Joanna and another Literature Club member, Diana Jaeger, are traveling to Lafayette, where the intrepid travelers will start their four-day bicycle trip.  From such a distinguished location, Joanna dramatically announced that our theme for next year will be…. Drama.

Connie rang the bell at 1:10 pm. The minutes were read and accepted, with one correction. Lori sent in our treasury numbers which remain at $430.11. Sharon will speak to Debbie Quinn and get suggestions as to what books are wanted by the librarians. We will keep $200 in our coffers to pay for the booklet and any incidentals; the rest will be given to the Hastings on Hudson Public Library.

We next discussed the burning issue of the day – and not only for the Literature Club: When can we extricate ourselves from the getting-too-comfortable Skinnerian box of Zoom? The current plan is now that we will meet in person at Joanna’s on May 4th, while still zooming in for anyone who would prefer it.

Then in the course of apologizing that a family situation had prevented her from presenting her topic, “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas,” Jacquie managed to entertain us with more than a soupçon of her presentation. For instance, the very fact that Gertrude and Alice knew everyone – and Jacquie too will come to know, such characters as Picasso, Hemingway, Matisse, Wilder and Paul Bowles, made it difficult to narrow down the focus. We learned that Alice B’s hash brownies are not actually brownies. They are more like fruit cake.  Though how Jacquie knows this is a mystery: the brownie recipe was not even printed in the American edition of the Toklas cookbook. But that is the kind of research and preparation Jacquie has not been doing while she was not preparing for her program. 

After the too-brief non-presentation by Jacquie, members read “The Falls” by George Saunders. The story was much enjoyed, and we learned about Saunders’ Story Club, which is available, online, to anyone who in interested.

Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner, Recording Secretary 

Linda Presents NiKolai Gogol

Jacquie's Email

Hello Literary Ladies!
Of course, Nikolai Gogol is much more than his “Nose”, as Linda will tell us all when we meet for her presentation on Zoom but having read his astonishing short story recently in George Saunders' A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, I thought it would be fun to look at a few artists' interpretation of one of Gogol's most famous creations -- and they certainly did not disappoint.
Until then, keep your noses clean! x Jacquie

Christine's Minutes

On March 30, 2022, fourteen members and one associate member of the Literature Club gathered, yes, once again on little screens brought to us courtesy of Zoom*. And since we have become so intimate – adept – with zoom, I thought I would share a few facts about this phenomenon.

*ZOOM was founded in 2011 by Eric Yuan and some other engineers. In 2013 they launched their software. In 2017 ZOOM’s valuation made it a unicorn. The company turned its first profit in 2019. On March 11, 2020, WHO declared that the spread of this new respiratory disease, the novel coronavirus, was now a pandemic. Millions of people started to work remotely, children had to go to school remotely, and even some Literature Clubs have had to eschew their lunches and – meet remotely.

President Connie Stewart rang the bell at 1:11p.m. She indicated that “where is spring?” should go on record as her first question of the meeting.

The minutes of the previous meeting were read and accepted. Our treasurer reported that, with a recent infusion of our annual dues, our treasury has swollen to a respectable $430.11.

As for our business: Joanna Reisman shared her screen to show us the ballot for next year. After winnowing from the cumbersome original list, we now have six choices for next year’ program: Nineteenth-century American and British Novels; Banned Books; Behind the Iron Curtain; Drama; The Harlem Renaissance; Literature from Canada. It does not bear mentioning that the last choice is new this year, and our program chair is by birth a Canadian.

Connie thanked Jacquie for compiling such a lovely collection of ‘noses’ to illustrate her email.

Today, Linda Tucker presented Vladimir Nabokov’s biography of Nikolai Gogol, originally published by New Directions in 1961. Linda suggested that as the book starts with Gogol’s death and that the word nose appears no less than thirteen times in the first three pages, we should assume that this will be no ordinary biography merely relating a life story. Nevertheless, our presenter did tell us something of Gogol’s short life.

Nicolai Gogol was born in 1809, in Sorochintsky, Ukraine. His father died when he was a teenager. After high school, Gogol left home to seek a civil service job in St Petersburg. Without connections, that turned out to be difficult. He had equally little success as an actor or a poet. He took money his mother had entrusted to him and traveled to Germany. Only when the money ran out did he return to St Petersburg and take a shabby civil servant job.

By 1830 his short stories about Ukrainian life were coming out in literary reviews. According to Nabokov, Gogol’s students at a girls’ boarding school thought he was very dull.

Meeting the revered Pushkin in 1831 meant a great deal to Gogol. By then Gogol was publishing his short stories, about “ghosts and Ukrainians”, according to Nabokov. The stories were quite popular, “The Nose” among them. When his play, The Government Inspector was produced in 1836, Gogol felt that it was misunderstood by the critics, and left the country to lick his wounds in Rome, for twelve years. There he started writing Dead Souls. In 1839 he made a quick trip back to Russia and read Dead Souls to his friends. Then, back in Italy he wrote “The Overcoat,” and kept working at Dead Souls. The first part of Dead Souls was published in 1841, with the name changed to the uninspired The Adventures of Chichikov, as Dead Souls was considered blasphemous. For the next six years Gogol traveled, looking for health and inspiration, but none. He was unable to finish Dead Souls, and actually burned all he had written of the second part. Gogol returned to Russia in 1848, and died in 1851, at the age of 42.

Following our immersion in Nabokov’s biography, members read passages from Dead Souls, “The Overcoat,” and finally, “The Nose”, a story initially rejected by the Moscow Observer as “dirty and trivial”. We also heard from George Saunders who, in his A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, explains the key scene in “The Nose” in this way: “The world is full of outrageous nonsense”.  Additionally, members learned some important vocabulary specific to Russian literature. Nabokov explained “poshlust”, and per Saunders, we discovered “a particular Russian form of unreliable narration called skaz”.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that after spending quality time with Gogol, the world can never look quite the same again.

Respectfully submitted,

Christine Lehner, Recording secretary

Sharon Presents Zora Thurston Neale

 Jacquie's Email

Zora Neale Hurston

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

Dear Literary Ladies,
    As this year continues to raise so many questions, we are so fortunate to be able to come together again this Wednesday, May 16th at 12:45 pm on Zoom to hear Sharon's inaugural presentation on Zora Neale Hurston.
    In addition, attached please find a draft of Joanna's inaugural topics ballot for your review. We ask that you come with any suggestions or changes you might wish to see before Joanna sends it out for an official first round of voting.

    Until then! Jacquie

Christine's Minutes

On March 16, 2022 sixteen members of the Literature Club gathered, yes, once again, on Zoom. From a quick check-in on the state of our membership, per our Zoom tradition, we learned that the woodcocks are emerging, that cappuccino is to be had in Williamstown, that some people are actually back to working IRL and wearing heels, that Carla has changed her topic to Margaret Wise Brown, and that we are all very concerned about Ukraine.

At 1:07 President Connie Stewart expertly rang the bell for her inaugural meeting.

The minutes for the last meeting were read, and accepted.

The treasury is still at $265.11, but there are hopes for huge gains in the coming weeks, as our dues are collected. Your $15 may be sent via check, Venmo, or Zelle to Lori, our treasurer.

There was a brief discussion of the list of possible topics, as circulated by Joanna. Literature of Adolescence was deleted, and Literature of Canada was added.

    Then, onward to our armchair travels to Florida, to Harlem, to Haiti, and back to Florida, all in an afternoon. Sharon, in her inaugural presentation for Literature Club, knocked it out of the park. Her subject, Zora Neale Hurston, was a novelist, playwright, anthropologist, folklorist, and a leader in the Harlem Renaissance.

    She was born in 1891, in Notasulga, Alabama, during hog-killing season. She was fifth of the eight children of John and Lucy Hurston. Zora, however, was not pleased with that birth year, and subtracted from it so many times that she ended up being born in 1901.

    When she was three, the family moved to Eatonville, Florida. Eatonville was one of the few all-Black incorporated towns in the country. Valerie Boyd, her biographer, wrote that her confidence derived from growing up in Eatonville, where she learned to experience “racial health”. Growing up without the “white gaze” she did not know she was ‘colored’ until she went away to school.

    When Zora was 13, her mother died, and many things in her life were altered for the worse. She was sent off to boarding school where she did not fit in. When she returned home, she discovered that her father had remarried, to the archetypal evil step-mother. The father, John Hurston, was a complicated man. He was a pastor of the Macedonian Missionary Baptist Church; he was also a philanderer, and sometimes violent. Several of Hurston’s protagonists are based on her father, including the pastor in Jonah’s Gourd Vine. After returning from boarding school, Hurston worked at many jobs, from a ladies’ maid in a theatre troupe to a waitress, ending up in Maryland.

    But all she cared about was getting her high school degree, and to that end, she shaved more years off her age in order qualify for free schooling in Baltimore. She excelled in high school and was admitted to Howard University. Her writing began to get serious attention. In 1924, her short story, “Drenched in Light,” was accepted for publication, and the next year she moved north to Harlem. Like Eatonville, Harlem was all black, and she became part of the Harlem Renaissance. At a 1925 Awards Dinner for winners of the Opportunity Literary Contest, Hurston won several prizes, for two short stories and for a play called Spears. Langston Hugues was there, and decided he wanted to know her – they soon became close friends.

    With her prize money, Hurston enrolled at Barnard. Thus began her lifelong need to accept financial aid from white people. This aid allowed her to continue with her writing, but it also led to complicated and uncomfortable situations. At Columbia, Hurston met Franz Boas, the renowned anthropologist. Anthropology was a perfect fit for Hurston, who never stopped loving and retelling the stories heard on her porch in Eatonville. In 1927 she received a fellowship to collect “Negro folklore” in the South, and collect she did, from Florida to Haiti and New Orleans. She discovered the use of ‘double words’ in Negro vernacular, and became a pre-eminent scholar of Hoodoo.

    Hurston’s anthropological work found its way into her novels, as did the language of her characters. Her use of this vernacular was often criticized, as it made Blacks appear uneducated. She was also criticized for not focusing on the plight of Blacks. But she was also defended by certain Black critics.

    Meanwhile, money was needed to live. Charlotte van der veer Quick Mason supported many Black artists in addition to Hurston. She only asked that she be called “Godmother” and that her identity be kept secret.

    Hurston’s 1928 essay, ‟How it Feels to be Colored Me,” published in a white journal, set out her views on race. In 1930 she began working on a play, Mule Bone, with Langston Hugues, based on a short story of Hurston’s. But things between the two grew complicated, and in the end, the process destroyed their friendship.

    Hurston’s three marriages were all brief. Her longest relationship was with Percy Punter, a graduate student at Columbia, who later became the inspiration for Teacake in Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Hurston’s best-known work, Their Eyes Were Watching God, was written over seven weeks in Haiti, and was published in 1937 to very little notice. Even though it contains a rare incidence of what is known to beekeepers as “Apian-porn.” Then in 1973, Alice Walker ‘discovered’ Hurston and her work. Since then, millions of copies have been sold all over the world, it is taught in schools everywhere, and even a Halle Berry movie has been made.

    The writer’s life did not end well. She struggled financially, had serious health issues, and died in a welfare home in St Lucie, Florida in 1960.

    But Walker’s discovery and resuscitation has wrought great changes. Eatonville now hosts a Hurston Festival every year, and there is a Zora Neal Hurston National Museum of Fine Arts.

Sharon shared with us her experience of hearing the latest biographer, Valerie Boyd, speak, on January 7, which is Hurston’s birthday. She then emailed with the writer, until her untimely death at 58.

    Zora Neal Hurston remains with us. Her play written with Langston Hugues, Mule Bone, was finally produced on Broadway in 1991. Her words keep resonating, as her quote: “There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”

    Members read from Hurston’s autobiography, Dust Tracks, from Jonah’s Gourd Vine, from Their Eyes Were Watching God, and from Valerie Boyd’s Wrapped in Rainbows.

Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner, Recording Secretary

Annual Meeting 2022

Jacquie's Email

Hello Literary Ladies!!! It's somehow that time of year again - March!!! Along with hopes for warmer weather, crocuses, and peace in Europe, it's time for our Annual Meeting.
    Our agenda includes:

• The nominating committee will announce our fearless leaders for 2022-24 - president and vice president. (This is not an election year for other officers.)
• A discussion on whether to continue on Zoom? In-person masked? Lunch? (As Fran pointed out, we owe Sharon many!)
• Begin a discussion of topics for next year. Attached please find a list of topics since the inception of the club to facilitate brainstorming. (We've done biography twice before, and in 1912-1913, German literature was the topic. Hmmm.)

I look forward to seeing you all on Wednesday in your neat little rectangles on my computer screen. Until then! Jacquie

Christine's Minutes

On March 2, 2022, fourteen members of the Literature Club met, again, on Zoom, this time for the time-honored ritual of our Annual Meeting. Our pre-meeting chat ranged from books to new kitchens to blizzards in Montreal to the last great Auk.
    President Fran Greenberg rang the bell for the last time as our president. The minutes were read and accepted. The treasury remains at $ 265.11
    The nominating committee presented their slate for a new president and vice president. Their two-year term will begin next meeting. Because of COVID constraints, we were unable to have our usual ceremony for the "Passing of the Bell", with fifers, drummers, baton-twirlers, and book jugglers.
    The committee nominated for our next president, Connie Stewart, and for vice opresident, Joanna Reisman. Both were unanimously acclaimed. All members applauded Fran for her excellent presidential term, especially in what have been exceptionally trying times. She has been a reassuringly competent presence at her computer guiding us through the shoals of Zoom. In her farewell speech, Fran generously declared that the Literature Club is “a superb organization to be president of".
    Our first topic of the meeting: to Zoom or not to Zoom, that is the question.

Whether ‘tis nobler to stay in our screens
And miss the pleasures of Another’s
Living room, and A Literary Lunch
Or to take arms against a mess of mandates
And by opposing them, to risk the wrath
Of Omicron. To Zoom, a known Path.
Or not to Zoom, tis a consummation
Devoutly to be Wished for.

If not absolute consensus, then there certainly was agreement and a willingness on the part of every member to be considerate to all other members. We agreed that each of us should feel safe. The decision, such as it was: we will continue with Zoom through our April 20th meeting, when Jacquie will present The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.* After that we hope to be able to meet outside and unmasked. One important sidebar: for many presenters it would be very helpful to know ahead of time whether or not we will Zoom, as that can affect their preparation.
    Our second topic was to discuss suggest possible topics for next year. Joanna helpfully provided the list of the suggested topics from last year, containing lots of the old chestnuts. New suggestions included:

• Crime and criminals
• Literature from Countries threatened by Russian land-grabbing and Putin’s madness? Or more succinctly, Writing from Behind what Used to Be called the Iron Curtain, or even, Reclosing the Iron Curtain.
• A book or an author that changed my life
• Banned Books – not band books as this secretary originally understood and then wracked her brain searching for rock’n’roll books.
• Books from a single specific year

OR, we could revisit The New York Times’ list of Comforting Reads.

Meeting adjourned at 2:40 pm
Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner, Recording Secretary

*That program has been re-scheduled for the end of the season.

Connie Presents Joe Orton

Jacquie's Email

Dear Literary Ladies: I fall back on this quote by the Portuguese poet Fernando Passeo whenever I need to, say, rationalize the fact that I read 72 books last year but my basement is still a mess. (Somehow, I am able to ignore the fact that I have many friends better read than I who have very well-organized basements AND attics... and have also knit a few sweaters in that time...) Yet what we all know is that if anything, literature helps us understand life - meet it head on with greater empathy and understanding of other people. We are not ignoring life in literature; we are maybe just finding ourselves in more satisfying locales and with more interesting characters experiencing more agreeable situations than we might currently be enjoying. And examining literature through the biography of the authors has also inspired, taking us from the (extra)ordinary to the sublime! And now we have Connie's presentation on the playwright Joe Orton to look forward to. Please be on the lookout for the Zoom link from Sharon. Until then, Jacquie

Christine's Minutes
It was frigid outside, but thirteen members and one associate of the Literature Club were warm, inside our rectangles of pixels, and warmly entertained, on February 16, 2022. During our pre-meeting time to catch up, we discussed books, the delights of emerging from COVID, and the wonderful news that Diana has one liberal relative in Mississippi.

President Fran Greenberg rang the bell at 1:06, and announced that we will again be recording the program. Christine read the minutes, and they were accepted. Lori reported that our treasury remains unchanged. As for new business, Fran suggested that we discuss when, and how we will go off Zoom and resume meeting in person. Our next meeting, being our annual meeting, will be a good time for this discussion.

Then, without further ado, it was time to settle down for some serious entertainment and Connie’s program about the English writer, Joe Orton. With her usual aplomb, Connie dressed for the part with a faux leather jacket and scarf.

Connie began her program with the biographer, not the subject: and we learned that John Lahr could himself warrant a biography, so interesting is his life. The son of Bert Lahr, the Cowardly Lion portrayer so well-known to crossword puzzlers, John Lahr was for many years the drama critic for The New Yorker. He also wrote novels, and biographies of several actors and playwrights, including his father, Dame Edna, Frank Sinatra, Noel Coward, and Tennessee Williams. His writing has won many awards and he is considered one of the greatest living literary biographers. Lahr is now eighty years old, and lives in London with his wife, Connie Booth, better known to some of us as Polly in Fawlty Towers.

Joe Orton died in 1967 at the age of 34.

Lahr’s biography, Prick Up Your Ears, came out in 1978. Additionally, he has edited Orton’s complete plays, and his very compelling diaries. Arguably, Lahr has played a key role in assuring Orton’s importance as a playwright.

Orton was born, John Kingsley Orton, on January 1, 1933, in the Saffron Lane Estates, part of council housing in Leicester. He was the first child of Elsie and William Orton. William was gardener, and quite aloof from his family. Elsie worked as a machinist, stitching underwear from 8 am to 6 pm. Yet she always ran home at her lunch break to cook lunch for her 4 children. She was strong, vivacious, and surprisingly prudish. She was often cruel to her children, yet she recognized Joe as a gifted child, and sent him to a private school, where his teachers found him to be semi-literate. All he cared about was the theatre, and at 16 he left school to pursue that ambition.

In 1949 he joined the Leicester Theatre and decided to apply to RADA. He took dance lessons and sought advice from everyone and anyone. He studied elocution with Mme. Rothery, whose lessons and coaching would make a real difference for Orton. With another of her students he performed a scene from Midsummer Night’s Dream, and won 3rd place. Then, with an uncharacteristically generous contribution from the Leicester Educational Committee, Orton applied to RADA. On his 18th birthday he took the train to London. He auditioned for RADA and got in.

He moved in with a fellow actor, Kenneth Halliwell. Kenneth was older than Joe, better educated, and withdrawn. His mother died as a result of a wasp sting, when Kenneth was 11; he was in his early 20s when his father committed suicide. (This kind of background that should set off alarm bell.) Halliwell and Orton continued to live together after RADA, and in 1959 Halliwell bought a 10 x 17 bedsit. In that small space, they read, wrote, and lived frugally. All their books came from the public library, and they began to subtly change or make collages of book covers. Their collages are now regarded as works of art, but in 1962 the response was less enthusiastic. Halliwell and Orton were caught in a police sting, and they were sentenced to six months in prison, in separate prisons. As with so many things, they reacted differently. Orton found the experience of prison oddly liberating.

In 1963, the BBC accepted his play, The Ruffian on the Stair. His next play Entertaining Mr. Sloan was a huge success. The American premier was directed by Alan Schneider, who – I feel compelled to point out – also directed the American premiere of Waiting for Godot and lived in Hastings on Hudson.

Orton’s next play, The Good and Faithful Servant, was poignant and angry; it was followed by the “boulevard farce” Loot. Loot was originally panned, but after several rewrites, it re-opened in 1966 and was a triumph. All along, as his career was ascending, Orton continued living with Kenneth in the bedsit. They often traveled to Morocco together and reveled in the sexual freedom they found there. But Kenneth’s career was going nowhere, while Orton’s was soaring. He was approached by Brian Epstein to rewrite a Beatles’ script. It was never produced, but by then he was writing What the Butler Saw.

Meanwhile, in December 1966 Orton began to keep a journal, and kept it almost daily until his death. In it he detailed his many sketchy sexual encounters, as well as arguments with Halliwell. Then, on a hot day in August 1967, Halliwell bludgeoned the sleeping Orton to his death. He then took an overdose and killed himself. His suicide note directed the reader to Orton’s diaries, “especially the latter part.” Alas, the previous nine days’ worth of diaries have been removed, by person or persons unknown. After this, Orton was more famous for being murdered by his lover, than for his plays. But that would change. His last play, What the Butler Saw, brought farce to high art.

Club members read several selections from John Lahr’s Prick Up Your Ears, from Orton’s own diaries, and saw several photographs of the plays. We had another Literature Club first – pictures of male nudity. Then we were treated to a snippet of the brilliant What the Butler Saw, on YouTube.

As Connie pointed out, there is no butler in the play.

Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner, Recording Secretary