David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest
David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest
Led by William Mottolese
6:00pm-7:30pm
The second Tuesday of the month starting September 14
9 sessions
$75 members and students;
$95 nonmembers
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace has become one of those brilliant and challenging books that, like Ulysses or Gravity’s Rainbow, is a must read that few have actually read from start to finish. Over 1000 pages (including extensive endnotes) and set in a nebulous near-future North America, Infinite Jest is both a satirically pointed examination of the millennial America of instant gratification, self-medication, and family dysfunction, and an indefinable narrative adventure of shifting voices and time frames, compelling allusions, multiple plots, and compendious knowledge. Yet, at its core it ispoignant, astonishingly funny and very possibly life-changing.
For the first class, please read to page 95.
William Mottolese has taught at Fordham University and Saint Joseph’s College in Indiana.. He has published widely on such subjects as Olaudah Equiano, Laurence Sterne, and James Joyce and is presently at work on a book manuscript on James Joyce and ethnography. He has won numerous teaching awards.
The Novels of E. M. Forster
The Novels of E. M. Forster
Led by James Kraft
6:00pm-7:30pm
October 20, November 10, December 8, January 12, and February 2
$110 members;
$130 nonmembers
E.M. Forster wrote six of the most amusing and challenging books by any English writer. Amusing because he had a fine sense of the ridiculous in British social pretentions and challenging because his novels vividly questioned the entire structure of British class society. Please begin by reading Where Angels Fear to Tread and A Room With a View for the first session. The other novels to be read are The Longest Journey, Howards End, A Passage to India, Maurice, and The Selected Stories of E. M. Forster. Use the Penguin edition for all works except for Maurice. which is only in Norton paper.
James Kraft has taught at the University of Virginia, Universite Laval, and Wesleyan University. He has written a critical study of the early tales of Henry James, edited a five-volume edition of the work of the poet Witter Bynner, written his biography, and published many articles on American and Canadian literature.
Great Books and the Meanings of Life
Great Books and the Meanings of Life
Led by James Sloan Allen
5:30pm-7:00pm
October 13, October 27, December 1 and December 15
$80 members;
$100 nonmembers
The fall series of Great Books will take up four novels--two French and two English--whose primary subject is modern society as it reflects and affects human nature, human relations, personal character, and cultural ideals. The novels are: Balzac's Old Goriot , (Marion Ayton Crawford, trans.), Trollope's The Way We Live Now, Flaubert's Bouvard and Pecuchet (A.J. Krailsheimer, trans.), and Huxley's Brave New World.
James Sloan Allen is a cultural historian whose recent book, Worldly Wisdom: Great Books and the Meanings of Life, deals in part with books discussed in this class since 2002.
David Copperfield and Little Dorrit
David Copperfield and Little Dorrit
Led by Rob Jacklosky, PhD
6:00pm-7:30pm
September 20, October 18, November 22 and December 20
$80 members;
$100 nonmembers
David Copperfield and Little Dorrit both focus on promising children of negligent parents. To differing degrees both books explore the acute misery of filial devotion to improvident fathers, class-based shame, and how a desire to rise can feel like betrayal. We will discuss how Dickens’s “inimitable” comic sensibility helps to disguise and transform the darkness of these works. The course will begin with David Copperfield.
Rob Jacklosky is a professor of English and Chair of the English Department at the College of Mount Saint Vincent where he teaches 19th-century English Literature. He has written on Dickens, George Eliot and Matthew Arnold, and published essays and short stories in Sonora Review, Studies in Short Fiction, Sendero and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.
Wine & Words with the Director
Wine & Words with the Director
6:00pm-7:30pm
The group meets September 13, October 4, November 8, and December 13
$80 members;
$100 nonmembers (including wine & cheese)
Join the Center’s Director, Noreen Tomassi, once a month for an intimate evening of wine & cheese, good books and great discussions. The focus this fall will be on great new fiction. All books will be available at a 30% discount to members of the group.
September: A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
October: Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
November: Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
December: Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick
The Literarians
The Literarians is a free discussion group open to members of the library. The Literarians read a wide variety of novels and vote every few months on a new theme to explore. Recent themes were: Women Authors of New York and Classics of Russian Literature.
The group meets at 12:15pm on the second Thursday of every month and is led by the Center’s Head Librarian, Brenda Wegener. Please contact the Library if you would like to join the group.
July 8th
Hunger by Knut Hamsun
A true classic of modern literature that has been described as “one of the most disturbing novels in existence” (Time Out), Hunger is the story of a Norwegian artist who wanders the streets, struggling on the edge of starvation. As hunger overtakes him, he slides inexorably into paranoia and despair. The descent into madness is recounted by the unnamed narrator in increasingly urgent and disjointed prose, as he loses his grip on reality.
August 12th
Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee
Set in post-apartheid South Africa, J. M. Coetzee’s searing novel tells the story of David Lurie, a twice divorced, 52-year-old professor of communications and Romantic Poetry at Cape Technical University. Lurie believes he has created a comfortable, if somewhat passionless, life for himself. He lives within his financial and emotional means. Though his position at the university has been reduced, he teaches his classes dutifully; and while age has diminished his attractiveness, weekly visits to a prostitute satisfy his sexual needs. He considers himself happy. But when Lurie seduces one of his students, he sets in motion a chain of events that will shatter his complacency and leave him utterly disgraced.
September 16th
Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz
Considered by many to be Mahfouz's best novel, Midaq Alley centers around the residents of one of the hustling, teeming back alleys of Cairo. No other novel so vividly evokes the sights and sounds of the city. The universality and timelessness of this book cannot be denied.
October 14th
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
These eight stories by beloved and bestselling author Jhumpa Lahiri take us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand, as they explore the secrets at the heart of family life. Here they enter the worlds of sisters and brothers, fathers and mothers, daughters and sons, friends and lovers. Rich with the signature gifts that have established Jhumpa Lahiri as one of our most essential writers, Unaccustomed Earth exquisitely renders the most intricate workings of the heart and mind.
(Descriptions provided by the publishers.)
For more information or to join a reading group, please call 212-755-6710 or email: info@centerforfiction.org
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For more information or to join a reading group, please call 212-755-6710 or email info@centerforfiction.org
The Proust Society