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British Perspectives: Amis, McEwan, Barnes

Literary Arts 925 SW Washington Street, Portland, OR, United States

English authors Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, and Julian Barnes, all born in the 1940s, present us with contemporary perspectives of the world through writing styles that originate in the classic literary tradition, only to explode into unsettling resolutions that mirror the contemporary human experience. With elegant prose, they weave history and personal relations into thought-provoking narratives. In Time’s Arrow, Martin Amis does an exercise of history “revision” by playing with the concept of time, and thus forcing the reader to view a historical character from an impossible perspective. In doing so, Amis confronts us with a disconcerting view of evil. Ian McEwan’s Atonement, which has been adapted for the big screen as several of his novels, explores the complications of childhood, love, class and responsibility. It’s…

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$220

Delve Readers Seminars Online: Free 90 minute Discussion on Paul Auster’s In the Country of Last Things and Jose Saramego’s Blindness

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

A free 90-minute online Delve discussion on Paul Auster’s In the Country of Last Things and Jose Saramego’s Blindness. The discussion is limited to 16 people and pre-registration is required. Registered participants will receive information on how to sign on to the Zoom meeting. Led by Delve guide Ivonne Saed. Participants are encouraged to come prepared to discuss the following questions, and to bring their own as well. Reflect on Saramago’s social critique and the way he writes about the blindness epidemic as a representation of the different roles and attitudes people take in times of crisis. The Last Things: What are the objective and non-objective things that can become the last in uncertain times? Is the cooperation in the different “societies” of the novel nihilistic or auspicious?…

Continue readingDelve Readers Seminars Online: Free 90 minute Discussion on Paul Auster’s In the Country of Last Things and Jose Saramego’s Blindness
Free

Delve Readers Seminars Online: Clarice Lispector: The Passion and Água Viva

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

This Delve takes place online with Zoom teleconferencing. Participants will receive instructions for how to log on to the Zoom meeting. In The Passion According to G.H., Clarice Lispector offers us a story where very little happens, but where the transformation of the protagonist—alongside the reader—is a path with no return. A trivial, almost insignificant event leads to a deep philosophical reflection of the character’s life and her mysterious inner self. “It’s with such profound happiness.” Those are the first words of Água Viva, an in-depth narrative about time, life, death, dreams and creation, where a stream of consciousness gives meaning to the protagonist’s surroundings. Both novels are placed in the threshold of the author’s existential thoughts, where silence is also a powerful means of…

Continue readingDelve Readers Seminars Online: Clarice Lispector: The Passion and Água Viva
$110

Delve Readers Seminars Online: Clarice Lispector: The Passion and Água Viva

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

This Delve takes place online with Zoom teleconferencing. Participants will receive instructions for how to log on to the Zoom meeting. In The Passion According to G.H., Clarice Lispector offers us a story where very little happens, but where the transformation of the protagonist—alongside the reader—is a path with no return. A trivial, almost insignificant event leads to a deep philosophical reflection of the character’s life and her mysterious inner self. “It’s with such profound happiness.” Those are the first words of Água Viva, an in-depth narrative about time, life, death, dreams and creation, where a stream of consciousness gives meaning to the protagonist’s surroundings. Both novels are placed in the threshold of the author’s existential thoughts, where silence is also a powerful means of…

Continue readingDelve Readers Seminars Online: Clarice Lispector: The Passion and Água Viva
$110

Summer 2020 Delve Readers Seminar Online: Nigerian Voices: Chinua Achebe and Helon Habila

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

From the precolonial period to modern times, these two authors show the complexity of Nigerian history: the original tribal forms of organizing the society, where the strong man rules for good and for bad; the colonial era where those tribal communities transform in order to negotiate with the colonizers; and the postcolonial period that shows how the thirst for oil from the western powers also generates conflicts between the native peoples and a level of corruption that pervade every aspect of their lives. The transformations narrated in these two books are journeys of no return, with echoes from Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Texts: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe Oil on Water by Helon Habila Participants are responsible for purchasing texts. First assignment: For the…

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$150

Delve Readers Seminar Online: Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Storyteller and Death in the Andes

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

“Opam-pogyakyena shinoshinonkarintsi. Me está mirando la tristeza.” Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa is known for his prolific oeuvre, particularly his long historical novels that portray different aspects and eras of Peru and other parts of Latin America; and yet, his less-known shorter works are narrative gems that show the complexities of the human condition, with characters that cross both geographic and fundamental inner boundaries. We will discuss Death in the Andes and The Storyteller, two books whose protagonists step outside of the predictability of their comfort zones and place themselves in remote communities, where they will assume a radical life transformation. Graphic designer, writer, translator, and photographer, Ivonne Saed has extensively explored the crossroads between the visual and the textual, both in her creative…

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$150

Delve Readers Seminar: New York City: Paul Auster and Jonathan Safran Foer

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Paul Auster and Jonathan Safran Foer are two contemporary authors who have explored New York City not only as a space where a person works, transits, and lives, but more as a symbolic space at a certain time that interacts with the fictional characters as if the city were also one of them—a living entity that actively affects the fates and actions of every person that inhabits it. Memory, chance, the double, and disobedience as a way to dig into the self are the literary elements that trigger the plots constructed by these two authors. In this Delve seminar we’ll discuss Auster’s Leviathan (1992), and Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005). We will compare how each author recreates New York as a fictional place,…

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$240

Delve Readers Seminar: Etgar Keret: Short Fiction as Social Commentary

Online N/A, Portland, OR, United States

Etgar Keret is one of the most important Israeli authors alive today. He has mastered the genre of short fiction with a witticism that uses humor and farce to make readers step outside of their comfort zone and view things from the perspective of the absurd. In doing that, Keret brings a fresh, comical, and many times unsettling view of our family and social relationships. His view is a keen critique of the human condition in general and of the paradoxes of the everyday reality in Israel. In this 3-session Delve seminar we’ll discuss his book Suddenly a Knock on the Door (2012). Access Program We want our writing classes and Delves to be accessible to everyone, regardless of income and background. We understand that…

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$125

Delve Readers Seminar: Siri Hustvedt: A Woman’s View

Literary Arts 925 SW Washington Street, Portland, OR, United States

Winner of the 2019 Princesa de Asturias Award for Literature, Siri Hustvedt has an especially acute way of looking at the world around her. A feminist and an activist for democracy, Hustvedt has a visual and profound way of seeing the world around her, which is reflected in her writing’s subjectivity. This attentive observation allows her to develop complex characters and relations, with a close intimacy between them and with the reader. In this six-week seminar, we will read two of Husvedt novels—one early in her career and another closer to our time: The Blindfold and Memories of the Future. We may also add one or two of her essays to connect her theoretical ideas with her fictional work. As stated by the jury in…

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$245
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