Raw Reading: The Art of Fiction

This is a reading-based course. Each month we explore a substantial text, normally a novella-length work of about 100 pages. Having read this once – and ideally twice! – we discuss what we can learn from it about the elements that make up literary fiction: plot, character, dialogue, themes, tone, structure, style, context. This is a structured, taught course that will challenge you to read deeply and share your response with a highly motivated group. It’s ideal for writers who want to extend their practice through slow reading of literary texts, and for those who are primarily looking to extend and enrich their reading habits. Readers of all levels welcome.

Zoom

Thursday, 10th September
J L Carr, A Month in the Country. A gentle English pastoral about memory, history, art, love and loss…

Thursday, 8th October
Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha. A spiritual classic on the search for enlightenment.

Thursday, 12th November
Muriel Spark, A Far Cry from Kensington. A roman à clef (a fiction based on real events) in the sharp, concise style for which Spark is famous.

Thursday, 10th December
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol. What better way to see in Christmas than by reading Dickens’s classic tale?