Each year the Council devotes a weekend to a single long work of fiction. Our next long novel weekend will be on August 23-24, 2008 at Marin County's lovely Walker Creek Ranch, 1700 Marshall-Petaluma Road, where the rooms are spacious, the food is excellent, and the discussion rooms are large and airy. The drive through Marin is scenic, and if you find the time on Saturday, you can drive a few miles to Marshall on the coast for oysters and a glass of wine.
In 2008 we will read and discuss The Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz, the Egyptian author and winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire and Sugar Street. The Chicago Sun-Times calls Palace Walk “a magnificent work,” and the Boston Globe calls it “rich in psychological insight and cultural observation, a majestic and capacious accomplishment.” The story is rich in cultural insights and humor as it traces the lives of an extended family in Cairo through several generations, from the period of 1919 to 1944, a time of great social change in Egypt.
Our weekend will consist of three discussions, one on each of the novels, with time to pull together all the themes at the end. A treat is in store, too, on Saturday evening. William Corbett-Jones will return for a delightful presentation, accompanied by slides and music, of “Egypt Since the Mamaleuks.” We’ll feast on baklava and pistachios while being treated to the belly-dancing of the lovely Jazihah. It will be, in the grand tradition of the Long Novel Weekend, an event not to be missed.
Long novel weekends in the recent past have featured discussions of The Sound and the Fury, Sons and Lovers, Anna Karenina, Parade's End, and Crime and Punishment. This has been a popular event and has sold out quickly. To learn more about this event, please download this flyer and registration form. You can also contact event coordinator Louise DiMattio at (415) 587-0398 or ladimat@aol.com.