Study Group Leader: Marlene Hobel [see Marlene's bio]
Meeting Times/Dates: Thursdays, 11:10 am to 12:35 pm, March 2 - May 11 (No class April 6)
Zoom Link: https://brandeis.zoom.us/j/95156452348?pwd=ZlZvaGtiUGNHdzlOUnk2eXlkZEFHZz09
Password: Marlene
Meeting ID: 951 5645 2348
Phone-in Number: 312 626 6799
Contact: marlenehobel@gmail.com
Writer Lauren Groff said, “Fiction—reading it and writing it—is the greatest, most beautiful exploration of humanity that I know.” Groff combines powerful, lyrical language with engaging characters facing difficult questions in worlds that are vivid, complex, and unusual. She details the moments, decisions, and connections behind pleasure and pain, hope and despair, love and fury. President Obama named her novel, Fates and Furies, as his favorite book of 2015, and her novel, Matrix, as one of his favorites of 2021.
In this course, we will explore Groff’s talent through selected short stories from her two collections, Delicate Edible Birds (2015) and Florida (2018), and two more recent New Yorker stories. I am a Lauren Groff enthusiast, not a scholar; each session will be a facilitated discussion with the group exploring the stories and learning from each other.
“The only purpose I have as a writer, as I see it, is to try to tell the truth as much as I possibly can, in a way that's as beautiful as I can make it,” said Groff. She sees her reader’s engagement with her stories akin to a musician bringing a symphony alive, “…just the way that a concert musician doesn’t actually create the work, but expresses it through themselves. Without them there is no music. The right reader creates the work with the writer.”
So, how about it? Let’s be “right readers” and explore/create some of her short stories together.
Please see the class ground rules.
Work together to probe and understand Lauren Groff's stories.
Learn to "stay in the story" and mine it for meaning and writing craft.
Reach our own individual conclusions about the merit and appeal of Lauren Groff's work as a short story writer. Answer the question, "Would I recommend her to others?"
Lauren Groff, Delicate Edible Birds, Hachette Books, 2016 (paperback edition)
Lauren Groff, Florida, Riverhead Books, 2019 (paperback edition)
Both books are available new and used from Amazon.com, but used books usually take a week to 10 days for shipping. New books are also available from Lauren Groff’s own bookstore, The Lynx, with shipping in 5-10 business days.
ASSIGNMENTS
Each week of this website (see navigation bar at the top) details your assignment for that week's session. Please be sure to read all of the material on each week's page. Read each story at least twice—the first time to get the overall sense of the story, and the subsequent close reading(s) to analyze the story, considering the "think about" items I've included.
The Zoom link for each class is provided at the top of the home page and on the footer of each page.
The ground rules are included on each week's page as a reminder of how to engage in a fruitful, respectful discussion.
Lauren Groff was so shy as a child that her parents had her checked out by a pediatrician. Groff preferred books to people and made daily trips to the public library, reading whatever she could get her hands on. “I really read everything, and I didn’t understand most of it,” Groff admitted. “You read Jane Austen when you’re eight, and you’re not going to get the sort of social niceties, but you’re bathed in the precise language and the sensibility, and that’s what matters. I guess it’s the tone that matters at that point.”
