Modernist Fiction, Its Origins and Beyond... and other stuff

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About us

This group started in May 2011, and we've read novels by Joyce, Malraux, Kafka, Wright, Mishima, Faulkner, Nabokov, Unamuno, Ellison, Hamsun, Woolf, Biely, Gide, and many others. We try to have a good time discussing the books without descending to small talk, think critically without descending to pedantry, etc.

Also, as the title shows, we've expanded our reading list since the group started. We don't really want to title the group something as vague as "Chicago Literature Group," etc., and modernist fiction and poetry still make up most of the reading list. But if some group members are excited about reading something else, be it Goethe or Ovid, Wallace or Perec, we're interested in that too. Feel free to make suggestions.

Featured event

Modernist Fiction Member Response and Feedback Open Forum Discussion

Sat, Feb 28 · 7:00 PM CST

Online

Hi everyone,

As many of you might know, Modernist Fiction is primarily an online book club now that the pandemic is over, and I would like some feedback as to what direction we should take the Meetup group in now that we have finished off our two year Tolstoy Seminar and our 3 year Musil Seminar.

My biggest problem and concern with the calendar is that the primary appeal of the series is to people who appreciate long form literature, but finding and striking a balance between difficult, long books and short books that will appeal to certain people, but also a balance between satisfying our regulars who have been long standing anchors in the Meetup group and the new people who come and go.

I pride myself on being able to juggle multiple book clubs at once, but I feel that there is a limit that I am beginning to feel is necessary for Modernist Fiction's online meetings.

As a caveat, that I am absolutely fully aware of, not everyone likes everyone in these meetups, there are people who of course like others as well, but I like to think that the point of the discussions is to foster a friendly atmosphere where everyone is free to enjoy the discussion at hand.

I love the deep dive mentality of my groups, but I am also trying to be cognizant of the burnout that many members have probably experienced in following my ideas to the bitter end.

I can't keep juggling all these different meetings and I am hoping to adopt a less is more approach to how I handle the calendar and the group at large.

My mentality with literary anniversaries has always been to do a read through of the complete works of a selected literary anniversary year by year.

It was January 2016 when I started the deep dives into literary history with the 400th Anniversary of Shakespeare's death being celebrated for a year and a half in Chicago spearheaded by the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. As a part of that massive celebration, I was lucky to take part in a nine month Shakespeare Seminar at the University of Chicago Graham School where we covered the Complete Tragedies, Histories, and Comedies ending with the Tempest.

That experience has had a profound impact on my intellectual, emotional and literary life and I have strived to make every succeeding year like that.

Fast forward 10 years and the overwhelming amount of succeeding anniversaries is too overstimulating to sustain. My new goal is to finish off the Chinese Literature Seminar in May 2027, and leave only Chicago Alexanderplatz as the remaining Seminar in the second half of 2027. From there on, it will be a far easier task to manage what we should do with an open calendar.

So as a result, I am opening up this Meetup as a open forum discussion for the future of Modernist Fiction and I will repeat this same Open Forum Discussion in June to July 2027 after the Chinese Literature Seminar concludes.

Topics I would like to discuss is that what directions we should take the Meetup, any feedback you'd like to give about the current status of the online groups, and the future anniversaries/ideas we should deep dive into.

Let me know what you think!