About us
Welcome to the Vancouver Classical literature and film Meetup! This group is for local professionals who are interested in exploring the connections between life, philosophy, psychology, humanitarianism, and wellbeing through the lens of classical literature. We will discuss a variety of plays, novels, and texts, as well as engage in social psychology discussions, reading clubs, and critical thinking. Join us to connect with like-minded individuals who share a passion for exploring the depths of the human experience through literature.
Upcoming events
7
🌊🗺️ Read "The Odyssey" before the movie comes out!
Vancouver Central Library, 350 West Georgia Street, Vancouver, BC, CA### 🌊🗺️ Read "The Odyssey" before the movie makes everyone pretend they’ve always cared about the book.
Discussion only - this is Part 1 of a 3-month read-through (April / May / June).
Short summary
Christopher Nolan is making The Odyssey into a giant movie event, which is exactly why I want to read it now - before the discourse, before the fake expertise, before everyone suddenly starts acting like they’ve always had strong opinions about Odysseus.And we’re not doing the hardest, most punishing version possible.
We’re reading the Penguin Classics prose edition translated by E. V. Rieu, revised by D. C. H. Rieu - the one in the white-and-black Penguin Classics cover. In other words: readable, sane, and actually finishable.This first section is all absence, pressure, and setup.
Home is under siege. The hero is missing. Everyone is already telling stories about him - and then, slowly, the man himself starts to emerge.That’s why I like this as Part 1. It lets us ask the real questions before the monsters even fully take over:
- What is home when the person who gave it meaning is gone?
- What kind of man gets remembered as a hero?
- And how much of heroism is just being a very convincing liar who survived?
What we’re reading for this session
Books 1–8
That gives us:- Telemachus, Penelope, the suitors, and the crisis at home
- the “missing hero” problem
- the first look at Odysseus himself
- the threshold before he really starts telling the story of his wanderings
The arguments this section is already setting up
- Home vs wandering: is home something stable in this poem… or is it already half fantasy by the time we get there?
- Hero vs liar: when we finally meet Odysseus, do you admire him immediately, or do you start getting suspicious?
- Nostalgia vs reality: do people in Ithaca miss Odysseus the actual man, or the story of him?
- Telemachus: is he growing up, or just being pushed into a role someone else left behind?
- Penelope: how much of this poem’s emotional weight is really sitting with her, not Odysseus?
- The gods: do they feel like fate, politics, or just a way humans explain how random life is?
What the night will feel like
We’ll start with a very simple question:
What felt most alive in these opening books - the household, the longing, the politics, or the first glimpses of the wanderer?Then we’ll stay close to scenes, voices, and pressure points.
No “classics seminar” voice. No pretending the oldness makes it automatically profound. We’ll test it like it’s alive.The 3-part arc
- April: Books 1–8
- May: Books 9–16
- June: Books 17–24
So if you join now, you’re catching it at the right time.
When and where
📅 Saturday, April 18th
🕒 1:00-3:00 PM
📍 No Location yet, waiting to see how many we get.We will be reading an easy to read version of the Odyssey, link to amazon website : https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0141192445?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title
Cap 10 + waitlist
Small room on purpose. Epics are better when the room can actually argue.10 attendees
🌊🪄 The Tempest - What does it mean to be a control freak?
Vancouver Central Library, 350 West Georgia Street, Vancouver, BC, CA🌊🪄 The Tempest - What does it mean to be a brilliant control freak?
Play discussion nightModern English Version link in description
Short summary
A storm gets staged.
A ship goes down.
An island turns into one man’s theatre of revenge, control, and self-justification.
If Shakespeare still smells a little too much like school to you, good. That is exactly the problem I want to get past.
The Tempest is not a museum piece about magic and reconciliation. It’s a strange, sharp play about power, manipulation, exile, class, freedom, colonial arrogance, fatherhood, and what happens when a very intelligent person gets so used to control that he starts calling it wisdom.
That’s why I keep coming back to it.
Prospero is fascinating because he is not a cartoon villain. He’s the much more recognizable type: the brilliant person who believes his motives are pure enough to excuse the fact that he is running everybody else’s life.
That makes this play feel extremely alive.A few questions already sitting in my head
- “Is Prospero actually wise - or just the kind of man who makes control sound noble?”
- “Does the ending feel like real forgiveness to you, or just power deciding to look merciful?”
- “Who feels most free in this play - Ariel, Caliban, Miranda, or almost no one?”
- “What are we supposed to do with Caliban now? Monster, victim, inheritor, warning, all of the above?”
- “What part of the play felt most modern: surveillance, elite self-justification, family used as moral cover, or the way authority becomes easier to swallow when it speaks beautifully?”
- “Have you ever met someone whose intelligence made them harder to argue with and less trustworthy at the same time?”
How the evening will go
We’ll start with one simple question:
“Who here instinctively distrusted Prospero?”
Then I’ll do a quick reset on the plot, relationships, and language so nobody has to pretend they’re fluent in Shakespearean English.
After that, we stay close to the play:
a few scenes, first reactions, then the bigger fight underneath it.
Not literature-class voice.
Not automatic reverence.
A real argument.
Afterward, anyone who wants can keep the night going nearby for a drink / tea and the aftershock conversation.Reading
William Shakespeare - The Tempest
Link to the File :
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KMaMI4SIZjl84HrTPII0B5E7pwWsxcJS/view?usp=sharingI’ll post a good free version / side-by-side option in the comments.
When and where
🗓️ Date: Sunday, April 19, 2026
🕒 Time: 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
📍 Location: Central Library - Meeting Rooms - L6 North (690) Meeting RoomCap 12 + waitlist
2 attendees
Past events
51
