March '05 Book: Orlando

It has happened! He is a she now! I guess because Woolf has been working so hard to keep him as androgynous as possible that it does not come as a total shock somehow. However, her thoughts during the trip to the UK makes me wonder if Woolf believed in the 'superiority' of females? (I am only in the begining of this chapter so this might change) She seems to regret not being able to do certain things such as swimming etc but enjoys having 'power' over men.

Any thoughts on that?

The other thing:Mention of his house of with '365 rooms and 52 stairs' keep coming up in the book. How do you think this is significant? (Number of days and weeks in a year but...?)

Quote:

---

The letter S, she reflected, is the serpent in the poet's Eden. Do what she would there were still too many of these sinful reptiles in the first stanzas of 'the Oak Tree'. But 'S' was nothing, in her opinion, compared with the termination 'ing'. The present participle is the Devil himself, she though (now that we are in the place for believing inDevils). To evade such temptations is the first duty of the poet, she concluded, for as the ear is the antechamber to the soul, poetry can adulterate and destroy more surely than lust or gunpowder. The poet's, then, is the highest office of all, she continued. His words reach where others fall short. No time, no devotion, can be too great, therefore, which makes the vehicle of our message less distrting. We must shape our words till they are the thinnest integument for our thoughts.

---

Seems like this passage from Chapter 4 shows how Woolf herself looked at the writing process and how hard she worked to get it 'right'.

Is there a significance to Orlando's persistent attempts to write 'The Oak Tree'?

I am enjoying each chapter more than previous ones (though I am still not converted; still not a fan of Woolf ;)). This chapter is almost funny, full of humourous remarks about gender and genius. I am glad I have not given up on it :) Mind you, one chapter a day only;I could not handle more! :D

We have finished it!
We actually liked it.
The constant self-irony (you know, it went like this and that and we could talk about it for six pages and it would be very boring et cetera) was amusing; and though the constant using of "we" of VW was annoying in the beginning(talk about splinters in a fellow man's eye), for it seemed a bit like some kind of bad cliche as the writer and reader hover together through the book, it became reasoned in the end, for it seemed to refer a bit to the many selves of Orlando and VW, it was a gentle hint to shizophrenia then.

Just borrowed another book... yeah, don't yell yet :p
It's Art Objects by Jeanette Winterson, it's a collection of essays and there's an essay on Orlando and I thought you might be interested in reading it. Just a thought.

I've just gotten to the part where he is now a she, it seems like an odd passage whith the three "I forgot their names" coming in....doesn't really work for me. I'll have to bring the book tomorrow to figure out what I'm trying to say here.

Any thoughts on why all of a sudden Orlando became a woman? What triggered the change?

That's what I'm wondering, why did those three chicks decide to visit at that time?

So, I'm continuing with this book and I'm beginning to think it's outdated in it's views? Anybody else?

I felt out of touch with most of the sentiments the book expresses... however, I am not sure which 'views' you are refering to exactly...

Why you think all of a sudden, out of the blue, Orlando changed gender?

he fell asleep, i remember
broken heart?
boredom?
do not remember
maybe thought (subconciously) that he could not find a female beloved one

I really could not connect with that book...
supposed to be a feminist work

well, it was supposed to be new or something

but even so, even as a female, I cannot see what she is trying to achieve

a secret plot to turn alll men to women?

there would be a shortage of shoes and matching handbags in the world

you remember that critic?
greene i think was his name

To me she is as if trying to say 'it is better to be a man', which is not the feminist view IMHO

do you think he was like - the spirit of the time
like representing what people thought at the time

I thought he was representing the literary spirit of the time

perhaps orlando did the similar thing
i think that the ageless were like somekind of non-human

i do not remember well, but did the novel start in africa?

no
in london
when Queen Elizabeth visits their house

yeah, but the first pages seemed like africa
when he played with the head of that native

he thinks of people who are fighting there, I think
wants to be a soldier/hero
kill non-christians etc

let me think
if i am not mistaken, the crusades were like in the 13th century

yes

but what happened in the 15th century

The idea of the crusade corresponds to a political conception which was realized in Christendom only from the eleventh to the fifteenth century;
from an online source

but why didn't he fit in with the 19th century?
or the 18th

the novel opens in the 16th Century

there was a line like: he had fit in with 15th, 16th, 17th century,but not with er 19th or 18thc

but orlando's parents and grandparents were from crusade-age
with all their head-chopping and stuff

wars were fight in that way
lots of head chopping etc
till the invention of rifle etc

why do you think Woolf really wrote this book?

um, she needed money?

to me it looks like a private thing meant for her Bloomsbury friends

she wanted to look stilish and modern?

probably... that is always a good reason

actually i remember the dedication too

the book is full of private jokes and references...

inside-joke

the kind only Vita, her lover and her close friends would undersatnd

exactly.. an inside joke

they make me feel like an outsider

and I really cannot see what is so great about it

being an outsider, like you said

she feeling all great and stilish and all the others pretending that they understand

I am not even clever enough to pretend I understand
The copy I had had soem references at the back and also I kept reading online resources
hoping to understand it better

mine had also something
it was a long list of people to whom she dedicated it
probably some where just in the room when she was writitng it and asked her to put them in

very kind of her

I am not being objective though
I dont like Woolf

do you think the biographer was Oralndo herself?

do you think Orlando actually didnt change gender as such but decided that he was gay?
and started acting like a female?

like, the style changing through the centuries

sometimes in the 17tth or 18th he was quite an androgyne

metro
like, flirting with females with mens clothing and with males in female clothing

like Archduchess Henrietta / Archduke Harry

i remember them
they were the really boring people who were in love with him

so you think that henrietta changed also sex because of her love

or pretended it

pretended it, yes
I think he openly says so in the book

perhaps orlando changed sex to get rid of henrietta?

that he pretended to be female because he fell in love with Orlando, the male

didnt work, did it?

woolf was a lesbian herself too if i remember correctly

yes, she was bisexual
she was married but had lovers

explains quite a lot

exactly

perhaps she pictured orlando a bit as herself

which is why I thought Orlando just realised he was gay anddecided to act like a female
I was wondering if Woolf also felt she was actually a man trapped in a female body

only to mirror it
like the opposite of herself

yes

orlando got hurt when he was very young with a relationship of the russian woman

sasha, who left him for a sailor

do you think he stopped liking women then

maybe

well yeah the change took some centuries

his description in the book has always been a little ambiguous
what do you think of that?
the fact that she doesnt age?
also the fact that none really seems surprised that Orlando is a she

remember wwhen he ran to the sea when sasha left him
perhaps he, like, symbolically died then
but how did she live all those centuries
she didn't work or anything
and she lost her fortune in the 19th century
to the lawyers

guess we shouldjust take the book as what it is
a fantasy
and treat it like that

till I would be happy if I knew what Woolf was trying to say

trying to make justice to her bisexuality?

ie if she had a message for wider reader

and an inside-joke

yes

I think it was an inside joke

accidentally gone public

and still selling

maybe she was not so good a writer, but she was a marketing genius

she was I guess

they owned a company
printed her own books, conveniently

do you remember that poem?
do you think that when she had finished it, the meaning of her life had gone
oak-tree i think was the heading


i read that Woolf herself used to work on her works for a long time
trying to get it right
I wonder if she was making fun of herself a little there

but probably not centuries

uhm, possibly not

when was woolf born

19th i think

do you remember that man whom she loved
was a sailor if i am not mistaken

yes, shel. and their love was funny
very victorian novel

and in his youth he was dumped because of a sailor

2 minutes after meeting they knew everything about each other

but two sailors are quite different

the one sasha ran away with is a burly, masculine, low class sailor
whereas Shel is a noble man... a captain

so no connection there

I doubt it

but maybe also some kind of genius tempi

and interestingly I think Shel does not age either
because at the end of the novel she hears he is safe and coming back or something like that

you remember when she compared the company to the poodle?
that there was nothing different

and Shel is also very ambigious

tell me something in that novel that isn't

This is one of my favorite books, but it was a long time since I read it. For me the tale of Orlando is both a story about individual growth, but also a way of describing how we are influenced by our society - not only the part we play but our very identity and wishes. ( I remember how Orlando during the 19 century is overcome by an urge to write romantic poetry) I think the gender switch is partly a way of letting Orlando see the society from the opposite side. He/she has had to love affairs and the situation in the two love affairs are alike, but Orlando has different parts in them.

But there is also interesting similarity to both the myth of the changing hermafrodite and the french 18- century person Chevalier D´Eon ,a male writer/poet/spy who changed and lived like a woman from the middle of his/her life. Some reserachers have argued that it was an ethical choice - that D´Eon disliked the characteristics that defined men and their part of society during that period. Others have argued that it was a question of sexuality, others have said both.

My personal opinion is that the ambigiouty is the best part of the book ; What is to male? What is to be female? What is it to live in a certain age/culture/family? What is Orlando? Can what Orlando is be separated from these things? Is there something about Orlando that is consistent during his/her life? What is the core ins Orlandos being? What am I?

I've finally finished this book!!!! I didn't much care for it, to me it was more about writing then it was about male vs. female.

And I really didn't get the ending, did shel come home?

He is supposed to be coming home; Orlando gets the news of his arrival (I think).

New quizes on Woolf and Orlando have been added to the Forum: http://www.online-literature.com/for...iz.php?catid=1