Orlando group discussion (Mar '16)

[Alexa]

This month we turn to "The longest and most charming love letter in literature." Who's planning on reading this with us?

[Pam]

I'm a maybe on this one.

[Sam]

I'm definitely in. There's only one other book in the queue before I can start Orlando.

[Alexa]

I read this a few months ago. It was one of those books where the minute I finished it I just had to go back and read it all over again. There's really a ton of stuff going on here under the surface. What really surprised me is what a broad and occasionally quite silly comedy it is!

[Sam]

Alexa wrote: "I read this a few months ago. It was one of those books where the minute I finished it I just had to go back and read it all over again. There's really a ton of stuff going on here under the surfac..."

Thank you for saying this! Since Mrs.Dalloway really wasn't for me, I always had the fear that each of Woolf's texts would be similar. Now I'm definitely pumped to read this :)

[Amanda]

I listened to the audio of this early last year and really enjoyed it. I love love love Virginia Woolf and while this wasn't my favorite of hers it is a very fun book and very different from others that I've read.

[Alexa]

I thought it was clever the way she brings up the question of gender in the very first sentence!

[Alexa]

In places I thought the satire was just too broad in this, but then whenever she talks about gender I loved it!

[Sam]

I loved this bit on poetry and reality:

So then he tried saying the grass is green and the sky is blue and so to propitiate the austere spirit of poetry whom still, though at a great distance, he could not help reverencing.
"The sky is blue," he said, "the grass is green."
Looking up, he saw that, on the contrary, the sky is like the veils which a thousand Madonnas have let fall from their hair; and the grass fleets and darkens like a flight of girls fleeing the embraces of hairy satyrs from enchanted woods. "Upon my word," he said (for he had fallen into the bad habit of speaking aloud), "I don't see that one's more true than another. Both are utterly false." And he despaired of being able to solve the problem of what poetry is and what truth is and fell into a deep dejection.

Only now do I realize this seems to be a popular quote from Orlando...
It seems Orlando never quite manages to express the the poetry that is inside him/her.
I'm halfway through now, and I have to say the book confuses me as much as it amuses me. I like it and feel reassured to continue exploring Woolf's writings.