Orlando

I've wanted to try reading Virginia Woolf again for a while, and I bought my copy of Orlando from "Monk's House", the former home of Virginia Woolf (now owned by the National Trust) several years ago. It's a lovely house, small but with character, but what a gorgeous garden. Once when we went there, we spent ages playing lawn bowls and it was just such a relaxing afternoon. They also have her little summer house there which she used to write in, and where she left in order to commit suicide. Seemed a little morbid to have that association with such a peaceful and beautiful setting.

Anyway, back to Orlando. This took me a little while to read but I think that was just exhaustion making it difficult to concentrate. Orlando is written as a biography, but is obviously a fiction. The author is all knowing and all seeing, so right from the off you question the reliability of the narrator, especially as one of the first stories involves kissing the hand of Queen Elizabeth I, and yet the book is written in the early 1900s. It follows the life of Orlando and he (then she) lives throughout several centuries of change. It was a controversial book in its time, but somehow slipped through the net of censorship. It explores sexuality, love, being female in a man's world (I was typing feminism and then changed my mind) and body image. The book is dotted with images of Zita Sackville-West playing the role of Orlando. At the time I didn't really get what all the fuss was about, I preferred Mrs Dalloway as a novel and I struggled with that one too. With a little bit of distance more and more of the scenes from the novel have been playing in my mind, so I guess it had more of an effect on me than I had thought.