Orlando

[tjs_whatnot]

So, I've been reading Virginia Woolf's book, Orlando. Wow! I wasn't expecting that! Here I was thinking I was reading what might be an actual biography of some English nobleman I'd never heard of (that's how good Ms. Woolf is in sucking you into her reality) then about 100 pages into it, he goes to bed a man and wakes up, a woman...HUH? Not only a woman, but a lesbian! Whoa, I can't wait to see how this ends. No wonder the Indigo Girls have a song about her. It's all starting to make sense.

My favorite part of the book though, is her take on writing. Because not only is Orlando a transmorphedsexual; he/she is also, of course, a writer, poet actually. But of course, not a real poet, because, well, because he's rich, and you can't be rich and a writer...duh?

So here's my new favorite quote, "...once the disease of reading has laid hold upon the system it weakens it so that it falls an easy prey to that other scourge which dwells in the inkpot and festers in the quill. The wretch takes to writing."

Anyone else read it?

Comments

[zafania.livejournal.com]

I keep meaning to read that book, ever since i saw the film with tilda swinton, which must have been at least a decade ago. it sounds as though the film and book are very close, sort of like a modern retelling of tiresias. i think i got the right name - the blind prophet who spent part of his life as a woman and said that woman took ten times as much pleasure from sex as men do?

[tjs-whatnot.livejournal.com]

You know, everytime I think I'm well read, people will drop names of books that are like other books that I've never even heard of. My classics knowledge is weak, and that hurts. Oh well, I ain't dead yet...

[zafania.livejournal.com]

to be fair i'm a classics gradaute - so the classical allusions tend to come easily to me - dont feel bad about it. socrates was a very wise man because he knew that the more you know the less you know. most of the people you meet who clain to knwo everything are captain bulshitss littel apprentices anyway!

[tjs-whatnot.livejournal.com]

I know. I know many people who know a little bit about everything and can keep their end of any conversation at any party. But I always liked to kind of submerge myself into the things I like, which is mostly literature. But I'm all over the place in my literary interests...and some times as a writer, I feel I should know more. Nothing is more emberrassing as when other people read your stuff and say things about allusions to stories that you've never heard of. It's not like I expect that no one has even began to think of anything that I think to write, it's just that I feel like I'm stealing from people I've never even heard of...which I guess is better than knowingly ripping off things intentionally...oh, who knows...more importantly, who cares?

[zafania.livejournal.com]

which just goes to prove thattheres no such thing as a new idea really. I had the same thing with a fanfic i wrote - some one said it reminded them of the da vinci code, then when i saw the film (sorry, never read the book, everyone i know thats read it said it was a bit crap to be honest and its not my kind of book, but i like to go to the pictures) I thought "huh?" peopel makes some odd leaps that would not necessarily fit in with your train of thought

my trian of thought has derailed at the momnet, got to the end of a chapter this afternoon and i know what needs to happen next but not whose pov it should come from - i hate when that happens

[tjs-whatnot.livejournal.com]

Your friends were right. DaVinci is crap, but easy read crap...so no loss. As to your POV problem...why don't you write more than one version from different POV's and it should become apparent which one really needs to be telling the story. It's worked for me in the past...although usually my characters are pretty bossy and let me know pretty fast who should be talking...

[zafania.livejournal.com]

I'm beginning to think that the scene itself is far too complex to be told from one pov and may ahve to be split into 2 chapters from 2 points of view anyway, the only thing to do is to get on with it, but unfortunately i'm a world class procrastinator!

[tjs-whatnot.livejournal.com]

Let me get this straight, you are a writer and a procrastinator? I've never heard of such a thing. Seriously, I think it's part of the job description, almost like a sterotype at this point, along with sucking at math and having a drinking problem...

[zafania.livejournal.com]

I never was good with stereotypes though. I was the kid at school who got in trouble with the maths teachers for getting the answers right, they would ask where the workings out were and i would say that i ddin't neeed to work it out - look this is the right answer, innit? I can do addition and multipilcation in my head faster than most people can use a calcualtor - can't do algebra though, can't pin down the pattern to it, they're not as easy to see as the patterns in normal numbers.

as for drinking, i rarely have more than a glass or two, when sober, i am the one at the party who is in the middle of chaos and having fun (most people think i'm drunk) but get a feww drinks inside me and i become a sober and responsible pillar of the community (ie - boring )

I've always put my procrastinating habits down to my first school, until i was 16 i was left alone at school, never did homework or revision, passed every test top of the class without trying because the school was a fialing ione and the standards were so low. i got really good o levels by the standards of that school, but for a level i went to a private girls school and got a bit of a culture shoch because everyone had better exam results than me. for the first time in my life i felt a bit thivk and it took me weeks to realise i was actaully a lot smarter than most of the other girls, but they had worked at thier exams and i hadn't, so i learned to revcise and do homework, but not wihtout putting it off as long as possbile!

[tjs-whatnot.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think stereotyping was the wrong word. There are just some similarities that I've found throughout my life when dealing with writers. I really kind of liked when I noticed these things, it meant that I wasn't as weird as I thought I was. Or that I was as weird as I've always been told, but I was in good company with other like minded crazy people. Procrastination is a big one; we all got it from different experiences in our lives, but somehow we all achieved it and have learned to master it.

The drinking is something I had just assumed that most artists did, but I'm finding that maybe it's not necessarily everyones vice. I personally love to drink, but that's just me.

Now this math thing. That one, you sorta freaked me out. Because that was something that I thought I was the only one that went against the mold of artistic sensabilities. I have numbers in my head constantly, I'm doing percentages and figuring out different ways to find the same solution all the time with all sorts of random numbers. But when it comes to actual math in actual class, I always got in trouble because I used "Common Sense" to get the answer instead of a formula, and I couldn't explain how I had gotten the answer, it just made sense in my head.

So, it's not really stereotype I was talking about, just common idiosyncrasies that tell us we're unique, just like everyone else...

[zafania.livejournal.com]

chocolate is my chosen vice, very expensive chocolate.

i find number and mental artihmatic very soothing, when i get horribly stressed (a situation i try to avoid at all costs) i calm down by taking big columns of numbers and adding them together - even if i have to get from mail order catalogues and add up all the itmes in the damn thing to see how much they cost!

[tjs-whatnot.livejournal.com]

Yes, I find numbers soothing as well. They are the only way I survive Road Rage every morning. I take the numbers in the license plate and try to figure out the square root, or who many times it could be divided before I get a prime number...very distracting.

As for chocolate...I know many who share your addiction of choice. Me? I like my chocolate the best in my alcohol...Chocolate Martini? Yum!!

[zafania.livejournal.com]

i've never had a chocolate martini, but thers a chocolaote liquer called mozart that i'm very fond of.

I avoid the traffic by making my way down back roads, but i find the signs that warn you to slow down by telling you how many deaths and casualties there have ben on that stertch of raod during the last twelve months very distracting because i isntantyl start working out how many that is per week/ month/day!

[apythia.livejournal.com]

Ah, but is it a stereotype if it is true? Let's look at our group: procrastination - check. Math - ha! Drinking - we meet at a bar for goodness sake. Hmmm... maybe we're the reason for the stereotype....

[apythia.livejournal.com]

Yays! She got her icon to work!

No I haven't read that one but I did read a lot of her work in college. Got it in both my lit classes and women's studies. Her work is surprising because you don't expect that sort of thing to happen. I will definitely have to check that one out!

[tjs-whatnot.livejournal.com]

You're awake!! I'm hooked now. I figured out how to steal other people's icons. I'm thinking of paying the extra money, just so I can have more icons!! Then I figured, you dolt! Just change them up from time to time!!

[apythia.livejournal.com]

Isn't it addictive? I am such an icon whore! I am so paying to have extra icons and then for $10 more a year you can have 100!

I'm playing catch up with my flist.