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

[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!