Welcome to Litsy!

#AboutABook #ClassicYouRead @Eggs @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

I was so excited to finally get a chance to read this past classic this winter!

"But if rapiers are forbidden, one must have recourse to toads. Moreover toads and laughter between them sometimes do what cold steel cannot."

(Orlando wishes she could challenge an unwanted suitor to a duel, but gets rid of him by dropping a small toad down his collar and laughing at him.)

'"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."

(Orlando tries, and fails, to purge himself of metaphor ?)

'But worse was to come. For 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.'

“Better was it to go unknown and leave behind you an arch, a potting shed, a wall where peaches ripen, than to burn like a meteor and leave no dust.”
- Virginia Woolf, Orlando

#1001books #quote

This book took me a long time to read but only because I set it aside a few times when life was busy. I‘m not generally a fan of Woolf‘s style, but I liked this the best of her books I‘ve read so far. It‘s an intriguing take on life, gender, and time. I found it fascinating how Orlando seemed perfectly able to fit into every period of time, and no one questioned these random people living hundreds of years.

#1001books #SerialReader

🙄

teg: (noun) a sheep in its second year

I know a decent number of livestock terms, but this was a new one for me.

#WeirdWords #WeirdWordWednesday

I‘ve always been a fan of Woolf‘s writing style so it‘s not a surprise that I loved this. She manages to fit all the hallmarks of an epic story into this 235 page novel, and she explores some of the questions about identity and self that I‘m most interested in. #doublespin @TheAromaofBooks

#midwintersolace

Settling into my blanket nest for tonight‘s #hyggehour with my #doublespin book. I left off in the middle of the Frost Fair and I can‘t wait to get back to that magic scene!

#BookBinge Day 31: We share #BookishQuote(s) every Tuesday over at GatheringBooks. Here is yesterday‘s quote and also seen here: https://wp.me/pDlzr-pyq

Bookfest Day 1: found a few good books, have previously read Crimson and the Dubliners section of James Joyce

Cover of the first Japanese translation of Virginia Woolf‘s Orlando (1931, trans. Oda Masanobu).

“La vida es sueño. El despertar nos mata. Quien me roba los sueños,me roba la vida…”

“Las ilusiones son al alma lo que la atmósfera es a la tierra”

Zooming through Orlando. 🥰

Finally been able to enjoy a great book and listen to the waves

First trip to any kind of theatre in two years. The precautions made me feel safe and I really couldn‘t pass up this interpretation of a favorite. I enjoyed it so much!

I‘ve read better classics. Started off good but got confusing towards the end and it was pretty uneventful after Orlando became a woman tbh. Also, I understand it was written during a time filled with different social standings, but all evident gender roles and assumptions of what makes a man and what makes a woman was difficult for me to absorb, even though the discussion of such in the book makes it important.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

#orlando #virginiawoolf

My February #BookSpin list! @TheAromaofBooks

I'm joining @xicanti in taking February off from reading American authors, so the list looks a little different this time.

Knock, knock.
Who‘s there?
Orlando.
Orlando who?
Knock, knock.
Who‘s there?
Orlando.
Orlando who?
Knock, knock.
Who‘s there?
Orange.
Orange who?
ORANGE YOU GLAD I DIDN‘T SAY ORLANDO!

#12ColoursofDecember #wintergames2020 #merryreaders, @Clwojick
+10 +1 points

#QuotsyNov20 Day 20: #Dilemma

And again I'm visiting town #unpopularopinion

I'm aware that this book is an important add to the LGBT community and that Woolf wrote an important book.

But it just wasn't mine. Precisely, I couldn't read her language. Or the language of the translation. This just wasn't my way of getting into a story. Not at all.

I got through with it, because it's my #DoubleSpin for the #BookSpinBingo

@TheAromaofBooks

Vita Sackville-West posing as Orlando. I am captivated by the photographs and illustrations in this book! What a gem for Virginia Woolf to leave us.

This book is a pick for me. It helped motivate me to learn more about Woolf and this time of her life. This story is a reflection on identity, balancing the masculine and the feminine, sexuality, and the politics of expression. It is emotive and insightful; beautiful, important like all her work.

I love this passage because I see so much of myself in Orlando, the woman. I am feminine in that I am sensitive and emotional (though I think many of us would have trouble seeing a "donkey beaten or kitten drowned"), yet I also detest housework, love riding horses, and take pride in my knowledge of plants and ecology, having grown up on a longleaf pine farm and now live on my husband's family's longleaf pine farm. Please, no math, though!

(Cont.)

"No passion is stronger in the breast of man than the desire to make others believe as he believes. Nothing so cuts at the root of his happiness and fills him with rage as the sense that another rates low what he prizes high."

❤️❤️"It is not love of truth, but desire to prevail that sets quarter against quarter and makes parish desire the downfall of parish. Each seeks peace of mind...rather than the triumph of truth and...virtue."

Perhaps Woolf comes to us when we most need her. I was so inspired by my recent read of 'To the Lighthouse,' I have checked out this little yellow book from the library. I was aware of my oppression as a woman before, yet Virginia's narratives bring new, emotional light to these ancient issues. I hope I'll find another Lily Briscoe in 'Orlando.' Also, my husband recorded the movie on the DVR for when I finish the book. Very exciting.

Orlando is pretty good. Not my favorite Woolf novel, but I enjoyed it.

I don't reread often, but here are #3books that I have read more than once.

@OriginalCyn620, @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

I can't believe this book was published in 1928 almost 100 years ago! It‘s a fascinating classic, particularly in its views on gender & the roles assigned to women and men in our society. It feels very modern though I didn‘t care deeply about Orlando.

“As long as she thinks of a man, nobody objects to a woman thinking.”

“By the truth we are undone. Life is a dream. 'Tis the waking that kills us. He who robs us of our dreams robs us of our life.”

I was sorely tempted.

This is the first Virginia Woolf I've read, and although I gave it a pick, I can't say that I loved it as much as others.

The writing is certainly beautiful, but at times I got a bit bored with the overall momentum of the story.

I will certainly be reading more by this author though because her execution of the written word is something of a masterpiece.

#BookSpinBingo @TheAromaofBooks

Writing my review for Orlando - sooo many tags! 😂💕

Rating: 3 ⭐⭐⭐
Review:
It's so hard how to review this since so !uch bothered me while reading this book.

The old time language speaking was bothersome to me. I'll read more books by Virginia Woolf but this one just wasn't for me!!

Starting Book 14 of July and Book 109 of 2020!!

Matching book and outfit 😜

Swimming in lyrical prose! 🤓

A very different book. But all in all I loved it...don't mind pictures they can be deceiving

I don‘t think that I have ever said this on Litsy before:
I GOT BOOK MAIL!😆 Many thanks to @EclecticReaders for this lovely gift. The #11thHourReadathon was a wonderful way to end my reading pleasure for 2019 and then to be gifted a book of choice on top of that..I‘m ecstatic and grateful!💕

I know I read this as an undergrad but don't remember much beyond watching the Tilda Swinton adaptation in class. I expect I found it all strange. But now, in another age, I marvel at Woolf's wit, invention, and prescience. As Orlando moves through historical periods, transforming from man to woman, Woolf explores the shifting gender constructs in ways that still feel radical while also being fun and whimsical. And, as usual, her prose dazzles.

This is a difficult book to review. It reminds me of being in college. It's full of layers & asides & just a million details, big & small, that made me think. Orlando's early days as a young man are set up as a clear contrast to her later days as a grown woman; at the same time they flow together naturally. It was a slow beginning, but when I found my flow, I found it. I didn't always enjoy it, but it's worth pondering & discussing more.

#weeklyforecast brought to you by my 1960s angel that I love. 😀
Finish: 📗 Orlando 📗 She Loves You 🎧Your House Will Pay
Start: 📗The Expendable Man 📗Between the Acts 🎧 A #TOB longlister (or maybe two 🤞)
@Cinfhen

You know, I don't even mind the movie tie-in cover. But did they have to put the sticker on her face?! 🙄
(What I get for buying cheap books online.)

#men #quotaynov19 @TK-421

In this month‘s episode, Susan, Tara, and Meredith talk all about the Non Fiction genre in celebration of #NonFictionNovember, announce the next #11thHourReadathon, and discuss the gender-bending Classic Orlando. Listen at eclecticreaders.fireside.fm/71 or on podcast apps under Eclectic Readers! #EclecticReaders #Podcast #NFNov

I had so much fun discussing the Non Fiction genre for #NonFictionNovember and the gender bending novel Orlando in this episode! Listen at eclecticreaders.fireside.fm/71 or podcast apps under Eclectic Readers #EclecticReaders

“Near London Bridge, a wrecked wherry boat was plainly visible, lying on the bed of the river where it had sunk last autumn. The old bumboat woman, who was carrying her fruit to market on the Surrey side, sat there in her plaids and farthingales with her lap full of apples, for all the world as if she were about to serve a customer, though a certain blueness about the lips hinted the truth."