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kkennedy2000 's review for:
Orlando
by Virginia Woolf
Most ambitious book I’ve ever read alongside Absalom, Cloud Atlas, The Bee Sting, and Ulysses. Reminds me in particular of Absalom and Ulysses in the context of you’re watching this master of craft who’s already perfected their form (Mrs Dalloway for Woolf — Portrait for Joyce — Sound and the Fury for Faulkner) and has to find a way to push themselves to new heights….the earlier novels being, in a sense, the superior ones insofar as how tightly they’re constructed, yet there’s no denying the Orlandos of the world: it takes you to heights you’ve never gone before, places you didn’t know you could go through words alone, new depths to delve. Not to mention the stylistic experiments alone, like the mimetic “great blank” space with Orlando and Shelmerdine.
“Illusions are to the soul what atmosphere is to the earth.”
“As it is notorious that illusions are shattered by conflict with reality, so no real happiness, no real wit, no real profundity are tolerated where the illusion prevails.”
“And so bewildered as usual by the multitude of things which call for explanation and imprint their message without leaving any hint as to their meaning upon the mind, she threw her chevout out the window and went to bed.”
“What more terrifying revelation can there be than that it is the present moment? That we survive the shock at all is only possible because the past shelters us on one side, the future on another.”
“Nature and letters seem to have a natural antipathy; bring them together and they tear each other to pieces.”
“Was not writing poetry a secret transaction, a voice answering a voice?”
“Ransack the language as he might, words failed him.”
“they would marvel that the ice did not melt with their heat”
“in whatever form it comes, and may there be more forms, and stranger”
“For, Heaven knows why, just as we have lost faith in human intercourse some random collocation of barns and trees or a haystack and a waggon presents us with so perfect a symbol of what is unattainable that we begin the search again.”
“They knew each other so well that they could say anything they liked, which is tantamount to saying nothing…our modern spirit can almost dispense with language; the commonest expressions do, since no expressions do; hence the most ordinary conversation is often the most poetic, and the most poetic is precisely that which cannot be written down. For which reason, we leave a great blank here, which must be taken to indicate that the space is filled to repletion.”
Edit: the fact that Virginia Woolf also experiences extreme road rage was one of the most immensely affirming moments of my life
Edit Edit: inspired to re-rate Absalom to a 5 by this. Really gestates after a year and a half. I expect Orlando will only continue to do the same — a fine vintage and all that snooty snotty wine type of talk
“Illusions are to the soul what atmosphere is to the earth.”
“As it is notorious that illusions are shattered by conflict with reality, so no real happiness, no real wit, no real profundity are tolerated where the illusion prevails.”
“And so bewildered as usual by the multitude of things which call for explanation and imprint their message without leaving any hint as to their meaning upon the mind, she threw her chevout out the window and went to bed.”
“What more terrifying revelation can there be than that it is the present moment? That we survive the shock at all is only possible because the past shelters us on one side, the future on another.”
“Nature and letters seem to have a natural antipathy; bring them together and they tear each other to pieces.”
“Was not writing poetry a secret transaction, a voice answering a voice?”
“Ransack the language as he might, words failed him.”
“they would marvel that the ice did not melt with their heat”
“in whatever form it comes, and may there be more forms, and stranger”
“For, Heaven knows why, just as we have lost faith in human intercourse some random collocation of barns and trees or a haystack and a waggon presents us with so perfect a symbol of what is unattainable that we begin the search again.”
“They knew each other so well that they could say anything they liked, which is tantamount to saying nothing…our modern spirit can almost dispense with language; the commonest expressions do, since no expressions do; hence the most ordinary conversation is often the most poetic, and the most poetic is precisely that which cannot be written down. For which reason, we leave a great blank here, which must be taken to indicate that the space is filled to repletion.”
Edit: the fact that Virginia Woolf also experiences extreme road rage was one of the most immensely affirming moments of my life
Edit Edit: inspired to re-rate Absalom to a 5 by this. Really gestates after a year and a half. I expect Orlando will only continue to do the same — a fine vintage and all that snooty snotty wine type of talk