The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann (translated by John E Woods)

I was encouraged to finally read this great big German classic after stopping in Davos during a holiday. We tried to visit the hotel and former sanatorium which apparently inspired Mann's novel. However, we nearly died as Google maps mistakenly directed us to drive on what turned to be a mountain footpath which became increasingly narrow as it perilously curved around the cliffside and over a fragile wooden bridge. Since we barely survived and never made it to the location of the Waldsanatorium where Mann's wife once stayed while recovering from a respiratory disease, I've decided it's best to only fictionally visit this location through Mann's sprawling tale. The story centres around Hans Castorp a young man who is about to embark on an engineering career. However, he first visits his cousin Joachim who is attempting to cure his tuberculosis by staying at this sanatorium high up in the Swiss Alps. Hans only plans to stay there a few short weeks but his stay is continuously extended and lasts for several years. During this time he becomes entrenched in the routines and insular nature of this specialised hospital while engaging in many discussions with its European residents. This all takes place in the decade leading up to WWI and the looming spectre of this upcoming conflict casts a shadow over the entire narrative.

I found this novel both challenging and fascinating as it includes humorous encounters, beautiful descriptions, an artful structure and deep philosophical diatribes about life, illness, sexuality, society, time and war. It's a kind of stalled coming of age tale as Hans Castorp is about to launch into his adulthood when he's diverted to this location. He does grow as he falls in love with the elusive Madame Chauchat, learns about a range of subjects such as science and music and considers intellectual ideas from men who seek to mentor him. However, after consulting the sanatorium's doctors he also becomes overly preoccupied with his health, obsessively takes his temperature and becomes ensconced in the sedentary life in this place far removed from everyday reality. Though he has a somewhat priggish and conservative nature, I felt endeared and protective of Hans as he was orphaned during his adolescence and he's an impressionable youth who falls under the sway of this persuasive society in miniature. Yet there's something ominous about its lure where the theoretical is valued over the practical and all tangible progress is halted. Patients who die are furtively taken away while the remaining residents engage in a ceaseless cycle of rest cures and lavish meals. Only occasionally does an objective point of view outside the sanatorium's boundaries shine through. One example is when Hans' uncle visits to enquire when Hans will complete what he perceives to be a holiday in this place and the uncle nearly gets sucked into the same extended stay which Hans is trapped within.

Amongst the sanatorium's residents, Hans primarily falls under the tutelage of the humanist Lodovico Settembrini and the Jewish Jesuit Leo Naphta. The narrative relates their extended speeches about a wide range of subjects including social ideals, totalitarianism, the nature of war, morality, romance/sexuality and the triumph of mind/reason over the body. These essayistic passages certainly tried my patience as they often felt removed from the flow of the story. They also often represent outmoded concepts which can be easily dismissed such as attitudes towards women. At one point it's questioned why women would present themselves in a desirable way when they can no longer bear children and in another section it's stated “A woman primarily regards herself as an object.” There's little about these sections which feels edifying, but instead they give an insight into prevailing European attitudes of the time. Seeing these theories being bandied about gives insight into the many pressures which led up to the widespread conflict of WWI. Within the story it also leads to a shocking physical altercation between Settembrini and Naphta. Though Hans tries to reason that the gentlemen's disagreement is merely intellectual abstraction rather than a personal attack, the older men resort to their base natures where points of contention can only be settled through violence. I think that's what gives the inclusion of these speeches a continuing relevance as they represent how spirited conceptual positions can bleed into reality and lead to civilisation's conflagration rather than its advancement.

Outside of these lengthy speeches I enjoyed many scenes and characters such as Hans' first x-ray by the doctors where an examination of the inner workings of the body raises questions about the relationship between emotions and the physical being. Hans also carries with him an x-ray of Madame Chauchat's chest in a way which he intends to be romantic but it's actually creepy. At one point Chauchat leaves the sanatorium for a time but returns with Mynheer Peeperkorn, a new lover who is one of the novel's most lively and entertaining characters. Peeperkorn entices many of the residents to engage in extended bouts of drinking and gambling. His presence also creates a curious love triangle with Hans and Chauchat. I also heartily enjoyed the imposing character of a nurse who sells Hans a thermometer and dismisses any pursuits outside the realm of convalesce as mere twiddle twaddle. A mysterious Danish teenager named Elly Brand is introduced late in the novel who possesses mystical abilities and conducts a number of seances with the residents. This leads to a curious supernatural interlude during which someone who has died reappears and foreshadows the death of soldiers in the upcoming war. It's an eerie and utterly compelling chapter.

My favourite section of the book is merely titled 'Snow'. Here Hans goes skiing by himself in what turns out to be a disorientating snow storm. It's contemplative and sublimely beautiful how the author describes Hans' solitary journey. He adopts a position of individual defiance amidst the elements of nature and the social trappings of the sanatorium. On the snowy mountainside he experiences “one solitude opening onto the next” but also becomes completely lost and lapses into an unconscious state filled with terrifying nightmares. It shows how Hans experiences a respite out of space and time lost in the flurry of a blank canvas, but the course of humanity and inevitable progression towards death still resides within him. This is a portion of the novel I know I'll want to return to and re-read on its own because its so exquisite, thoughtful and hypnotically surreal.

I was thoroughly engaged by the way Mann considers the nature of time within passages of dialogue and in the book's very structure. Since the sanatorium is physically removed from larger civilisation time seems to function in a different way here. Its high elevation also means that the seasons of the year aren't experienced in a typical way as the weather changes rapidly and doesn't adhere to the temperatures of Winter or Summer. Months and years can pass by in what feels like a relatively short amount of time. The narrative considers the way in which time is subjective in this way because routines make it pass quickly. It's clever how the first year of Hans' stay is described in lengthy detail because this simulates how his new experiences in this place makes time initially pass more slowly for him. However, as he becomes caught up in the habits of daily life years skip by at a more rapid pace. An authorial voice occasionally interjects as well so one section presents a fascinating consideration of the representation of time in novels.

The ending of the novel is extremely poignant. Though Hans naturally comes to feel abstracted from larger society and the progression of time, he is still trapped within it as the reality of war imposes itself throughout Europe. I finished the book feeling melancholy about leaving this boy who didn't get to live life to its fullest even though he got to enjoy a rarified existence outside of the normal obligations of work and integrating into larger society. It left me wondering about what equates to a fulfilling life: one which is spent in contemplative abstraction amidst monotonous stability or one which is experienced through the challenges of a constantly shifting social landscape. Though this book utilizes the formalistic elements of realism, I was delightfully surprised at how strangely surreal and fantastical it becomes in certain sections. It's one I'll continue to contemplate and feels like a literary hurdle that I'm glad to have experienced.

Prater Violet by Christopher Isherwood

Staying informed about atrocities occurring in other parts of the world inevitably challenges an individual to weigh up their own sense of moral responsibility. What action should be taken when you're conscious there's injustice elsewhere in the world? Voting for a party with the correct policies? Protest? Charitable fundraising? Volunteering? Or is keeping up to date on the news enough? This is a perennial issue and it's something Isherwood was clearly considering when he published this slim novel in the same year WWII ended. The story is set in the mid-1930s at a time when Nazis began attacking Austria. It's not directly political, but instead approaches a larger question about what degree of autonomy is involved when an individual isn't immediately involved in a conflict.

The protagonist is Christopher Isherwood himself, but this is a fictional account of a writer who becomes involved in the film industry when he's hired (amidst much faux-protestation) to write the script for a sentimental musical named Prater Violet set in Vienna. While on this job he develops a strong working relationship with Friedrich Bergmann, an accomplished Austrian director. Both have high artistic ideals and see this film as beneath them, but they agree to work for a studio because it pays well and there's an allure to Hollywood glamour. The story begins with a lot of humorous repartee as this egotistical pair lower themselves to the daily grind and complicated mechanics of the film world. Long days are spent on a project which feels increasingly frivolous given what's occurring in Bergmann's native country.

When political events reach a crisis point so does the director's involvement in the film and Isherwood questions his own sense of responsibility. There's an especially striking passage in which he considers: “Perhaps I had travelled too much, left my heart in too many places. I knew what I was supposed to feel, what it was fashionable for my generation to feel. We cared about everything: fascism in Germany and Italy, the seizure of Manchuria, Indian nationalism, the Irish question, the workers, the Negroes, the Jews. We had spread our feelings over the whole world; and I knew that mine were spread very thin. I cared – oh, yes, I certainly cared – about the Austrian socialists. But did I care as much as I said I did, tried to imagine I did? No, not nearly as much... What is the use of caring at all, if you aren't prepared to dedicate your life, to die? Well, perhaps it was some use. Very, very little.” Surely everyone feels this sense of inner strife at some point. I've certainly experienced it in recent months reading the news about atrocities occurring amidst the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

There are no easy answers and even admitting to such hand wringing feels uncomfortable as if the question of personal responsibility were larger than the very real horrors people elsewhere are experiencing. In a way I admire Isherwood for representing this subjective perspective so faithfully because if he attempted to directly portray the conflict it might have felt gratuitous or like virtual signalling. The mission of this novel is very different from a contemporary book like “Bolla” even if the subject matter overlaps. Isherwood's point of view is not from the inside; it's on the periphery but this doesn't make it less valid. Nor does admitting to feelings of helplessness or even indifference when faced with the solemn truth about wars which an individual isn't directly involved in. In “On Photography”, Susan Sontag wrote “For boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.” Isherwood is fascinated by what's occurring in the world and he cares about it, but his anxiety and awareness does nothing to alleviate the suffering of others.

I certainly found this novel engaging and I appreciated its point of view, but the story also feels too slight. The effort involved in completing the film is handled very swiftly. Also, Isherwood is very evasive about his personal relationships. During work on the film he's reunited with an old schoolmate named Sandy Ashmeade who is working as a story editor. It's insinuated their relationship has an interesting history but this is never explored. Nor are the string of romantic relationships Isherwood lists at the end of the novel except how he concealed them from Bergmann. The reader is also left in the dark about these and Isherwood's future. It's interesting that this book marked Isherwood's return to writing fiction after not publishing anything for several years during which he collaborated on a translation of the Bhagavad Gita. Perhaps his involvement in religion and his identity as a homosexual were subjects more complicated than his intended parameters for the novel “Prater Violet” but it leaves the story feeling oddly truncated. Nevertheless, the central point of the book is vividly conveyed and it's worthwhile reading this curious slice of fiction.

The Waves by Virginia Woolf

It feels negligent that I've never made a dedicated post about my favourite novel of all time on this blog. However, I recently reread it in its entirety with my online book group so it feels like the right moment to write about it. “The Waves” has been a companion of mine for over twenty years which I return to frequently in order to reread a section or listen to on audio book while walking or riding a bus through London. It's the perfect novel to occasionally revisit since it follows the trajectory of six main characters' lives. As I grow older I relate differently to their perspectives and Virginia Woolf's profound musings. When I first happened upon this book I found it challenging to get into. The poetic nature of the prose initially makes the characters' different voices sound the same and there's little evident plot. But I was entranced by the style of Woolf's tale and I've grown to appreciate what she's really saying through this artfully crafted book.

As the story revolves between the six characters' perspectives the narrative claims they are speaking, but this isn't dialogue or even necessarily what these individuals are thinking. They could be called soliloquies but I think of their passages more as subconscious speech describing how their experience of the world is filtered through their different points of view. Each section leaps forward in time following these characters from youth till old age and every part begins with a description of the sun moving across the sky over a day. As the light changes so does the appearance and seeming solidity of the world it illuminates. The style of this story reflects how we are unified by common life cycles, but our individual personalities differently colour our experience of it. There are plot developments to do with relationships, professional achievements, death and suicide. But the overarching meaning of “The Waves” is more about the tension between our inner life and the outward experience of it. Also, it highlights our various connections and disconnections with each other.

This is why I think this is a novel which can be endlessly revisited because my perspective on the characters and story has drastically changed as I've continued to age and experience more. Sometimes I'll feel more of an affinity with some figures more than others or the characters reflections at a certain point in my life will resonate more or less strongly. Woolf's prose are also packed with so much symbolism and can be interpreted many different ways. Certain lines still perplex me, but I enjoy trying to decipher their possible meaning. Sometimes I'll read a passage in this book and the profundity of it will hit me with such power that I laugh out loud or start crying. “The Waves” continues to impact me, teach me and give me joy making it an invaluable touchstone.

The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch

It often takes me a bit to get into a Murdoch novel because usually there are several central characters with complex relationships to each other. But once I get to know them all and into the drama of the story I'm totally gripped. The primary conflict in this tale is between Bradley Pearson, an aspiring writer who has published very little, and his frenemy Arnold Baffin, a bestselling prolific author whose work Bradley looks down upon. Bradley is determined to write his masterwork but finds himself distracted by a group of people's messy issues and he unexpectedly falls in love with a much younger woman. Murdoch shows how ambition, jealousy and desire play out in a highly dramatic scenario with tragic consequences. Though Bradley has lofty ambitions to write a literary masterpiece it's ironic and hilarious that this narrative mostly told from his point of view (with significant forwards and afterwards from other characters' perspectives) focuses on the kind of salacious story he sneers at. However, it's a novel that perfectly demonstrates Murdoch's tremendous ability for writing in a way which is highly entertaining as well as artful.

I enjoyed the way this cleverly structured novel explores the debate and assumed division between “highbrow” literature and popular “readable” books. Arguments in the story concerning quality versus quantity in literary output and criticism made about new literature feel like they must have been close to Murdoch's heart. In her usual temperate manner, she approaches these issues with both great seriousness and a sly smile. The characters often represent sharply divided points of view or embody certain ideas. However, they also come alive as individuals and feel realistic in much of their evocative dialogue. Murdoch was such a master at writing compelling and fun books which also explored profound ideas and made frequent literary references. Shakespeare is an important touchstone in her work and this novel specifically plays upon 'Hamlet' in character parallels and overt discussions about the play's meaning and how it relates to Shakespeare's life as an artist.

It was initially challenging for me to get into this novel because Bradley is in many ways such a loathsome character. He's pretentious, cruel to his friends, dismissive towards his suicidal sister and seduces a woman less than half his age. Given that his voice dominates the narrative I didn't know if I could stomach his story. I often enjoy reading about unlikeable characters but his arrogant and self-centred manner is particularly irksome to me. However, he became a character I loved to hate as Murdoch subtly undermines him through the structure of her plot showing how his world implodes and he's served a delicious form of punishment. At the same time he's presented as thoroughly human and allotted a good measure of integrity. There's a lot more that happens in this story and a large cast of compelling characters from Bradley's wealthy ex-wife Christian to her cash-strapped gay brother Francis who makes the outrageous claim that Shakespeare was “The greatest homosexual of them all.” These figures all play off from one another in an enticing way.

It was especially pleasing that the BT Tower (formerly called the Post Office Tower) plays a role in this novel. It's such a distinct London landmark and there's a fun scene where two characters have dinner at the revolving restaurant at the top (which no longer operates.) Details such as this and the sensibility of the characters bring to life the sensation of 1970s England. It's interesting to contemplate what things have changed and what's stayed the same while also pondering all the universal issues that the author dramatises. I've still only read several books from Murdoch's impressive oeuvre of twenty-six novels. Reading “A Fairly Honourable Defeat” over the summer was such a pleasure, but I think “The Bell” is one of my favourites so far. I look forward to continuing my journey of reading through her complete works.

A Fairly Honourable Defeat by Iris Murdoch

The more I read of Iris Murdoch the more impressed I am by her keen attention to the complexities of friendships and love affairs. In fact, she dynamically shows that these two states can naturally blend into one another. The definition of this closeness comes to feel immaterial against the evolving feelings people have for each other as long as they lead with kindness and honesty. This was true in her novel “The Bell” and it's explored with even more tenacity in her 1970 novel “A Fairly Honourable Defeat” where several friends and family members uncertainly step over the line into romantic love. They are ushered into unfamiliar territory by a mischievous character named Julius King who acts as an agent of chaos meddling in the relationships of several people. These include happily married Rupert and Hilda with their wayward son Peter, Rupert's gay brother Simon and his longterm older lover Axel and Hilda's sister Morgan who is estranged from her husband Tallis. Inspired by A Midsummer Night's Dream, Julius tests their commitment to one another by sending false messages to suggest hidden desire. This provokes a betrayal of trust and jealousy which rattles the harmony of their relationships and inspires deep introspection. The result is a moving tale full of vibrant exchanges and an entertaining plot set in modern London.

Even if it strains credulity, the story functions like a contemporary piece of Shakespearean theatre where big philosophical concepts are tested in real working relationships. One of the central notions explored is that plain goodness is dull and evil actions make life exciting. Certainly Julius could be dismissed as a villain, but Morgan's glib handling of his feelings and other hidden aspects of his life make him into a much more complex character. Conversely a more conscientious figure such as Rupert has untapped desires and insecurities which rise to the surface when his core beliefs waver. An issue such as the characters' uneasy relationships to capitalism are demonstrated in Morgan's compulsive buying habits and Peter's shop lifting. Then there is the relentless bullying and hate spewed from Tallis' father Leonard. The personality and detail Murdoch imbues within each character made me believe and care about them while giving a compelling perspective on a range of weighty issues.

One of the most intriguing bonds which comes under strain is that between Simon and Axel. Murdoch always sympathetically included gay characters in her novels, but the nuance and care she showed towards this couple make them one of the most compelling examples of a long-term homosexual relationship I've ever read. Between younger Simon's promiscuous past and conservative Axel's uneasy sense of inhabiting his queerness, these tensions play out in their dialogue and manner towards each other in an entirely convincing way. What perhaps isn't as persuasive is when Simon's lust for a male Greek statue reaches such a feverish pitch he not only strokes the marble but licks it! It's an image so over the top I can only assume Murdoch meant it to be comic. There's also a frank discussion between Rupert and Hilda at the beginning of the novel which engages with many stereotypes surrounding homosexuals with Rupert's welcome assertions that essentially there's little difference between gay and straight relationships. There's complexity in Simon and Axel's bond which is influenced by either embracing or rejecting a gay identity, but their relationship is also troubled by things which would impact any other couple.

Overall, this is a satisfying and pleasurable read. The relative power imbalance between different couples and the question of how much honesty a relationship can take is teasingly played out in the story. Probably the most sympathetic character is Tallis who is coldly rejected by Morgan, taken advantage of by Peter and continuously scorned by his father Leonard. All the while he diligently tries to earn a living teaching and writing his own work. It makes for quite a contrast with the easy privilege and wealth of Rupert and Hilda. So it's especially interesting how he sounds through as the voice of reason and his interactions with Julius add an interesting layer to this tale. I think this is only the fifth novel I've read by Murdoch so I'm glad there are still many more of her novels for me to discover.

The Bell by Iris Murdoch

I’ve been very eager to read more by Iris Murdoch since this year marks the centenary of her birth. I’ve read a few of her novels in the past and probably “The Sea, The Sea” is my favourite. It’s a nice coincidence that I read “The Bell” after “The Blithedale Romance” because they both involve stories about the formation of intentional communities. While I was frustrated with the limited perspective Hawthorne gave of the organization and social challenges involved in creating and running such a community, “The Bell” showed more about this in its depiction of the workings of a lay religious community which exists directly alongside an enclosed nunnery. The interpersonal dramas of the community members provide an intriguing and sometimes ironic counterpoint to the hidden, unknown workings of the nuns who exist in a state of presumed harmony within their shielded religious devotion.

The story begins with the perspective of an outsider named Dora who travels to meet her husband at the community’s estate in the hope of reconciling their crumbling marriage. Gradually the narrative focuses more on the community’s pious leader Michael who struggles to suppress his homosexual desires when he becomes close to attractive younger men. A number of dramatic romantic entanglements ensue while the community prepares a christening ceremony for a new bell which is being delivered for the bell tower – it’s gone without a bell since (legend has it) the original 12th century bell was thrown into a lake which exists snugly alongside the community buildings. Though the story veers towards the melodramatic at some points, I nevertheless felt a real sympathy and connection with a lot of the characters. I also found the philosophical and religious arguments threaded throughout their encounters really compelling.

Murdoch is great at showing highly relatable psychological details such as Dora’s conundrum about whether to give up her seat on a train to an older lady or the awkwardness of a woman who doesn’t want to sound like a prig but who can’t stop herself from judging Dora’s behaviour. The novel also gets into the gritty combative behaviour that can occur in a small community of people who have strong values that they aren’t willing to compromise. A meeting about whether or not to shoot animal pests that ruin their crops becomes such a drawn out banal discussion, but I found it really poignant in that it shows how difficult it is for people with different values to live harmoniously. I got the feeling over the course of the novel that the more people cling to their high ideals the more they set themselves up to fall and feel disappointed when they can’t live up to them.

A small thing I really admired was how Murdoch portrays a young man named Toby who proudly uses the word “rebarbative” early in the novel. It’s a word he’s recently learned and likes the sound of. He uses it as a descriptive term again much later in the novel and I like how this reflects the way younger people can self-consciously acquire new language to interpret and describe the world around them. It fits so well as a way of expressing his precocious nature and also playfully shows a level of pretention to his character. Though he’s relatively naïve, he finds himself in a position of power to cause serious consequences to the community. Murdoch describes his sense of inner conflict so well especially in how he veers between feelings of victimhood and desire when he receives unexpected romantic attention. In fact, Murdoch is excellent at portraying the confusion many of her characters feel as well as their surprise at their own course of actions when decisions are made spontaneously.

One the most moving things about the novel is how seriously Murdoch treats Michael’s dilemma over his sexuality. It’s so compelling how he truly believes there is nothing wrong with his desires but that he must suppress them because they are at odds with his spiritual practice. This seems especially significant considering this novel was published nine years before the Sexual Offences Act which legalized private homosexual acts between two men in England – something author Sarah Perry notes in her excellent introduction to this new edition. Murdoch strikes me as wonderfully sex-positive in her writing, yet she obviously concedes it can lead to very tricky situations which her characters become entangled in. Just as compellingly she shows Dora’s dilemma as she tries to make her marriage to her husband work even though he’s often a patronizing bore. I think what’s so memorable about Murdoch’s novels is that she creates some really striking scenes which will stick with you because they so dramatically encapsulate the moral dilemmas her characters face.

Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf

I’ve not read “Orlando” since university so in my memory it felt like one of her more flighty and playful novels focusing on gender. It is that but there is so much more in the novel I’d forgotten about or missed when I read it the first time. I think Woolf’s highly stylised prose that are packed with so many ideas make her an especially interesting author to revisit at different stages of your life. Orlando is famously about an individual who begins as a teenage nobleman in the Elizabethan era and who lives through a few centuries aging little and swapping genders. It’s remarkably inventive and forward thinking. The character was perfectly realized by Tilda Swinton in Sally Potter’s 1992 film and I recently visited the Charleston Trust where they are currently celebrating the book’s 90th birthday with different events and exhibits. I relish visiting the Charleston House and Monk’s House whenever I can. I saw writer Olivia Laing and the artist/writer La JohnJoseph give an interesting performance responding to the book. Seeing different modern takes and interpretations of the novel has given me a whole new appreciation of Woolf’s vision alongside revisiting the text itself.

Something I didn’t recall from my first reading of the book was the way Woolf pokes fun at and satirizes being a writer throughout the novel. Orlando aspires to be a poet working on a poem about an oak tree for a few centuries. But Orlando’s opinions about writing and the literary community change over time. Orlando encounters Alexander Pope and other literary figures who disillusion him/her about being a writer and Woolf marks how writers’ reputation and stature changes dramatically over time. The book recounts how insular some literary circles can be (how little has changed over time!) and how Orlando is drawn to only writing for himself and then abandoning writing altogether to just appreciate nature, but Orlando is eventually drawn back to working on that epic poem. There’s a lot of ironic humour when Woolf contemplates how “once the disease of reading has laid upon the system it weakens it so that it falls in easy prey to that other scourge which dwells in the inkpot and festers in the quill. The wretch takes to writing.” Woolf herself is such a fixture in the literary canon now that I feel this statement really humanizes her. The way she writes about conflicted feelings about the meaning and pursuit of literature makes me consider how she must have felt so conflicted herself despite her stature as a highly stylized writer devoted to the arts.

Connected to that is the whole premise of “Orlando” which is ostensibly a biography of this fantastical figure. The novel frequently makes references to the problem of writing a biography and the difficulties of trying to summarize someone’s life when really a person is infinitely more complex than recounting the facts about their history. This feels especially poignant since Woolf’s own father Leslie Stephen was a biographer himself. When Orlando considers biographical information about Alexander Pope it’s observed how “every secret of a writer’s soul every experience of his life every quality of his mind is written large in his works. Yet we require critics to explain the one and biographers to expound the other. That time hangs heavy on people’s hands is the only explanation of the monstrous growth.” It’s so interesting how Woolf seems to be skewering literary criticism and biography here which can only give a subjective interpretation of a writer’s work. But also the observation about people having too much time on their hands when Orlando is in some ways plagued with an immortality which forces him/her to continue forth without ever discovering answers or true revelations. All that changes is the proliferation of literature which increases when the development of mass printing takes place and Orlando studiously orders all the latest literature available.

I was also excited by noticing imagery and symbolism in Orlando which recurs in other books by Woolf. So, as in “To the Lighthouse” she makes the same metaphor about a lighthouse beam temporarily illuminating something just as our fleeting thoughts give a fleeting insight into our being. She also portrays an individual observing waves and toy boats at the Serpentine and then imaginatively inflates these to much larger events and occurrences in civilization. The character of Rhoda does the same thing rocking paper ships in a basin of water in “The Waves”. It’s interesting seeing how Woolf reworked certain metaphors over her different novels to assiduously probe the questions about life which were most central to her endeavours. Also, since I read Cavendish’s “The Blazing World” for the first time this year I was struck by how part of “Orlando’s” boundary-breaking imaginative influence must have come from this earlier 17th century novel. This is despite Woolf’s dismissive tone about how Cavendish “frittered her time away scribbling nonsense and plunging ever deeper into obscurity and folly” as she wrote in her essay “A Room of One’s Own”.

Orlando frequently refers to an emerald frog throughout the novel

Of course, one of the brightest and most striking things about the book is how Orlando changes sex halfway through. But I’d forgotten how several other characters in the book also have a more fluid sense of gender and swap their sex at certain points. One of the great points that Laing and La JohnJoseph made in their talk was how enlivening it is to read a story about a character who swaps genders without their being oppressed for doing so and there’s something liberating and freeing about the way Orlando simply wakes up one day as a woman. Of course, Orlando does experience social trouble for the way the question of his/her gender is taken to court, there’s the issue of property ownership and how restrictive female clothes become for Orlando over time. But overall, it’s seen as a positive natural thing. One of the strongest statements Woolf makes about this is “Different though the sexes are they intermix. In every human being a vacillation from one sex to the other takes place and often it is only the clothes that keep the male or female likeness while underneath the sex is the very opposite from what it is above.” This powerfully marks the subtly of gender identity, but I was struck by how Laing observed that Woolf also frequently makes moving statements about how (as well as the question of gender) she portrays the way we’re all ever-changing beings beneath the identity on the surface. Later on in the book, Orlando frequently changes back and forth between male and female clothes and takes on a proliferation of identities to suit Orlando’s mood and the occasion. It feels like this character is an early proponent of how everything about the way we socially present ourselves is a form of drag.

I really appreciated the emotional and intellectual pleasures of this novel by revisiting it after such a long time. As much as I’m inspired by many aspects of it, I could also argue with Woolf’s perspective and point of view. One of the most notable the privileged and classist attitude Woolf exhibits through the novel and her other writing. She makes questionable statements about the worth of teaching the working class to read and at one point when Orlando goes out to try to appreciate the world he/she condescending exclaims “I like peasants. I understand crops”. But it would be easy to argue that Woolf is highly aware of writing from a position of privilege and mocking this state within the novel. Nevertheless, these opinions make Woolf all the more interesting and worthy of revisiting as a writer who contains infinite complexity and who is endlessly enjoyable to discuss.

You can watch more of my reaction to revisiting Woolf in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_brld3IHRq4