Sunday Salon: Gender- and Time-Bending with Virginia Woolf

My memory of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando from 17 years ago doesn’t really coincide with what I’m reading now. Mostly I remember being puzzled and confused by this novel in grad school, as I was often puzzled by Virginia Woolf in grad school, and sometimes still am. What I remember about the novel then I’ve captured in my marginalia, notes mostly taken in class, notes such as this: “Are men and women different?” And that is certainly a question Orlando faces, because she starts out as a man in Elizabethan England, but then transforms via deus ex machina into a woman.

This week I started reading Orlando again, this time interested in the theme of time travel— also a topic of Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife — which Orlando also seems to do, given that she moves through time from the age of Elizabeth I to 1928, the year the novel was published.

Unlike Henry in The Time Traveler’s Wife, Orlando isn’t afflicted with a genetic disorder sending her through the ages. She just refuses to age, and moves through time with little effort, although there seems to be some supernatural influence over her gender- and time-bending: her transformation from male to female, for instance, takes place under while sleeping, when the gods or demigods Purity, Chastity, and Modesty visit and invoke the transformation. Time, like gender, seems relative, a state one moves through with little effort.

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Editor’s Note: This post has been written as part of Sunday Salon.

I’m a Flower Smeller

I’m not really sure what this means, but apparently I’m worth a Flower Smeller Award because I’ve been inspiring or insightful. I received this from Mike at The View From Here, where I recently published a short article.

This award is part-meme, so don’t be surprised if I tag you with it. I can tag five people.

So, here are the five people I tag:

1. Jordan’s Muse, blog of writer Jordan Rosenfeld. Co-author, along with Rebecca Lawton, of Write Free, an inspiring book on positive thinking.
2. Sophisticated Dorkiness, blog of Kim Ukura, a journalism grad student. Insightful posts about her experiences as a budding journalist and adventures as a reader. It’s nice to see someone staying enthusiastic about journalism.
3. Lisa Romeo Writes, blog of writer Lisa Romeo. Who can’t be inspired by someone who in mid-life   recently finished an MFA in creative nonfiction, and continues to write as a freelancer? Gives hope for all of us trying to write in a world that seems increasingly hostile to the written word.
4. Scobberlotch, blog of novelist Karen Harrington. Just read her recent post about being the writer at the party. If that doesn’t make you laugh, you have no sense of humor.
5. Straight From Hel, blog of writer Helen Ginger. Always insightful posts about writing and publishing.

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More information about the Flower Smeller Award is available here.

Post-Move Update

It’s been a few days since I’ve written: the past week was very busy, spent packing and then moving. We’re now in a new town and in a new apartment and all hooked up to the Internet. The apartment is nice, and I have my own workspace.

We hope this move will be a good new beginning, pull us through some troubled times.

Anyhow, I do plan to get back on a regular writing/blogging schedule this week.

100 Novels Update: The Time Traveler’s Wife

I’ve updated my 100-novels list, adding Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife to it. I hope to have more posted about this novel in the future. I’m following up Time Traveler’s Wife with Virginia Woolf’s Orlando: A Biography; I feel there is a relationship between the two novels.

Here is a plot summary of Orlando from Wikipedia:

Orlando tells the story of a young man named Orlando, born in England during the reign of Elizabeth I, who decides not to grow old. He does not, and he passes through the ages as a young man … until he wakes up one morning to find that he has metamorphosed into a woman — the same person, with the same personality and intellect, but in a woman’s body. The remaining centuries up to the time the book was written are seen through a woman’s eyes.