2/27 - Orlando (fin)

Orlando, Orlando, where for art thou, Orlando?

Nah, doesn't really have the same feel as Romeo.

Anyways, getting back to the actual novel, or "biography," if you will. Having just finished the book, I feel as a whole it was definitely very interesting, but at the same time confusing as hell. A character living for hundreds of years? I can get past that. But a character living for hundreds of years and having a "spiritual/physical" sex change in the middle of his/her life? That, I can't really get past - but somehow, it seems to work and became much more than the MacGuffin of the book.

While the book is finished, there are some things I would like to talk about.

First of all, apparently Nick Greene is a highlander, because when Orlando meets up with him in the nineteenth (or was it the twentieth?) century, I was very shocked to see a familiar face in Orlando's apparent time-traveling adventures (though I don't know if I'm more shocked to see Greene or more shocked when Nick knows right away to call him Lady Orlando). It's interesting that Woolf would bring such a bittersweet character back into Orlando's life - I do not think she herself would have chosen to meet up with him in the future. Quite a bit is made about "The Oak Tree" when the two are talking, so perhaps Woolf only brings Greene back to push forward the idea that Orlando gets her manuscript published and into the public eye.

So apparently Orlando has a son, and as shocking as that is, I ponder to ask the question, "Why?" Why would Woolf introduce a possibly life-changing character so late in the game, and then completely ignore him for the last twenty-five or so pages. Is it just to reinforce the idea that Orlando is now a woman? Why put such a throwaway idea into the story and then let it slide away just as easily as it came? I really do not know, and I personally feel that while the idea of her having a son is interesting, her execution of the idea is poor and in my mind sort of takes away from the story on the whole.

The last thing I wanted to mention might just be a coincidence and have no relevance to the subject, but I would still like to get out onto paper (so to speak). On page 198, Woolf begins to speak about a gamekeeper and how this gamekeeper will "whistle under the window" of a "beautiful woman in the prime of her life." This is purely thinking outside some kind of box that lies on the edge of a stair that, with a wisp of wind, could tip over and all its contents could fly out, but is it possible that this gamekeeper that Woolf mentioned is somehow related to the gamekeeper of Lawrence's Lady Chatterly's Lover? Is it possible that Woolf, for one reason or another, is referencing good ole D.H. in one way or another? Why she chooses or not chooses to do this directly, I do not know, but it would be interesting to see if it really is a connection between the two books.