A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.” Samuel Johnson’s advice returns often. After fifty-four pages, Orlando set aside.
Coming to it after Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse was perhaps a misstep. The parodic mode, the historical fancy: without the formal pressure of those earlier novels, interest wanes. Orlando, for all its cleverness, doesn’t hold.
Skipping ahead to Chapter VI revealed a different register. The quiet experimentalism was closer to the Woolf that compels.
Elizabeth Bowen, reflecting decades after Orlando‘s release, remembered how her generation had greeted it with suspicion. After the brilliance of Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, she called it “a setback,” though later wondered why they’d responded that way. This unease isn’t singular. The book waits for another time.
>Dear Anthony,I'm hardly surprised. I don't know if you're following another list–but I would suggest either Jacob's Room or The Waves. Orlando is a trifle, a bon-bon, a lark and a spree, akin to, but more serious than her biography of the Brownings's dog _Flush_. I cannot imagine how one, encountering _To the Lighthouse_ could do other with _Orlando_. A perfectly fine book in its own right, but just not in the main line of Woolf's best writing and thought.shalom,Steven
>Steven. . . trifle, a bon-bon, a lark and a spree . . .A perfect description and precisely what Woolf intended. I hope to return to it in years to come in different frame of mind.
>Not the right time for you. Sorry you won't be joining us on Friday. I am still laughing my way through the re-read.
>Frances – It just didn't work for me this time around but I am looking forward to reading through everyone's comments and posts on Friday.I'll be with you for The Waves.
>I finished it, but just barely. It most definitely did not "click" with me, but I'm looking forward to The Waves.
>Amy – I'm looking forward to The Waves too. I've read the introduction, which has whetted my appetite.
>I've kind of promised Frances and Claire that I would stop my "Orlando-bashing," Anthony, but you made the right call to stop reading it in my opinion. In retrospect, I should have followed your lead. I very much enjoyed Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, though, so I will get over my grudge with Woolf over Orlando eventually. Cheers!
>Richard – Coming to Orlando after the richness of To the Lighthouse didn't work for me but one day I might try it again. Might.Woolf was an revelation for me. I did not anticipate how much I would enjoy the three novels that I stuck with.