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WRITING CRAFT
Virginia Woolf is an Impressionist
“Orlando” is a gallery of her paintings (medium: words)
When you read “Orlando” by Virginia Woolf, many genres come to mind: magical realism, surrealism. But the movement that fits the best is impressionism.
Plot Overview: A Romp Through Time
Orlando is about the eponymous main character who gets to live through the centuries, mostly in London, England. Orlando starts off as a nobleman whose main journey is from brooding adolescent to confident aristocrat. After getting his heart broken, Orlando turns to poetry and literature. After getting his heart broken again when a venerated poet publicly ridicules Orlando’s work, Orland falls asleep for several days and wakes up a woman.
As Orlando starts life anew, she dully reflects on how her new life feels so constricted. She cannot be an ambassador, or a soldier. She had always been the pursuer but now didn’t even want to be pursued. She returns to poetry and literature.
This time, instead of wanting to make a name for herself, she reads and writes leisurely. She reads to get a sense of the current climate (at one points she even buys out an entire bookstore), and she writes to get her thoughts out on paper. It’s then that she makes…
