Blogging Woolf

For many Woolfians, Orlando is one of our most-loved, rather than most-loathed, of Woolf’s novels. Despite what some modern day cranky critics say.

Some lovers of Orlando posted their responses to critics who recently panned the novel.

Meanwhile, a query posted on the VW Listserv elicited a number of scholarly references regarding Sally Potter‘s film adaptation of the novel.

Among them were these from Gulshan Taneja of the University of Delhi’s English department and editor of In-between: Essays & Studies in Literary Criticism:

• Peter Naccarato, “Straightening Woolf’s Queer Text: Sally Potter’s Orlando.” In-between: Essays & Studies in Literary Criticism, 14.2 (September 2005): 107-20. Taneja says this was a special issue devoted to Orlando.
• Alison Graham-Bertolini, in an appendix to her article, “The ‘Becoming’ of Orlando: The Deleuzian Perspective,” includes a discussion of the Potter film. It can be found in In-between: Essays & Studies in Literary Criticism 14.2 (September 2005): 153-165.
• Potter’s “Notes on the Adaptation of the Book Orlando” from Professor Rose Norman’s Web site.

Here are a few more Orlando resources, scholarly or not, that you can find online:

• Orlando the Film: Bibliography posted by Dr. Norman.
• “Reading Readers in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando: A Biography” by Kathryn N. Benzel. Get it here.
• “Gypsies and Lesbian Desire: Vita Sackville-West, Violet Trefusis, and Virginia Woolf” by Kirstie Blair. Click here.
• “Virginia Woolf’s Orlando: The Book as Critic” by Kelly Tetterton. Go here.
• “An off-beat adaptation: Orlando” by Timotheos Roussos. Find it here.
• A common reader’s self-described online “shrine” to the Potter film.
• The movie trailer.

Other resources on Orlando can be found here and here.