Orlando

Tilda Swinton as Orlando

I've had a sort of virus this last week or so, like flu but no sore throat, runny nose, cough or any anything, just aching joints and feeling all weak and shivery.

So I haven't been able to get out much and take advantage of the magical Mayday weather. I did try to do a bit in my small garden when I thought I was better, but I came in exhausted after less than an hour.

So I've been spending time with Orlando. I first read Virginia Woolf's novel almost by accident and was bowled over by it and have re-read it a few times since. I tried reading her other novels but I couldn't get on with them. The novel starts in Elizabethan England when Orlando is a man. He lives until the twentieth century(and beyond?) and changes into a woman on the way. But the story is told so naturally that you don't question any of this. I am fascinated every time I read it. It is a place on the borders of time, gender and society. You never quite know where you are and neither does Orlando.

There is also a film of the book made in the 1990's with Tilda Swinton as Orlando. She is so good in the part that I have to watch the film again every so often. The way she looks at the camera with a knowing glint in her eye every time something interesting happens is just perfect. I always feel she is doing it just for me and get even more involved in the film. And she just looks so good herself too. The film is very 'arty' and not at all slick like most popular films. It's like a series of vivid paintings and the Director, Sally Potter, said she used a particular 'colour palette' for each scene. It misses out some bits of the book. And sometimes I want things that are in the book to be there. I'm not sure if someone who did not know the book would understand what is going on sometimes, but that might not be too important. The film doesn't really feature the evolving manuscript she works on for 400 years as much as the book. At the end of the book she has a sort of vision up on a hillside looking over the country and plans to bury the manuscript under an old oak tree that had been there when she began. But:“she let her book lie unburied and dishevelled on the ground, and watched the vast view, varied like an ocean floor this evening with the sun lightening it and shadows darkening it.” The film doesn't really convey the feeling of mystical union with Nature that I find in the book. Then an aeroplane arrives (an old-type plane – this is the 1920's) with one of her previous lovers in it. In the film this appears as a golden figure in the sky and is left to speak for itself. So after I watched the film I re-read the end of the book. For completeness.

The DVD box has another disk in it with gallery pictures and things including an interview with Sally Potter. I watched all this stuff too, sipped a few sloe gins and told myself I would feel better soon and get back to my haunts in the woods once again, and maybe meet Orlando there.