Prose, Oh Such Prose!

Reading can both lead to and be magic at times, the kind of magic that comes from such a gifted writer as Virginia Woolf. I promised more to come from her. It is come, and again from her 1928 novel entitled “Orlando.” Orlando has been working on a precious manuscript for 300 years, which she carries near at hand in the bosom of her dress. She has, after an earlier, magical, weeklong, deep sleep, been transformed and is living as a young woman. The title of the precious manuscript is “The Oak Tree, A Poem.” It has suffered one considerable rewrite after another over centuries, a very trying task for Orlando, a learning experience, but one of determination. The finally finished work is ready for readership. In a following sequence of events, so says Nicholas Greene, her severe liter…