When a book becomes incredibly popular again, something can be lost in its re-ascendancy. Although it reaches new audiences, there can be a wearying sense of flattening too. Characters become symbols. Texts become quotable lines. Orlando has suffered a particular fate in recent years in being taken up by other worlds including art and fashion – the latter doing an especially efficient job of ignoring any of the work’s subtler (and gayer) themes in favour of generic messaging about gender fluidity. However, cut through the noise, and you’ll find a funny, passionate text that’s still full of radical bite. It is a very human novel about love and lust and fancying beautiful women and writing terrible poetry, as well as a vivid epic that captures time’s relentless march towards modernity. As Emma Corrin takes to the stage to play Orlando this weekend, I wrote something for @theipaper about the story’s enduring resonance & pleasing complexity in thinking about gender. BTS photos by Karl Lagerfeld, featuring Tilda in Sally Potter’s 1992 film.