its pretty easy, calm down. Do you know calvino back-to-front? orlando is pretty easy, you only have to repeat whats already been said a bilion times: 'same person etc',
ok so break down the question: whats it asking you? then, jot some points from the texts that you can raise.
conversion of the old, construction of the new: what is the old? what is the new? what is pomo-ism trying to subvert? Now link this with the texts. In orlando, there are numerous subversions of the old. this is the essence of appropriation, the use of the old in the making of the new. texts are riddled with new meaning by using and adopting the cultural texts of othes. iN orlando for eg, you can point out numerous images that are subverted. the birth of venus for eg, when she says 'im the same person, just a different sex'. what she's saying is that obviuosly gender is merely a construciton, and you can then go on about how gnder is played with in the 500 or so years she's in, trhough techniques such as costume, dialgoue (esp with the scene with pope, swift and orlando; "i beleive a woman to be merely something something") and so on. so thats gender, now you raise other points like imperialism and history>whose history is it exactly?
calvino is great, he's a bit tricky but once your in it, your really in it. SO what i suggest before your exams is that, read and re-read parts of the book, pick it up anywhere and you will find gold. thats what i did until i could in the exam, remember specific bits that i could quote.
what does he subvert? right....thinking.....
he;s mainly a postrcuturalist but you can talk about how language is appropriated. he talks about language over and over again, how languages die.
