Orlando: A Biography
Ratings73
Average rating3.8
This is 327 pages of description and not a single paragraph of plot. There is nothing that happens, and when it seems like the author might be about to make something happen (for example, when Orlando joins a tribe of gypsies) it gets lost in a fog of inner dialogue and grand description, and suddenly the reader finds that whatever might have happened is over without ever materializing. Also, two of the more intriguing promises on the back cover - that Orlando goes from man to woman and lives for 300 years - are not addressed satisfactorily, if at all. The gender change occurs in some mystical fashion that involves Truth and Chastity, and while the change occupies a great deal of the rest of the book the how-and-why is never addressed at all. The longevity issue is only directly mentioned in the following way: a bunch of blah blah blah about a poem she's been working on, then the sentences “She turned back to the first page and read the date, 1586, written in her own boyish hand. She had been working at it for close on three hundred years now”, and then moving on to the changes she made in the poem. That's it! The author seems to have thrown in sex changes and immortality just for the hell of it, and in no way attempts to give context or understanding to the reader. Lots of boring descriptions about London, yes. Plot or coherent use of literary devices, no.
Had no idea what this book was about, just hooked onto it because I'd never read any books by Virginia Woolf and the description mentioned this book as one of her more “accessible” works. Hmmm.... so it hit me like a brick when all of a sudden the male main character is transformed into a woman. It was a shock, and then I was somewhat disappointed because my beginning effort at getting into the book and becoming attached to Orlando and the wonderful rhythm of the language felt yanked out of my grasp. I had to go read some background on the novel to feel like it was “okay” to keep reading–that Woolf had probably based Orlando on a woman Woolf had a “crush” on, etc. I guess I just didn't have enough connection to Orlando as a main character to suspend my disbelief about his sudden gender-switching.
Virginia Woolf took biography writing to a new level with this. She is such a brilliant writer. This book can be analyzed with so many lenses i.e., queer, feminist, sapphic.
Orlando: A Biography is a fantastical period piece surrounding the titular character as they traverse life. It is beautifully written in Virginia's poetic voice and focuses on sexuality, identity, and societal expectations.
I cannot express my love for this book enough. I have never read something that so poetically encapsulates my own feelings of gender. Virginia Woolf's writing is hard to read at times due to the poetic aspects as well as old English, but taking the time to understand is well worth it. It's definitely not a quick read because of that, but it's an enjoyable one nonetheless.
If you're looking for an interesting and unique piece on queer identity set in the Elizabethan period, I can't recommend this enough. Absolutely in my top 10!
я очень люблю вирджинию вулф, и вот, это четвертая ее вещь, которую я прочитала. как пишут в вики, сатирическая, легко читаемая и пр. и да, так она и начинается, иронично, скользя по стилям (намного изящнее господина джойса) легко, прекрасно, с сарказмом, но и с сочувствием к героям и к читателю. все как я люблю. но к концу, боже мой, в конце это та самая текучая вулф, настолько глубокая и восхитительная, что я не могу понять, как можно так писать. жизнь, время, природа, литература и снова жизнь. жизнь. жизнь.
I was so excited to read this and knew I'd love it but the writing style is just really not for me. It's flowery and overwritten, and goes on for too long about nothing. I enjoy what I've read but I do not enjoy the experience of reading it, if that makes any sense? Which just makes me sad but I've dreaded going back to it for 2 weeks so I'm just going to let this one go.
Virginia and Leonard, Virginia and Vita, Vita and Harold, Vita and Violet, Orlando and Shelmerdine. Here are five perfect unions, four real and one fictional. These are beautiful, romantic, complicated, exotic, subversive love stories.
Leonard and Virginia's marriage of minds, his compassion and support carrying her through her depression, his understanding of Vita's importance to Virginia. The man literally started a publishing house (Hogarth Press) for her because she couldn't bear criticism, for heaven's sake!
Then there are Vita's letters to Virginia, telling her she “is reduced to a thing that wants Virginia”, telling her she misses her in a “quite simple desperate human way”.
Vita and Harold's tempestuous open marriage, their manifold intimacies, their quiet acceptance of each other's romantic entanglements.
Vita and Violet's famous, intense, scandalous affair that has been fictionalised in Orlando (Violet being the Russian princess Sasha).
Orlando and Shelmerdine's secret languages, their respect of the other's need for solitude and personal space, their rejection of gender.
These couples and their dismissal of sexual familiarity/fidelity as the key components of a successful marriage is inspiring. Their ability to engage in multiple romantic relationships at the same time is impressive. I love this book, the characters in it and the writers whose stories are woven into it.
Extraordinarily boring and unoriginal. What kind of love letter is this? This book is unreal, and not in a good way. Woolf manages to communicate basic happenings in the most verbose manner possible. The prose can be said to be “flowery,” but again, not in a good way.
I picked this book up because I just finished To The Lighthouse (TTL) last week and loved it SO much that I decided im gonna read all of Woolfs notable works immediately. Ill still read her other books but not with that urgency anymore.
Orlando was clearly for its time very progressive and there are pieces of the book that are just poetic but ITS SUCH A BORE. TTL is book that happens mostly in the characters inner minds but still is packed with so much substance and characters you can relate to. This book has a vague plot too, though especially towards the end, it just meanders in circles with no meaning. At the end, I didn't care for Orlando as a person either, she just seemed like part of the privileged English society that try as much I might, I cannot relate.
‰ЫПThe most ordinary movement in the world, such as sitting down at a table and pulling the inkstand towards one, may agitate a thousand odd, disconnected fragments, now bright, now dim, hanging and bobbing and dipping and flaunting, like the underlinen of a family of fourteen on a line in a gale of wind.‰Ыќ
When it comes to talking about race, this book is not great. When it comes to the rest, it is.
Probably more of a 4 or a 4.5 for me personally, but bumped to a 5 for Woolf's grasp of gender and identity in 1928.
Orlando is hard to review without acknowledging Woolf wrote this about her lover. Above all, it's filled with love and affection and playful ribbing. But, also above all, it's filled with clever insights about what it means to experience gender and identity. I feel these are equally important to enjoying the novel. Orlando certainly meanders, but as a love letter to and about Sackville-West, I can hardly hold it against the text.
Really just a fascinating, unique book. I had to ease into reading Woolf's style, but found it easy and smooth to read after getting the hang of her writing.
The change of sex, though it altered their future, did nothing whatever to alter their identity.