Reviews

Orlando: New special edition by Virginia Woolf

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casebounder's review against another edition

3.0

So I read my first Virginia Woolf ever! ORLANDO is undoubtedly a strange one to start out with — it’s basically a fun love letter she wrote to her “close friend and lover” Vita Sackville-West. The book is full of personal references to Vita’s family and was never meant to take on the mantle it has today. But! ORLANDO has become a satirical, gender-bending, feminist classic nonetheless. Written in 1928, it really was a radical story about a man born in Elizabethan England who ages through about 300 years and changes gender along the way, ending the novel as a woman in 1928 United States. Honestly, aside from the conceit and moments of biting satire, I didn’t enjoy the read that much. I just couldn’t shake the sense that it wasn’t meant for me to read. But I do love that I read it so closely after PAUL TAKES THE FORM OF A MORTAL GIRL — because the two are now forever linked for me. I know this has been adapted into film more than once, and I’m intrigued to check out the Tilda Swinton movie. But otherwise I need some advice on what Woolf to try next time!

abbeysullivan96's review against another edition

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3.0

I wish we could do half stars on here. I LOVE Virginia Woolf as a literary and historical figure. I think she's one of the coolest people to ever live. I am always disappointed (in myself) when I can't quite get into her writing. Every time I pick up a Woolf book I struggle to finish it. I've accepted it as a flaw in my own character.

When I first started reading Orlando, I was flying through. The first half of the book I found exciting, entrancing, and deeply compelling. A book from 1928 about a person who switches genders and falls in love with both men and women. It's so cool! In just about 300 pages it traverses centuries of starkly varied British life in a way that feels really vivid. Not only that, it's a pretty thinly veiled love letter to Vita.

I can't pinpoint exactly where it happened, but at some point I started slowing down, only being able to really read a few pages at a time to truly understand what was happening. The timeline of everything became more muddied - and Orlando's life experiences more mundane as she settles into an increasingly "modern" British society that restricts women's freedoms. Maybe that's the whole point. I don't know, I'll have to read some spark notes after I sit with this for a little bit. I'm not above it!

Some favorite quotes:

"he felt the need of something he could attach his floating heart to"

"Hence, Orlando and Sasha, as he called her for short, and because it was the name of a white Russian fox he had had as a boy - a creature soft as snow, but with teeth of steel, which bit him so savagely that his father had it killed"

"Then, suddenly Orlando would fall into one of his moods of melancholy; the sight of the old woman hobbling over the ice might be the cause of it, or nothing; and would fling himself face downwards on the ice and look into the frozen waters and think of death. For the philosopher is right who says that nothing thicker than a knife's blade separates happiness from melancholy"

"Are we so made that we have to take death in small doses daily or we could not go on with the business of living?"

rpfalzer's review against another edition

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4.0

So much of this book went right over my head - it spans across 300 years and through the many lives of Orlando, who exists as follows: he is in the queen’s court, becomes a lord, falls in love with an androgynous Russian princess, becomes heartbroken, flees to Constantinople, becomes a renowned ambassador, lives among the Turkish gypsies, returns home to England to write, awakes as a woman, entertains famous literaries in her London home, marries, and then who knows what. The novel gets increasingly convoluted as it goes on, with the last chapter comprising of so many introspective abstractions that it is nearly impossible to tell what’s going on. But that’s the fun of it! It’s beautiful to read and reflects the ramblings of someone who has lived so much and desires to understand it all. I will definitely revisit in the future because I feel like there were so many key elements that I missed. Woolf’s prose is stunning, and this book is so unlike her other work that I’ve read (in a good way). She captures the spectrum that is gender in a way that is so refreshing for the time - definitely an underrated classic.

paradaisboi's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

bpaxton's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny lighthearted mysterious reflective slow-paced

wow wow wow!
this book is pure poetry from beginning to end! told in Woolf's signature rambling, lyrical and witty style we follow the gender-defying Orlando from his birth in the Elizabethan era to her late 30s in 1928.
this book is outlandish, funny and camp but also profoundly deep and philosophical.
through Orlando we discuss the meaning of life and love in this ode to literature.
the way gender, sexuality and feminism are depicted through this character is soo refreshing (especially for a book published in the 1920s- how???) .
what a layered and complex female (?) character written for a female genius by a female literary genius.