“Orlando” by Virginia Woolf is a captivating book that goes beyond the physical boundaries of time and gender, offering readers a unique literary journey. I personally loved this book, so I gave it 4 stars.
Here are a few thoughts for those who might be interested in reading it:
Expectations
– Loved “Mrs. Dalloway” but found “Orlando” to be different.
– “Orlando” has more elements of magical realism compared to “Mrs. Dalloway”
– Physically transforming from man to woman after a deep slumber
– Living more than 300 years and witnessing the course of history throughout that time
– Meeting and having conversations with writers who existed in real life (such as Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison, and Jonathan Swift)
Writing Style
– Retains Virginia Woolf’s stream of consciousness style.
“Clarissa had a theory in those days – they had heaps of theories, always theories, as young people have. It was to explain the feeling they had of dissatisfaction; not knowing people; not being known. For how could they know each other? You met every day; then not for six months, or years. It was unsatisfactory, they agreed, how little one knew people. But she said, sitting on the bus going up Shaftesbury Avenue, she felt herself everywhere; not ‘here, here, here’; and she tapped the back of the seat; but everywhere.”
Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
“But Orlando was a woman — Lord Palmerston had just proved it. And when we are writing the life of a woman, we may, it is agreed, waive our demand for action, and substitute love instead. Love, the poet has said, is woman’s whole existence. And if we look for a moment at Orlando writing at her table, we must admit that never was there a woman more fitted for that calling. Surely, since she is a woman, and a beautiful woman, and a woman in the prime of life, she will soon give over this pretence of writing and thinking and begin at least to think of a gamekeeper (and as long as she thinks of a man, nobody objects to a woman thinking).”
Orlando, Virginia Woolf
– The reader is continuously exposed to Orlando’s thoughts, feelings, and senses – almost similar to how we experience our internal monologues.
Plot Overview
– Travels through time from the Elizabethan era to the 1920s with a biographer narrating Orlando’s life.
– Feels like the biographer (possibly Woolf herself) is directly addressing the reader.
Themes and Topics
– A person’s relentless search for the self.
– Changes in the political, theatrical, cultural, and emotional areas of the world from the Elizabethan age to the 1920s.
– “In the 18th century we knew how everything was done, but here I rise through the air, I listen to voices in America, I see men flying- but how is it done? I can’t even begin to wonder. So my belief in magic returns.”
– The relevance of writing and art to humanity.
– Gender and identity, with a pivotal plot point where Orlando transforms into a woman.
Perspectives and Experiences
– Explores life experiences through both male and female perspectives.
– Examines society’s response to Orlando’s unique life events.
Philosophical Insights
– Questions the definition of a person.
– Considers the impact of possessions, titles, and the impact of society on self-identity.
Overall Impression
– Provokes existential thoughts but in an engaging way.
– “For while directly we say that it (the length of human life) is ages long, we are reminded that it is briefer than the fall of a rose leaf to the ground.”
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