Orlando (Wordsworth Classics) Reviews

• A gender-bending saga of three centuries

  
  By AHXAPVSHPJ6OJ on 2003-12-29
  "Orlando" is a fictional biography whose subject in the beginning is a sixteen-year-old boy in the Elizabethan era and in the end -- three hundred years later -- is a thirty-six-year-old woman. This is not a novel about transsexuality, as such a premise would indicate, but it is a statement about sexual identity and gender roles in English society as only an author like Virginia Woolf could make, territory not even the brazen D.H. Lawrence could traverse with much confidence. It is a lyrical tour de force in which Woolf displays her considerable talent for subtly describing moods and scenery, but most surprisingly, it demonstrates her sly sense of humor and satire.

  Orlando's gender alteration is naturally the central event of his preternaturally long life, but his aging only twenty years over a course of three centuries is certainly no less bizarre. To describe the circumstances under which he becomes a woman or explain the logic by which he ages so slowly would be giving away too much in this review, nor would it really help to recommend the novel to one who is not yet persuaded to read it, so I will be silent on that account, saying only that these outrageous devices fully succeed as vehicles to explore Woolf's theme of femininity with respect to English cultural and historical frames of reference.

  The novel examines the effect of gender alteration on Orlando's amorous and professional capacities. As a young nobleman in the Elizabethan court whose interests are swordsmanship and poetry, he is engaged to an aristocratic Irish girl, has a torrid affair with a Russian princess, and meets a silly woman who, resembling nothing so much as a hare, calls herself the Archduchess Harriet. After serving as an ambassador in Turkey, Orlando becomes a woman, joins a band of gypsies, and returns to England where he (she) must handle the legalities regarding his dukeship because of his new gender. As a woman, he manages to gain the romantic attentions of famous writers like Pope, Dryden, and Swift before eventually marrying and having a son. Some surprises ensue, but let it suffice to say that Orlando is not the only androgynous character in the novel.

  An underlying, and highly controversial, implication is that every human being harbors aspects of both genders, mainly psychological, but Woolf goes so far as to make them physical in order to press the point. Although the idea may seem tame now, "Orlando" may have set a precedent for cross-gender role-playing when it was first published in 1928. The novel is very much ahead of its time; it has a sort of nonchalant sophistication that characterizes the type of magical realism that was to become a large part of European-influenced literature throughout the rest of the twentieth century. My admiration for Virginia Woolf only increases with each novel of hers that I read, and "Orlando" is in my opinion the best yet.
  
  

• A wild tromp through literary history

  
  By on 1999-06-18
  Orlando is simply wonderful. In the novel, Woolf uses the character of Orlando, a person who lives through four centuries as man sometimes and woman sometimes. The term biography might throw you, since Orlando is no normal biography. Woolf personifies literary thought as a person (hence the timelessness and gender changing capability). She depicts Elizabethan times through the early twentieth century with wit and sarcasm. The more that you've read of English literature from Shakespeare forward the more you will catch the little jokes and the reason for why certain things happen. A very enjoyable read. The film version is not exactly the same, so I recommend sticking to the book.
  
  

• Masterful, Genius, "Orlando" Has It All

  
  By AAKCMOVY3KZF9 on 1999-04-11
  "Orlando" served as my sweeping introduction to the incredible writing of Virginia Woolf. (For anyone who has seen the movie, do yourself a favor, and read this amazing book!) One is forced to wonder what sort of genius mind Woolf possessed; only a mind of the finest tuning could have produced such a work! "Orlando" is truly representative of superior literature and demonstrates the art of writing at its finest! No review does the novel justice...any topic imaginable is covered..of course, all is reviewed from the standpoint of five passing centuries and multiple backdrops ranging from the exotic to the droll. Woolf's treatment of sexuality, intelligence, consciousness, time, and the human psyche is poignant. "Orlando" is definitely worth the read. No matter the reader, "Orlando" is sure to be an unforgettable novel, its author's genius surely to be admired.
  
  

• Looking for something good to read? Check this one out...

  
  By on 1996-11-18
  John Irving ("World According to Garp") wrote an essay on Charles Dickens book "Great Expectations" in which he said that that book was the first book he had ever read that he wished he had written. For me the first book that I had read that I wished I had written is "Orlando" by Virgina Woolf. It blew me away. I had seen the movie version a few years ago, and recently found it in a bookstore, so I decided to check it out. It's subtitle is "A Biography" and although it is based (very loosely, I'm sure) on someone's actual life, it becomes clear to the reader that this is definitely a work of fiction. The reason that I enjoyed it so much is, well, let me put it this way...Charles Dickens and John Irving were and are storytellers, very wonderful, brilliant storytellers, but Virgina Woolf is (well, was) an amazing artist. I don't go for poetry that much, I'm a prose kind of guy, but "Orlando" for me, was the very best kind of poetry but written as a narrative. Read this book. And let me know what you think...
  
  

• A fanciful spoof of literary history and sexual roles

  
  By A2YF4ZMECJVLK9 on 2002-01-27
  This fake biography (complete with counterfeit photographs and an index) is not Virginia Woolf's greatest novel by any means--but even the least of her works must rank among the finest of early twentieth-century fiction.

  The "plot" seems more appropriate to a Heinlein novel: a boy raised during the Elizabethan period becomes a woman, lives until the 1920s, and ages only 36 years. During the past century, the novel's reception has evolved much like its lead character: while early critics and readers praised the book as a literary parody bordering on farce, later generations have regarded the novel more as a commentary both on sexual roles and on the oppression of women. Some readers will see Orlando as representing, in human form, the evolution of literature (it`s telling that the only other character who lives as long as Orlando is a critic); some will focus on the novel's presentation of gender and sex. Both interpretations (and others) seem to be equally valid--which is why this book is so powerful even today.

  One of the most charming (and surprising) qualities of the novel is Woolf's refusal to take herself or her book seriously. At times, the novel is laugh-out-loud funny. She mocks her own style (she interrupts one of her infamous run-on paragraphs with "nature ... has so much to answer for besides the perhaps unwieldy length of this sentence"), and she even makes fun of the book's very concept (when Orlando is not doing much of anything, Woolf exclaims: "If only subjects ... had more consideration for their biographers!"). "Orlando" infuses everyday life with both wit and elegance; or, as Woolf puts it, "when the shrivelled skin of the ordinary is stuffed out with meaning it satisfies the senses amazingly."
  
  

• A different way to look at gender roles through history.
  By A3RINLIDX74QLP on 2005-02-21
  Virginia Woolf's "Orlando" is unique in form, being a mock biography of a fictional character. We are introduced to Orlando, a protagonist based partly on Woolf's close friend Vita Sackville-West, as a 16-year-old boy, the son of noble parents, in the latter years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. By the end of the book, more than three hundred years later, he has become a 36-year-old woman living in "modern" times (meaning 1928, the year of publication).
  
  Woolf uses Orlando's sexual transformation and long life as a vehicle for investigating influences on and consequences of gender and sexuality through history. Her commentary is pointed and often right on the mark. But at the same time, the book is infused with Woolf's dry wit, giving everything a humorous overtone. For example, when Orlando returns to England after his transformation, everyone at home assuming him to be dead, she finds herself embroiled in a legal battle to get her property back: "The chief charges against her were (1) that she was dead, and therefore could not hold any property whatsoever; (2) that she was a woman, which amounts to much the same thing" (168). One can tell that, while these issues were obviously important to her, Woolf was having fun when she wrote this.
  
  Now, as far as my personal reaction, I am going to be among the minority of reviewers here in saying that overall I really didn't much care for the book. In talking to others who have read it, I've noticed that "Orlando" seems to be one of those "love it or hate it" works. Perhaps I went into it with the wrong expectaions, this being my first Woolf novel, but it just kind of fell flat for me. I certainly wasn't expecting it to be the kind of book it was. Thinking it was going to be a historical fiction piece with a serious tone, I found it to be much more like a more emotional version of "Candide." Much of it is farcical, and certainly far from being believable.
  
  Though Woolf makes some very insightful and worthwhile social commentary here, her presentation, I felt, detracted from its impact. The fantasy-world feel that permeates much of it makes it seem unreal, and therefore less applicable to our own world. In addition, the narrative tone changes from time period to time period, which makes the book feel disjointed. Just as you get used to one style - BAM! - it changes to a different tone and you're left feeling disoriented all over again. And furthermore, Orlando her/himself doesn't feel like a real person. No matter how much I tried, I couldn't empathize with her/him. All of this, I found, got in the way of the actual story and its intended impact.
  
  In summary, I do commend Woolf's experimentation in style, and as I noted the underlying messages are important, but overall the book just wasn't as strong as it could have been. If you're a fan of Woolf, go ahead and give it a try. You may well find that you like it after all. But if you like more reality-rooted and tonally serious stories, this probably won't leave you very satisfied. Try it, but calibrate your expectations first.
  
  
• Biting social commentary, fabulous love story, great fantasy
  By A3CLGQ5PI3AFKD on 1999-09-27
  Just saw the movie with Tilda Swinton for the 4th time, for my Gender and Sexuality in Film class. Visually lush, intelligent and thought-provoking, with so much to say about gender roles, it can make us question what we think we know about how men and women are supposed to be. Watch the movie, read the book.
  
  
• Fun! Exciting! Flavorful! Fat-Free! A rollicking good time.
  By on 1998-01-02
  Orlando, by Virginia Woolf, is an extraordinary book! Because Woolf does not write in her traditional stream-of-consciousness style, this novel is much more accessible than some of her others (like "To The Lighthouse"). The "gender-bending" theme was one that Woolf often made use of in her books, but it is never as clearly exemplified as in "Orlando." In addition to her observations regarding gender, Woolf displays a keen perception of the human condition. Her merciless wit comes through in this book with even greater clarity than in her others, making for a truly oustanding novel! Read it!!
  
  
• One of Woolf's more entertaining novels
  By A3HEZ1K4E49KKS on 2000-10-10
  _Orlando_ is Virginia Woolf's mock biography of her friend Vita Sackville-West. It follows the title character through English history from the Elizabethan Age to the 1920s, when the novel was written. The writing is different sections of the book mimics the styles of different periods of English literature. Most of the book is firmly tongue-in-cheek (Woolf can be very funny), but it does brush lightly upon issues of art, gender, and history.

  I think _Orlando_ is the most purely entertaining of Woolf's novels. Orlando's various adventures are highly laughable, and Woolf's dry commentary rarely fails to elicit a smile. It is also one of Woolf's less experimental and ambitious novels. She wrote this novel as a lark, for amusement--it is a very different project from, for example, _The Waves_. This is not to say this is in any way a conventional novel--but it is rather different from Woolf's other works of the 1920s.

  I would definitely recommend this to most readers--it is more accessible to the general reader than Woolf's other novels. Readers familiar with the history of English literature will find it particularly amusing. If you are a first-time Woolf reader looking to really experience her more important works, however, I would suggest _Mrs. Dalloway_ or _To the Lighthouse_ first.
  
  

• Orlando as a Commentary on Women in History
  By A1YWXYA7YP8LWW on 2000-07-06
  Throughout history, women have always been the subject of oppression and stereotyping. Today the world is finally beginning to accept women as intellectuals, workers, writers, and other occupations other than housewife. However, women have not always been so fortunate, and history clearly shows their oppression from the lack of information left behind by women. Some of the greatest writers who ever lived may not of gotten anyone to read their writing, because they were women and it was not "politically-correct" for them to do anything but raise the children. Gradually, near the beginning of the century, women were able to start pushing away these stereotypes, and they started to receive more rights and were allowed to publish their writings. Virginia Woolf is able to wonderfully express the struggle of women, in a way in which men could easily relate. By Orlando starting as a man and then seeing all his rights and respect taken away when he becomes a woman, the men reading could understand what they have and take for granted. One example of the unfair way in which the women were treated can be seen when Orlando goes back to England for the first time after the change. She went to get her house but encountered a few problems, "The chief charges against her were (1) that she was dead , and therefore could not hold any property whatsoever; (2) that she was a woman, which amounts to much the same..." (pg.168) The women of the day were given rights no better than those of a dead man were. Also as soon as she got back, she was expected to settle down and start looking for a husband, instead of writing or working, "In short, they acted the parts of man and woman for ten minutes with great vigor ..." (pg. 179) This is how her life was, secretly hiding herself from society, and also dealing with the courting of men. It is ridiculous how little respect or rights that she received. The best angle of the book, however, is reading through and noticing the growth of independence in woman and how their world expanded. Gender should never be a consideration in decisions or cloud the minds of those who decide, it should be an equal chance for both men and women. Everyone is stuck on this planet, and we might as well try to get along together with as much peace and equality as we can.
  
  
• 14 year old reader
  By A1JAHVBN5CZ6XU on 2003-09-12
  After exploring the literary genius of Virginia Wolff within her book "Mrs. Dalloway", I was eager to read other books by her. My brother's name is Orlando. My mother had been reading the book while she was pregnant with him and loved the book so much that she named him after the main character. Of course I had to read it. I have never read anything like Virginia Wolf's books before. Orlando is probably the best book I have ever read. Her style is so creative and enjoyable. This is a fantastic read. The movie is also good.
  
  
• Orlando
  By A1FIHJGB9Q1LNB on 2005-08-23
  .....isn't that someplace in Florida?
  
  It would be interesting to see what old VW would have made of that section of the planet had she decided to incorporate it into her novel. She was, however, a member of a clique which chose to incarcerate itself in the English Cotswolds for the main part. Ah, wait...I feel an analogy coming on.....nope, it's gone!
  
  There's nothing amazing about 'Orlando' it was a vehicle for Heaven knows what hang-up Woolf was pretending to endure at the time. No one in that era wrote for entertainment or pleasure, it was always to make some point or other. Thankfully the 'real' focus of most of these idle rants are lost in the mists of time.
  
  It does, however, contain some cute imagery; the bit where the River Thames suddenly becomes unfrozen is good....I regard the presumed ancestors of Michael Winner hosting the mass banquet condemned to a watery eternity sans iceberg as semi-historic.
  
  All in all, this tome should be read and sneered at .... like all such books.
  
  One shouldn't focus on the overall plot but the few mini-gems sparsely scattered throughout the text.
  
  
• "The very fabric of life was magic."
  By A319KYEIAZ3SON on 2006-03-12
  In her most playful and exuberant novel, Virginia Woolf writes the "historical biography" of Orlando, a young boy of nobility during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. A wild ride through four centuries, the novel shows Orlando aging, magically, only thirty-six years between 1588 and 1928. Even more magically, he also changes from a man to a woman. As she explores Orlando's life, Woolf also explores the differing roles of men and women in society during various periods, ultimately concluding that one's role as a man or woman is determined by society, rather than by birth.
  
  From the Elizabethan period, during which Orlando works as a steward for the queen and also serves as her lover, he progresses to the reign of James I, experiencing a profound love for a Russian princess, Sasha, who is herself exploring the role of a man. When the relationship ends, he retreats, devastated, to his estate, with its 365 rooms and 52 staircases, which he redecorates over the next few years. An interlude in which he is wooed by the Archduchess Harriet/Archduke Harry leads to his ambassadorship to Constantinople, a period spent with the gypsies, and his eventual return to England--as a woman. New experiences and observations await her there.
  
  Throughout the novel, Woolf matches her prose style to the literary style of the period in which Orlando lives, creating always-changing moods and sheer delight for the reader. Some constants continue throughout the four centuries of Orlando's life. Orlando is always a writer, always recording his thoughts, and always adding to a poem he has begun as a child entitled "The Oak Tree." He is always returning to his 365-room house whenever he needs to recuperate from his experiences, and some characters repeat through time. (Orlando is betrayed by Nick Greene during the reign of James I, but he is encouraged by Nicholas Greene in the Victorian period.)
  
  Literary historians make much of the fact that Woolf modeled Orlando on Vita Sackville-West, Woolf's lover, and that this study of gender roles was an early exploration of lesbianism, bisexuality, cross-dressing, and transgender identities. The novel is pure fun to read, however, and though it raises serious and thoughtful questions about sexuality and the ways that it controls our lives, there is no sense that Woolf wrote the novel specifically to make a public statement or prove a point. Her themes of gender and its relation to social expectations, of imagination and its relation to reality, of the importance of history in our lives, and of the unlimited potential of all humans, regardless of their sex, transcend the specific circumstances under which Woolf may have written the book. A playful and delightful novel, which broke new ground with its publication. n Mary Whipple
  
  
  
• A song of love
  By A2T47C5XF9FQI7 on 2001-12-04
  "Orlando" is such a playful novel, full of richness of characters and commentaries. Written as a love letters of sorts to Woolf's lover Vita Sackville-West, "Orlando: A Biography" follows Orlando from the years of Queen Elizabeth I's reign to late 1928, from the time he was a man to the time she became a woman. With this book, Woolf tried to give a fantasy life to her lover, where she could be a man and be her own person, instead of subject to society's ways. And by itself, it's such a gorgeous story! Especially with the fascinating asides where Orlando is addressing the reader.
  
  
• Man and Woman
  By on 2002-07-08
  Woolf's skill of imagery in writing is amazing. Her love of her character Orlando is apparent in the gentle way she carries him/her from the 15th century to 1928. I wanted to jump into the story, sit beside Orlando, ride a horse beside him, and kiss him as a man and then again as a woman. A stunning read and one that should be on any well-read person's read and read again list...enjoy.
  
  
• Glorious piece of art work
  By A16KISELGY6L6F on 2002-10-16
  Once you get into the flow of Woolf's tangled web of a world, this book is at the same time poetic, philosophical, and a beautiful social commentary. I love it!
  
  
• Pure genius
  By A16MDU7YNKCXU0 on 2004-11-24
  "Orlando" is the only Woolf novel that engages in fantasy. The main character, Orlando, lives from the Elizabethan era to 1928 and transforms from a man to a woman somewhere along the way. That detail in itself promises an intriguing plot.
  
  Woolf's prose often resembles poetry, and in "Orlando" this is no exception. She cleverly renders Orlando's (and the first-person narrator/biographer) feelings and experiences with a myriad of seemingly useless details. It may take some time to get used to and make sense of how these details fit; yet, that is the beauty and brilliance of Woolf's language that makes this novel (and her other works) such a pleasure to read.
  
  "Orlando" is referred to as Woolf's "holiday" novel and one that Woolf herself said she wrote in preparation for the next (and often considered best) book, The Waves. While "Orlando" does seem more light-hearted and comical than her other work, and this is partly due to the fantasy and her use of satire and parody, it can also be quite political in the issues it addresses, particularly those related to gender, literature, and modernity. Orlando as a character conveys her emotions but does not reflect much on their implications. However, we as readers who witness her transformation and her lifestyle, who are made to read to about Orlando's existence and position in the world, would soon find ourselves thinking about Woolf's recurrent themes and how they relate to humanity.
  
  As a whole, "Orlando" is very thought-provoking. Every time I pick it up, I find something new to marvel at.
  
  
• Orlando
  By A2N3YAM4K3ATM on 2005-05-07
  Orlando begins life as a titled and gifted young man in sixteenth century England, but later acquires a much larger perspective through a series of intense and improbable events that take him across barriers of culture, time, and gender.
  
  After enduring a supernaturally cold winter in England and an affair with a Russian Princess that ends badly, Orlando decamps for the Orient, where he becomes a woman. Nonplussed, Orlando decides that it is "better to be quit of martial ambition, the love of power, and all other manly desires if so one can more fully enjoy the most exalted raptures known to the human spirit, which are . . . contemplation, solitude, love."
  
  There follows much discussion of gender and gender confusion. Woolf tells us that:
  
  "The difference between the sexes is, happily, one of great profundity. Clothes are but a symbol of something hid deep beneath. It was a change in Orlando herself that dictated her choice of a woman's dress and of a woman's sex. And perhaps in this she was only expressing rather more openly than usual - openness indeed was the soul of her nature - something that happens to most people without being thus plainly expressed. For here again, we come to a dilemma. Different though the sexes are, they intermix. In every human being a vacillation from one sex to the other takes place, and often it is only the clothes that keep the male or female likeness, while underneath the sex is the very opposite of what it is above."
  
  There are many other themes in this imaginary biography which spans centuries. One is comical examination of English society and culture:
  
  "Thus, stealthily, and imperceptibly, none marking the exact day or hour of the change, the constitution of England was altered and nobody knew it. ... The muffin was invented and the crumpet. Coffee supplanted the after-dinner port, and., as coffee led to a drawing-room in which to drink it, and a drawing-room to glass cases, and glass cases to artificial flowers, and artificial flowers to mantelpieces to pianofortes, and pianofortes to drawing-room ballads, and drawing-room ballads (skipping a stage or two) to innumerable little dogs, mats, and antimacassars, the home - which had become extremely important - was completely altered."
  
  This "biography" is also metafiction, and there are several humorous references to the act of writing. In fact, Orlando herself writes prolifically throughout the novel (carrying with her a poem, "The Oak Tree," that must constantly be revised as she changes).and encounters many literary figures, among them the revered Alexander Pope who makes a big impression: " ... `How noble his brow is,' she thought (mistaking a hump on a cushion for Mr. Pope's forehead in the darkness)."
  
  Sometimes I don't get Virginia Woolf, but I was very entertained by this novel.
  
  
• Why I prefer Mrs. Dalloway, and Why You Might Too
  By A1VBUA7K74XVRZ on 2000-03-21
  Orlando is broad and wide (time-wise and subject-wise). It's a costume drama, and although the plot is interesting, I felt like I needed to cross-reference English literary history books while reading. Woolf varies her prose style with the time period, and although the idea is novel and she explores gender questions expertly, I am always more interested in small, emotional stories than sprawling epics.
  
  
• One of the best books I've ever read
  By on 1999-01-06
  *Orlando* is a fabulous woman, man, book, character, everything. Woolf's writing style is exquisite--you will stop and gasp at certain phrases, and even if you have never underlined in a book before, you will in this one. You will fold down its page corners, underline fabulous passages, recommend it to all your friends and put it on your "best books I've ever read list." Orlando spans five centuries or so, hobnobs in high society, with his beloved oak tree, receives jeweled amphibians from her potential suitors, et cetera. All attempts to describe this book must fail. Read it.
  
  
• Very Interesting Person
  By AHITZVJ210C7Z on 2005-05-08
  This novel stabs at society's defining roles of the sexes in a way that is humorous, yet thought provoking as Woolf entertains her readers in this biography of herself. The author begins with her birth in the sixteenth century, and ends in the twentieth century. She starts as a young man and ends up a woman at the end of the novel, she most definitely makes appoint of showing how women have been oppressed throughout the centuries which is not something no one knows, but a good reminder. Throughout the novel, Orlando rarely changes in appearance with an eerie androgynous look as she/he sees monarch's come and go, and changes along with every forthcoming style. Orlando is a fantasy like novel that is gutsy and a creative mockery of Woolf, as she characterizes in depth the roles of the sexes with a wit and humor. I highly recommend this book along with the movie.
  
  
• I enjoyed this book...
  By on 1999-08-24
  I thought Orlando's trip through the ages was wonderful and exciting. I didn't know whether to be happy or sad when she/he finally published and parted with "The Oak Tree"! I'm glad I read this book, and I will certainly read more Woolf.
  
  
• A brilliant introduction to Virginia Woolf
  By on 1998-08-12
  Virginia Woolf is often a difficult author for students to become familiar with. Her _Orlando_, which strikingly defies placement in a single genre, introduces the reader to Miss Woolf's language, her symbols, and the themes common to her many equisite works. However, _Orlando_ is bereft of the beautiful and detailed stories and ideas which enrich her other works, making the novel on the whole a simple enough read for the beginner.

  Compared with the span of her works, _Orlando_ stands out as an original among originals. Nowhere else does Miss Woolf so successfully tell a fabulous tale, and nowhere else does she render concrete locations, times, and events so beautifully.
  
  

• The Old Oak Tree
  By on 1997-05-07
  "Good To Eat" (Woolf 144 ) The Evolution of Meaning as Examined in Orlando
  "Time has passed over me... Nothing is any longer one thing! I take up a handbag and I think of an old bumboat woman frozen in the ice" (305).
  

  Orlando examines how experience creates meaning. It is a discussion of intertextuality where metaphors are created diachronically. Meaning is created, however imperfectly, by the piling up of associations with a particular image. The book illustrates both the creation of imperfect meaning, but also the undeniably human desire to communicate those ideas.

  By repeating images, Orlando supposes, we give them meaning. The oak tree, for example, evolves meaning through time. At the beginning it's just an image: a boy alone on a hilltop contemplating the way that the roots feel. Then Orlando removes it from reality by making it into a poem. He adds things in the margin, reworking, elevating the image until it is not a boy under a tree at all. He takes the real and compounds it until it becomes abstract. When Orlando finally lays down under the tree at the end, having "given birth" to the manuscript, the action has a completely new meaning. It is attached forever to Turkey and gypsies and the whole life that preceded it. It transcends image and object to become allegorical. When Woolf describes it she is not merely describing an image, she is attempting to communicate a life.

  By layering the image in the text, adding meaning on top of meaning, the number of interpretations grows exponentially. The novel would submit that this is the way of language and life. Like metaphors, people are not just as they are at the moment but are also everything and everyone that has preceded. They are the past: the trees that they have sat under and the words that they have spoken. The whole of a person can never be communicated, only approximated in images and metaphors. And yet it's "a curious fact that though human's... have such imperfect means of communication, that they can only say `good to eat' when they mean `beautiful'... they endure ridicule and misunderstanding [rather] than keep any experience to themselves" (144). ORLANDO is, definitively, Good to Eat
  
  

• A Delight from the Belle of Bloomsbury
  By A1S22ZWH01DJFG on 2005-02-28
  Oh, what a romp this is! When Virginia Woolf isn't feeling sorry for herself, she can be a delight. Don't read this book as a treatise on sexual identity or societal roles. Woolf describes the book as a biography, and that's what it is. Orlando makes his (then her) way through the world, trying to make sense of it and, from time to time, trying to fit in. It wreaks havoc with your love life when you don't age over the centuries (just ask Anne Rice's vampires). But it does give you perspective, and that is why we read.
  
  
• There was something in the air
  By A2INX8B6VXUVW6 on 2005-05-21
  This is a comic "biography" about Orlando, who starts off the book as a 16 year old boy in the Elizabethan era, and ends the books as a 36 year old woman in 1928. Oddly, Orlando's long lifespan doesn't seem to stike other characters in the book as unusual, although his/her sex change does come into question (although most people just matter of factly accept it). This is an interesting book that allows Virginia Woolf to make witty observations about English society and the differences between men and women.
  
  
• One of the best and most enjoyable books of the 20th C
  By AS6H78AHJTF38 on 2006-05-17
  Orlando is a gender-bending-twisting-conflating biography in which the eponymous hero begins as an Elizabethan nobleman and ends, over 300 years later, as a liberated woman.
  
  There are many reasons to read a classic work of fiction, but to be totally honest, doing so is not always a purely enjoyable experience. Sometimes it is more like work, worth the effort, but not easy or even totally pleasurable.
  
  This book is simply a gas: a high speed, surrealistic excursion through four centuries of the role of women and men in English society, and Woolf's writing is in turn caustic, brilliant, lyrical, funny, transcendent and astonishing.
  
  If you are going to read one great work of 20th century literature, this should be on your short list.
  
  
• Not just a city in Florida!
  By A2QSSNUGVG5II8 on 2006-06-17
  After that light title for the review, allow me to stress that *Orlando* is one of my favorite, favorite books. I've probably read it 20 times. I'm always astonished again by how much character and life and plot and gorgeous prose that Woolf packed into so few pages.
  
  SUMMARY: Orlando, the title character, begins life as a lad in Elizabethan England in 1588 and ends the book as a woman thirty-six years older in 1928.
  
  Much has been made of the fact that Orlando changes gender and ages magically slowly during the 340 years that the book covers. The effects of the gender switch play beautifully against society and society's changes. Orlando the character is probably based on Vita Sackville-West, Woolf's lesbian lover who cross-dressed, and the gender switch is seen to embody both the masculine and feminine aspects of her. Modernism, the art movement that best characterizes Woolf, is concerned with society and the person's role in it. Woolf managed to play both sides by introducing a character who was both male and female.
  
  All this is true, but I believe that there is another layer to the book beyond mere gender role exploration and modernist games. Orlando is a book about being a reader, about a life spent as a reader. When one reads great literature, one experiences what it is like to be both a man and a woman, to live the span of many lifetimes, to have experiences as varied as traveling to Istanbul by ship and giving birth to a child and hacking at the head of a Moor swinging from the ceiling and being the lover of a queen and being in love with a man. Of course, a writer is a reader moved to emulation, and Orlando is a writer. After centuries of composition (and that's what it feels like sometimes!), *The Oak Tree,* Orlando's epic poem, is finally accepted for publication.
  
  Most of the time, when I read a great book, I understand the mind and the soul of the writer better when I'm done. Reading a book about being a reader may seem a tautology, but in this case, I feel like Virginia Woolf understood *me,* and my life as a reader, almost eighty years after the publication of *Orlando.*
  
  TK Kenyon
  Author of Rabid: A Novel and Callous: A Novel
  
  
• Very funny
  By A1K679M01QIXZZ on 2001-05-17
  This book is magical and absolutely hilarious. Okay, so it takes a certain sense of humor to really enjoy it, but if a satire on writing throughout the ages sounds like fun to you, you'll probably enjoy it. Orlando is more than that though, it really has many levels to it, and it is even more interesting when you read the story behind the story, about Vita and Virginia's love affair. I learned about all that stuff while researching for a 15 page paper on the book. Getting a little to much Orlando due to that paper made me lower my rating from five to four stars. It is fun and liberating. Oh, warning: it has a very odd ending. I'm not sure I'll ever understand it. I read it before I finished the book and thought, oh, It will probably make sense after I've read everything in between. Nope. But it was definitely worth the read.
  
  
• good
  By on 2003-04-08
  very good story, incredible themes.. took a little long to get into..
  
  

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• The Waves (Annotated)
• Between the Acts (Annotated)