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3.84 AVERAGE
3.84 AVERAGE
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
3,5
I really wanted to love this book, but alas. The concept itself is great, the execution - rather disappointing. The style's very uneven. That being said, it was a breakthrough work for its time and is still worth recommending.
I really wanted to love this book, but alas. The concept itself is great, the execution - rather disappointing. The style's very uneven. That being said, it was a breakthrough work for its time and is still worth recommending.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
“Better is it," she thought, "to be clothed with poverty and ignorance, which are the dark garments of the female sex; better to leave the rule and discipline of the world to others; better be quit of martial ambition, the love of power, and all the other manly desires if so one can more fully enjoy the most exalted raptures known to the humane spirit, which are," she said aloud, as her habit was when deeply moved, "contemplation, solitude, love."
This review is going to be a very unpopular opinion but I really didn’t understand the hype surrounding this book. I was so eager to finally read Orlando after seeing rave reviews but this book honesty put me in a reading slump. There was seemingly no plot and no character development over the course of 400 years. There was a lot of irrelevant characters that made it hard to follow at times and I felt I was reading wordy descriptions of nothing. I can appreciate the non-conforming gender roles/ gender fluidity and actually wish we had a little more insight on the emotions surrounding this change for Orlando. I ended up finishing this on audiobook because I found I couldn’t digest more than a few pages at a time.
This review is going to be a very unpopular opinion but I really didn’t understand the hype surrounding this book. I was so eager to finally read Orlando after seeing rave reviews but this book honesty put me in a reading slump. There was seemingly no plot and no character development over the course of 400 years. There was a lot of irrelevant characters that made it hard to follow at times and I felt I was reading wordy descriptions of nothing. I can appreciate the non-conforming gender roles/ gender fluidity and actually wish we had a little more insight on the emotions surrounding this change for Orlando. I ended up finishing this on audiobook because I found I couldn’t digest more than a few pages at a time.
Delightful! Perhaps a silly word to use, but no other seems to fit just as well.
I dont think I would have finished without this being a bookclub pick. Reading and understanding the conversation around this booknwas really intriguing but I didnt love the book itself. We deemed it a "nonsensical fictional biography" and that perfectly captures it.
challenging
emotional
funny
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I came into this one having seen a play version of the book, and have seen some general discussions online, and so thought I had some handle on what the book was. I should have known better, especially having read some Woolf before. A great deal of the modern focus on the work (or, at least, the modern focus I have seen, fwiw) has been on the feminist and LGBT themes of the work. They are indeed important! And they're described eloquently, woven through the text, and come with all the smart wit and careful insight one would expect from Woolf.
But those themes are part of a larger whole, a larger conversation about identity, the ways that "fact" and "imagination" (by implication, physical and mental reality) interact and change each other, and whether they're a different thing after all. Woolf's book is very in discussion with the philosophy of the time, but makes the arguments all the more strongly for being a novel - the arguments can be made emotionally as much or more than rationally. We're faced with a truth as much as we're brought to it.
I quite enjoyed many of the stylistic flourishes - the slow and subtle shift of writing styles across the ages was well done, up to a very fast transition into the speed-of-consciousness final chapter. The whimsy of many parts of the book was also appreciated, maintaining a light air even as the points being made could hit hard. I did find the story dragged at times, though that's more likely my own sensibility, and there's some casual racism in there, but on the whole, I was very pleasantly surprised.
But those themes are part of a larger whole, a larger conversation about identity, the ways that "fact" and "imagination" (by implication, physical and mental reality) interact and change each other, and whether they're a different thing after all. Woolf's book is very in discussion with the philosophy of the time, but makes the arguments all the more strongly for being a novel - the arguments can be made emotionally as much or more than rationally. We're faced with a truth as much as we're brought to it.
I quite enjoyed many of the stylistic flourishes - the slow and subtle shift of writing styles across the ages was well done, up to a very fast transition into the speed-of-consciousness final chapter. The whimsy of many parts of the book was also appreciated, maintaining a light air even as the points being made could hit hard. I did find the story dragged at times, though that's more likely my own sensibility, and there's some casual racism in there, but on the whole, I was very pleasantly surprised.