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A review by francescazksxmc
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
5.0
Let him leave books, they said, to the palsied or the dying. But worse was to come. For once the disease of reading has laid hold upon the system it weakens it so that it falls an easy prey to that other scourge which dwells in the inkpot and festers in the quill. The wretch takes to writing.
"Orlando" may have just changed the way I think about the novel form and the way a writer might manipulate time and social construct and tradition to their favour. Woolf, writing with beautiful and measured prose, weaves Vita Sackville-West (Orlando's inspiration) into a satirical timeline of English literature and literary tradition, moulding Orlando to suit every period they live through, but being sure to never let them feel entirely at peace.
For she had a great variety of selves to call upon, far more that we have been able to find room for, since a biography is considered complete if it merely accounts for six or seven selves, whereas a person may well have as many thousand.
This novel is a study of identity: of gender, of literature, of tradition, of sexuality, change, perception, expression, prejudice, the written word, culture wars, romance, and expectation.
"Orlando" may have just changed the way I think about the novel form and the way a writer might manipulate time and social construct and tradition to their favour. Woolf, writing with beautiful and measured prose, weaves Vita Sackville-West (Orlando's inspiration) into a satirical timeline of English literature and literary tradition, moulding Orlando to suit every period they live through, but being sure to never let them feel entirely at peace.
For she had a great variety of selves to call upon, far more that we have been able to find room for, since a biography is considered complete if it merely accounts for six or seven selves, whereas a person may well have as many thousand.
This novel is a study of identity: of gender, of literature, of tradition, of sexuality, change, perception, expression, prejudice, the written word, culture wars, romance, and expectation.