A review by savaging
Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf

2.0

"she will soon give over this pretence of writing and thinking and begin to think, at least of a gamekeeper (and as long as she thinks of a man, nobody objects to a woman thinking). And then she will write him a little note (and as long as she writes little notes nobody objects to a woman writing either)"

There were moments of brilliance in this book -- especially once Orlando becomes a woman and exchanges her outer life for an inner one. So that instead of grandiose events and titles Orlando is dwelling on this sort of thing:

“A toy boat, a toy boat, a toy boat,” she repeated, thus enforcing upon herself the fact that it is not articles by Nick Greene on John Donne nor eight-hour bills nor covenants nor factory acts that matter; it’s something useless, sudden, violent; something that costs a life; red, blue, purple; a spirt; a splash; like those hyacinths (she was passing a fine bed of them); free from taint, dependence, soilure of humanity or care for one’s kind; something rash, ridiculous . . .

This intricate internality is Woolf's wheelhouse. It's the reason I fell in love with her work to begin with. Unfortunately, the racism of this book is unforgivable, and probably the classism as well. And none of it is helped by the tedium of the first half of the book.