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A review by emilyinherhead
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
funny
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Reading Virginia Woolf always requires a mental shift for me—her writing is incredibly witty and perceptive, but it demands slow consideration, and I sometimes forget that. Orlando was no exception.
The titular main character begins the story as a young man, and then something happens partway through that causes him to fall asleep for a full week, realizing when she awakens that she is now a woman. This is the sort of plot point that I could imagine going badly if mishandled, in the wacky, “I still have a man’s brain but I’m stuck in a woman’s body!” way of a problematic comedy film, but that is absolutely not the case here. Orlando retains her mind, her memories, and her self. She remembers what it was like to exist as a man in the world, but she also fully inhabits womanhood after her transition.
The titular main character begins the story as a young man, and then something happens partway through that causes him to fall asleep for a full week, realizing when she awakens that she is now a woman. This is the sort of plot point that I could imagine going badly if mishandled, in the wacky, “I still have a man’s brain but I’m stuck in a woman’s body!” way of a problematic comedy film, but that is absolutely not the case here. Orlando retains her mind, her memories, and her self. She remembers what it was like to exist as a man in the world, but she also fully inhabits womanhood after her transition.
Meanwhile, she began […] thinking as she read, how very little she had changed all these years. She had been a gloomy boy, in love with death, as boys are; and then she had been amorous and florid; and then she had been sprightly and satirical; and sometimes she had tried prose and sometimes she had tried drama. Yet through all these changes she had remained, she reflected, fundamentally the same. She had the same brooding, meditative temper, the same love of animals and nature, the same passion for hte country and the seasons. (140)
She does a lot of thinking about what gender means in her society and what options are now available to her that weren’t before, and vice versa. And she doesn’t feel disappointed or threatened in any way by the change her body undergoes, which I appreciated; she’s purely curious. I’m impressed at and appreciative of how thoughtfully Woolf treated these concepts, especially considering that this book was published almost one hundred years ago.
Oh gosh, and I haven’t even mentioned the time element of the novel. Orlando is not immortal, but her existence spans several hundred years! She witnesses multiple different monarchies and many changes in England’s physical and metaphorical landscape, and she occasionally crosses paths with old friends or lovers who have aged noticeably since their last encounter. This is never really explained, but it’s a fun detail that provides Orlando a lot of material for her ponderings (of which there are many).
Orlando had so ordered it that she was in an extremely happy position; she need neither fight her age, nor submit to it; she was of it, yet remained herself. Now, therefore, she could write, and write she did. She wrote. She wrote. She wrote. (159)
[Content warning note: there are a couple of sudden, casual instances of racism and/or a racial slur, the most notable one toward the beginning, and one or two others closer to the end. They are moreso reflective of the prevailing attitudes of the time and less about a specific character behaving in a racist way, but they were still pretty jarring to me. Racism is not a prevalent theme of the book overall. Just FYI.]