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    Orlando: A Biography
    Orlando: A Biography
    Orlando: A Biography
    Ebook414 pages9 hours

    Orlando: A Biography

    By Virginia Woolf, Mark Hussey and Maria DiBattista

    3.5/5

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    An annotated edition of “Woolf’s most intense work,” a fantastical biography that spans from the court of Elizabeth I to the year 1928 (Jorge Luis Borges).

    Begun as a “joke,” Orlando is Virginia Woolf’s fantastical biography of a poet who first appears as a sixteen-year-old boy at the court of Elizabeth I, and is left at the novel’s end a married woman in the year 1928. From Orlando’s early days as a page in the Elizabethan court, through first love, heartbreak, and gender transformation, we follow Woolf’s protagonist across centuries, through adventures in Constantinople and friendship with the poet Alexander Pope. All along, Orlando pursues literary success with her long poem, The Oak Tree.
     
    Part love letter to Vita Sackville-West, part exploration of the art of biography, Orlando is one of Woolf’s most enduringly popular and entertaining works. It has inspired a number of adaptions, including a film version starring Tilda Swinton. This edition, annotated and with an introduction by Maria DiBattista, author of Imagining Virginia Woolf, will deepen readers’ understanding of Woolf’s brilliant creation.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateJul 3, 2006
    ISBN9780547543161
    Author

    Virginia Woolf

    VIRGINIA WOOLF (1882–1941) was one of the major literary figures of the twentieth century. An admired literary critic, she authored many essays, letters, journals, and short stories in addition to her groundbreaking novels, including Mrs. Dalloway, To The Lighthouse, and Orlando.

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    Reviews for Orlando

    3.5/5

    23 ratings74 reviews

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    • 2/5
      A surreal novel, unmoored from conventional time framework, centred on an immortal, sometimes male and sometimes female. Woolf was a highly skilled writer, and though the work is sometimes entertaining, overall, I found this exercise dull.
    • 2/5
      If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.Biological Constructs: "Orlando" by Virginia Woolf(Original Review, 2002-06-18)I’m probably in a minority, but I find Woolf hugely overrated. A snob in the way that Wilde was a snob before her, sucking up to the wealthy and titled and, like Wilde, happy to be unfaithful if it ingratiated her with the gentry. People go on about ‘a room of one’s own’ but have they read the whole piece? She thought only a few superior personages should be allowed to write, and then only for a select audience.
    • 1/5
      Not what I like about VW's writing. Didn't finish.
    • 4/5
      It's crazy. In a good way.
    • 2/5
      I finished Orlando a couple of days ago. It was not really my thing. I understand that it started as a joke, but (even though I sorta know what she was making fun of) it just wasn't funny to me. I'm sure Virginia Woolf had a hoot writing it, though, so I'm happy for her.

      Towards the middle, the "biographer's" voice started sounding very much like the "lecturer's" voice in A Room of One's Own. In fact, I was surprised at the similarity in tonality between the two works. It had that same quality of breaking the third wall, of creating a make-believe scenario that was obviously not true (i.e. written to illustrate a point), and also of that slightly didactic "here's what I want to say on the topic of the sexes" which I didn't mind as much in AROOO since it was an essay afterall.

      Anyway, if you (like me) loved Mrs. Dalloway and her other Dalloway-like works, then don't read this expecting more of the same. You may love it or you may hate it. If you hated Mrs. Dalloway and her other Dalloway-like works, then definitely give this a chance. This may be your thing.
    • 4/5
      What with the crowd, what with the Duke, what with the jewel, she drove home in the vilest temper imaginable. Was it impossible then to go for a walk without being half-suffocated, presented with a toad set in emeralds, and asked in marriage by an Archduke?Orlando is written in the form of a biography rather than a novel, with Virginia Woolf as the very present biographer, discussing her choice of words and the biographer's role, while relating the life of her protean and strangely long-lived subject.I won this book in a competition on the BBCi Arts web-site in 2002. I have been putting off reading it because, out of Virginia Woolf's novels I've only read "Mrs Dalloway" and part of "To the Lighthouse" and struggled with both. I did however enjoy the film version of "Orlando" starring Tilda Swinton, so when I gave myself a 'read it or get rid of it' ultimatum, I decided to give it a go and surprised myself by enjoying it quite a lot!
    • 4/5
      This is an odd book by any stretch of the imagination.
    • 3/5
      Another classic I had to read for a research project. And I liked it even less than I thought I would. I have no idea why the "experts" rave about this so much... as a lesbian love letter to someone "in the know" (i.e. they have a clue what Woolf was going on about) maybe it is okay. But as a story?? not so much... there is no plot and no suspense... Basically it is a biography of a woman who pretends to be a man so she can have sex with women (and some transgender theorists claim she was transgendered but I didn't see this, I just saw a lesbian trying to live as a man in a world that didn't allow lesbians) and writes page after page about their clothing, their culture, their houses, their roads, their scenery.... ad nauseam.Again, I tried to read this in text form but the paragraphs are very very long and it was hard to keep my place without my eyes glazing over in boredom, so I got it in audio... which was better, only because my eyes no longer hurt.
    • 3/5
      I'm not sure what to make of this. As a novel, far too many things are left hanging or unexplained. How come Orlando can live for 400 years and be 36 being just one... As a thought provoking piece of writing, however, it asks a lot of questions that are not uncontroversial now, so goodness only knows what it was like when it was published. On the face of it, Orlando is a biography of the titular character, an Elizabethan Nobleman who has too much time on his hands and a penchant for poetry. He goes to Constantinople as ambassador and comes back transformed into a woman. From that point, the love of literature persists, although the adjustment to life as a woman takes some time. The questions raised are about who we are, the face we present to the world. Orlando starts as a man, ends as a woman, and so has a lot of adjusting to do, in terms of what is expected of her now in her thought, speech, dress and behaviour. Why do we expect, even now, women and men to act differently in the same situations? Then there are questions about conformity, Orlando feels obliged to conform to the times she lives in, but how to do that while remaining true to herself. Some people are of their time, others appear to be ahead or living in the past. They're all equally valuable, should they conform and change their thinking to accommodate their times? There's a lot of what might be described as the thought police
    • 4/5
      I read this one not knowing exactly what it was about - and I find a very funny, well written, Satire-ish book on what it means to be man or a woman in the British England. First - this is a book you have to read carefully. Orlando doesn't age like a regular person, so years pass, societal beliefs, and general culture change in a blink of an eye. But, it is written in an easy style, with a light touch that makes it a very accessible book. It's a completely different style than Virginia Woolf's other books (Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, etc.)Ms. Woolf has a way of writing that manages to capture the absurdity of culture's expectation of both being Male and being Female. Orlando, being both at different times, shows just how limiting both are sexes are. Its also a critique of Victorian England and how stifling it is to women.
    • 3/5
      Surreal and eclectic. As a piece of allegory, this was an interesting book. A bit long-winded in places but still mostly entertaining.
    • 5/5
      Magical realism saved Orlando from being targeted for obscenity. A delicious tale of a writer's growth into herself, and out of himself. The biographer's commentary is often hilarious, and do pay special attention to the cross-dressing section for hints of the "obscene" according to Lord Campbell's Act of 1857. It isn't there, but it is there.
    • 5/5
      Loads of fun, effortless prose, and one hell of a love note. Not your usual Woolf!
    • 1/5
      Possibly one of the strangest novels I've ever read. So... flexible (for lack of a better term) in time and gender, not to mention the legality of identity. I finished it thinking how the story worked which was amazing because logically it doesn't work what so ever.
    • 5/5
      This book is one of a kind; I have heard people condemn the book vehemently but I myself enjoyed it tremendously.The key to enjoying the book is to recognize the humour; I've laughed out loud at many of the passages. If the humour is not the kind you appreciate or even recognize you will surely dislike the book as much as I like it.The lengthy paragraphs are a deliberate device of the author. It is an intriguing introduction to English literature; I found myself a good deal more interested in the Augustan poets after I finished the book.
    • 4/5
      I struggled with this. I always expect to love Virginia Woolf's novels but the stream of consciousness style is a bit of a chore for me, ashamed as I am to admit it. There were a lot of in-jokes in this and I felt a very strong sense of nudging or smirking from the author, which I tired of. It seems like she wrote it for her inner circle and I consequently felt excluded from full enjoyment of it. That said, it is a cleverly crafted farce with exploration of gender roles which would have been ground-breaking at the time.
    • 4/5
      Everyone in our book circle agreed that this was a funny book, not what you would expect from Woolf, but it is after all a gloss on Vita Sackville-West and Woolf's complicated relationship with her. What is impressive: Well, for one, the brilliant evocation of such different times across the four and a half centuries of Orlando's existence. As Karenmarie mentioned, the evocation of a frozen Thames and the celebrations on the ice, and then the breakup and disaster that came after, are beautifully realized. And this continues through the coming times, in England and in Constantinople and in the gypsy camp. Then there are the changing attitudes toward women in society that Orlando lives through and adjusts to. And there are the sly sideswipes and writers past and present, which in some cases were laugh-out-loud funny.My edition had notes in the back to help readers who don't know the historical references. Sometimes they were a bit overdone, but often helpful.Sometimes it feels a bit like an adult fairy tale, or a fantasy adventure. Sackville-West's life has something to do with that, but to read this only as a roman-a-clef would do it an injustice. So much daring in Woolf's time and before had to do with breaking conventions that deserved to be broken, it's hardly avoidable to see this as a social commentary as well as a romp.
    • 3/5
      Woolf presents a satirical biography of Orlando, a young man who lives for over 300 years and has a mysterious transformation into being a women along the way. It's never clear how it is Orlando is able to gain this immortality (perhaps his obsession with thought, words, poetry?) or how it is that Orlando becomes a woman, which worked for the way the story unfolded. I really wanted to be charmed by this, as I had been with other books by Woolf, but whereas the vibrancy of language and compactness of the stories in both To the Lighthouse and Mrs. Dalloway delighted me, Orlando failed to hold my attention. Also, I was deeply bothered the racism within the book, particularly the opening scene (in which Orlando toys with the head of a nameless dead Moor), but also by the Orientalism in the scenes in Turkey and the portrayal of the "gipsies." The fact that the story was "of it's time" is not enough to shake the unsettled feeling from me.
    • 2/5
      about a person that changes genders and lives over several centuries
    • 5/5
      A fantastic novel in which a young courtier from the time of Elizabeth magically lives for four centuries without aging, even more magically changing sex from man to woman halfway through. This humorous book satirizes the politics of all the eras Orlando lives through, and more so challenges the gender roles across time. Very different from any other Woolf novel I've read. Sally Potter made an excellent film based on the novel staring Tilda Swinton as Orlando, but definitely read the book first.
    • 5/5
      This is a glorious explosion of a book and I loved every sentence of it.
    • 4/5
      strange book, at times especially in the first half, very thoughtful. the character goes from being a man to a woman very interesting way of exploring gender roles. at times the novel was funny. the last part seemed to go on forever, it lost my interest. but I do want to see the movie!
    • 5/5
      Just an outright joy of writing read of a novel that plays with time and love. It can be read as something resembling fantasy/science fiction - it can also serve as a nice break from her more challenging books.
    • 5/5
      A quote from one of my favorite Woolf novels and one of my favorite books of all time:"Different though the sexes are, the 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 is above."
    • 3/5
      Vreemde pseudobiografie van personage dat door de eeuwen heen van geslacht veranderd. Mijmering over de vrouwelijke (en menselijke) conditie. Fascinerend en wervelend geschreven, maar niet helemaal my cup of tea.
    • 4/5
      This was the first novel by Woolf that I read, and her masterful skill with words held my attention, which is impressive, considering that the plot of this story begins with Orlando, a young boy, and ends hundreds of years later with Orlando, a mature woman. Orlando, the same person. Woolf offers no apologies for the passage of years, and only a very funny "explanation" of how Orlando changes gender midlife. The book claims to be a biography, and this tongue-in-cheek premise sets the stage for the droll humor that permeates the rest of the novel. Yet the novel manages to be profound and dramatic within this construct.Nevertheless, Woolf's language play is even more incredible than the storyline. She creates metaphors that are poetry in prose, and her creative use of lists is another strong technique. She also uses some very clever allusions. I love the characters Purity, Temperance, and Chastity, who physically make an appearance when Orlando changes gender and try to cover her, while cleverly providing a reason for Woolf not to describe how the miracle takes place. Her writing is lyrical.I read this book twice. First, just because I wanted to, and the second time for a group read. I'm very glad that I read it a second time. The first time, I was captivated by her use of words, but the story lost me several times, and I put it down frequently. The second time, already knowing what to expect plot wise, I was able to appreciate the craft of the novel, and at the same time, understand the story and characters more deeply and stay focused. This book has a lot to offer. Orlando's life spans several ages of London life, from Queen Elizabeth, through James and Victoria, and through the eyes of her main character, Woolf offers interesting criticism of each. Her perspective on gender is another central theme, which she can explore from two angles, thanks to her character's unique personality. Not content with those broad motifs, Woolf further ponders the themes of love and life. With her language, intriguing characters, and complex themes and metaphors, this story is well worth a read, and then another, to fully appreciate this work from Virginia Woolf.
    • 5/5
      I didn't realize that novels written in the twenties were allowed to be this fun. Instead of being a long, pretentious in-joke as I'd feared (it's adapted from Vita Sackville-West's biography), it's part decadent fairy tale and part meditation on the history of English culture and literature. And 100% awesome, which is what's important. Every sentence is crazily beautiful and perfectly formed.

      I think it's really much more of a love letter to England than VSW, or maybe to England as it was personified in VSW.
    • 5/5
      A brilliant, entertaining, disturbing text. One of my favorite examples of magical realism.
    • 4/5
      I'll say it again, Virginia Woolf is really underrated. Though by the time Virginia had begun to write, there was a growing number of female writers, it is fair to say at that time that it was a field still largely dominated by men and male examples. Virginia speaks about that in the essay that is A Room of One's Own but this is a fictional piece instead. I think it might be fair to say it's a daring piece of writing done by a woman at this time, for its premise is to follow the life of Orlando (in Elizabethan times) as he transforms from male to female. It brings to mind all kinds of questions about gender identity and androgyny not typically associated with that time period or writing of the time done by women. I was told in university that Thomas Pynchon is the grandfather of experimental fiction. If that's true, then perhaps Virginia is the great grandmother.
    • 5/5
      Nigel Nicolson, filho de Vita Sackville-West, escreveu "The effect of Vita on Virginia is all contained in Orlando, the longest and most charming love letter in literature, in which she explores Vita, weaves her in and out of the centuries, tosses her from one sex to the other, plays with her, dresses her in furs, lace and emeralds, teases her, flirts with her, drops a veil of mist around her".

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