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A review by leahtylerthewriter
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
5.0
4.5 stars rounded up for Goodreads
"For what more terrifying revelation can there be than that it is the present moment. That we survive the shock at all is only possible because the past shelters us on one side, the future on another."
A biographer recounts the life of Orlando, a person who is the embodiment of a multitude of fluidities, starting as an English nobleboy in the Elizabthian era and ending as a self-possessed 36-year-old woman following the Victorian age.
In this satirical exploration of a plethora of facets of the human condition, the queen of stream of consciousness has created a stunning piece of literature that is by far my favorite Woolf of all.
Like every other book of hers I have read, I had to read it twice to even begin to comprehend her brilliance. As I digested my second mastication of her words, I realized I had fallen in mad slurping love with Virginia Woolf.
I understand her in a way I never have before. The breadth of her imagination, the complexity of her storytelling, the profound statements she was making about the absurdity, beauty, and subjective nature of reality, it all finally clicked in this absolutely insane 400-year journey about a man who becomes a woman but is not a transgender story at all.
Orlando is not burdened with the constraints of their interior not fitting the exterior of their body. Orlando's transformation is instantaneous and physically complete. A spell. Magic.
Although society's reaction when a person who left as a man returns to England a woman was quite profound, "The chief charges against her were 1) that she was dead and therefore could not hold any property whatsoever 2) that she was a woman which amounts to much the same thing," and exploring this storyline makes up a significant portion of the novel, what Woolf has delivered is a manifestation of the human spirit that transcends time, place, and gender. Orlando truly is a spirit of the age and the encapsulation of this portrayal is one of the more breathtaking analyses of the acute experience of living I have been privy to.
All of that being said, I could not give Orlando a full 5 stars because of the racism. I try to be pragmatic in this area and not hold classical literature up to modern sensibilities but in order to honor the spirit of the age I am living in, it cannot be ignored.
"For what more terrifying revelation can there be than that it is the present moment. That we survive the shock at all is only possible because the past shelters us on one side, the future on another."
A biographer recounts the life of Orlando, a person who is the embodiment of a multitude of fluidities, starting as an English nobleboy in the Elizabthian era and ending as a self-possessed 36-year-old woman following the Victorian age.
In this satirical exploration of a plethora of facets of the human condition, the queen of stream of consciousness has created a stunning piece of literature that is by far my favorite Woolf of all.
Like every other book of hers I have read, I had to read it twice to even begin to comprehend her brilliance. As I digested my second mastication of her words, I realized I had fallen in mad slurping love with Virginia Woolf.
I understand her in a way I never have before. The breadth of her imagination, the complexity of her storytelling, the profound statements she was making about the absurdity, beauty, and subjective nature of reality, it all finally clicked in this absolutely insane 400-year journey about a man who becomes a woman but is not a transgender story at all.
Orlando is not burdened with the constraints of their interior not fitting the exterior of their body. Orlando's transformation is instantaneous and physically complete. A spell. Magic.
Although society's reaction when a person who left as a man returns to England a woman was quite profound, "The chief charges against her were 1) that she was dead and therefore could not hold any property whatsoever 2) that she was a woman which amounts to much the same thing," and exploring this storyline makes up a significant portion of the novel, what Woolf has delivered is a manifestation of the human spirit that transcends time, place, and gender. Orlando truly is a spirit of the age and the encapsulation of this portrayal is one of the more breathtaking analyses of the acute experience of living I have been privy to.
All of that being said, I could not give Orlando a full 5 stars because of the racism. I try to be pragmatic in this area and not hold classical literature up to modern sensibilities but in order to honor the spirit of the age I am living in, it cannot be ignored.