Orlando (Penguin Modern Classics)
Reviews
Such a breath of fresh air. Incredibly witty and original. The most beautiful love letter I've ever read.
"But the truth is that when we write of a woman, everything is out of place."
there has to be something i didnt understand
weird good weird. felt like woolf was beating me over the head with the gender-bending thing. imn it's a worthy pursuit the exploration of identity but the narrative felt heavy-handed. overarching maybe. will reread.
This is not my first time reading this book, but every time I do, I'm reminded of how much I love it.
Woolf was far ahead of her time, writing about complex women's, queer, and political issues. I think the beauty of her books is particularly in the language she uses. It's deep and meaningful but funny, as well. Orlando takes on a mischievous air and the statire in the narration is really comical. I like how one moment you go from laughing at a quip from the narrator one moment to contemplating the meaning of life in the next.
For a week, the life and times or Orlando was my background. I listened while painting, while doing chores, while working on puzzles before bed. Most of that week was spent slogging through the early eras of Orlando's life — the time as a boy and as a young man of means. Things turned around for me in the chapter where Orlando is transformed from man to woman during a lengthy coma. While this transformation scene is the first overtly magical one in the novel, there's already a hint that things aren't right. Orlando's early adulthood — late twenties, and early thirties — take way more years than what he ages. http://pussreboots.com/blog/2022/comm... Privileged Uhoria Labyrinth 00CC99
Happened to me once
Ahead of its time!! I was imagining Vita Sackville-West reading this and it was so cute I love it
"feminist"/love story version of parody books like crying of lot 49..
i’m not a huge fan of the project woolf undertakes with this (especially compared to her fascinating, realistic personal dramas which are right up my alley), but woolf’s wit and grace are undeniable—even here. there are more than a dozen passages of perfection here. by no means /the/ woolf, but really proves just how strong she is.
It’s a goose!
One day I’ll unpack the whole “I’ve become a woman and can love women deeper than a man ever could” concept for myself
To be honest I'm not sure if I fully understand the message of the book... Quite sure I didn't, but it was nice, I enjoyed it.
This is 327 pages of description and not a single paragraph of plot. There is nothing that happens, and when it seems like the author might be about to make something happen (for example, when Orlando joins a tribe of gypsies) it gets lost in a fog of inner dialogue and grand description, and suddenly the reader finds that whatever might have happened is over without ever materializing. Also, two of the more intriguing promises on the back cover - that Orlando goes from man to woman and lives for 300 years - are not addressed satisfactorily, if at all. The gender change occurs in some mystical fashion that involves Truth and Chastity, and while the change occupies a great deal of the rest of the book the how-and-why is never addressed at all. The longevity issue is only directly mentioned in the following way: a bunch of blah blah blah about a poem she's been working on, then the sentences "She turned back to the first page and read the date, 1586, written in her own boyish hand. She had been working at it for close on three hundred years now", and then moving on to the changes she made in the poem. That's it! The author seems to have thrown in sex changes and immortality just for the hell of it, and in no way attempts to give context or understanding to the reader. Lots of boring descriptions about London, yes. Plot or coherent use of literary devices, no.
I really enjoyed this. I struggle with Woolf's style of writing so it took me a while to read through, but I did get a pretty good sense of the story.
I think a read through in future I'd necessary for me because I know I missed things. That being said, the prose writing throughout was amazing and I loved all the references and reflections on nature, I empathized with Orlando the most about this
Padli.mi.gate.
6 January 2011 Dear Michael, I hope you don't forget about me when school starts again. You shan't? Right? Love, Goodreads 6th February 2011 Dear Michael, Ummmm..................hello? Sincerely, Goodreads 22 February 2011 Michael, WTF, douchebag? Sincerely, Goodreads 2 March 2011 Dearest Goodreads, I have missed our long strolls down the avenues, discussing good books and laughing, the gondola rides, walking down the beach, 69'ing in the back of the church, and all that other romantic stuff we've done over the years. But, you should see the way they're treating me at this school! I'm, at present, chained up in a dungeon where I'm forced to read about sustainability, social media, and composition theory for hours on end. No matter how much I beg and I plead, they make me research communities in World of Warcraft and Second Life by playing these 'games.' It's oh-so-very hard. Okay, so it's mostly fun. But, it's very time consuming. I haven't forgotten you, nor have I forgotten the way you taught me to spend forever reviewing a book while barely talking about the book--or even books in general. Or, the way you supported my addiction to crab-related horror novels. (By the way, those crab books STILL aren't in the mail, but I'm getting there.) I remember all the good times we've had, goodreads. And, I especially want to thank you for convincing me to give Virginia Woolf another chance. When I give a five-star rating to more than one book by the same author, I start wondering if I should demote all but my favorite. Clearly, they can't be entirely equal books. But, Mrs. Dalloway was amazing in its own way. I would definitely recommend Orlando as a more necessary read, though. This is such a strange, dynamic, HILARIOUS book...in very brief form, this is the story of a young man growing up to be a young woman, and doing so over several hundred years. It's magical realism way before Marquez, and it's full of beautiful writing that constantly surprises you. The tone is much more playful than anything else I've read by Woolf (he says knowingly, with two other Woolf novels on his shelves). But, like David Bowie in spandex pants, there's clearly something substantial and weighty under the surface. This book, like other works by Woolf, deals with some major issues of sexism and gender. I would elaborate on that, but I haven't had my coffee yet. The final off-topic point I want to bring up is this: Oh, and one other very important thing: Love, Michael
“Proklet bio”, rekao je, “ako ikada više napišem još jednu reč ili pokušam da napišem i jednu reč, da zadovoljim Nika Grina ili Muzu. Loše, dobro ili ravnodušno, od danas pa nadalje, ja ću pisati da zadovoljim sebe”.
So I actually really liked the plot of this book, you never really could foresee what would happen next. The only reason I put 1 star is because at some points of the book it would be really slow. I absolutely loved Orlando as a character and his character evolvement throughout the book. Overall it was definitely a worthy read and the writing was just absolutely stunning. Unfortunately I really believe that the flow of the book really made it a bit dull to me.
I made a video reviewing and discussing this book :)
This had all the gay pining, nature-craved non binary dreaminess, femme flamboyance, waterfalls of existential crisis and general jabs at the White male lens of literature that I wanted and so I, too, sigh and toss myself onto my cushion-lodged chaise lounge, wrist to forehead, and go on wishing to have half of Orlando's charm and camp
** spoiler alert ** Kleine Spoiler Alert: Wat een onwijs bijzondere ervaring om dit boek te lezen. Lang geleden om een boek te lezen met een oude schrijf stijl. Na de eerste 30 pagina’s niet precies te weten wat ik nou aan het lezen was en waar ik was in het verhaal zat ik er ‘pats, boem’ helemaal in. En bleef daar gelukkig ook. “Hij noemde haar meloen, ananas, olijfboom, smaragd, vos in de sneeuw en dit alles binnen 3 seconden. Hij had haar gehoord, gezien, geproefd of alle drie tegelijk. Hij kon het niet met zekerheid zeggen” .. dit vind ik prachtig.. Virginia wisselt af tussen mooie lange poëtische zinnen, stopt dan ineens en neemt onverwachte afslagen in het verhaal. Laat soms hele delen informatie weg om daar vervolgens een gevatte opmerking te maken of een grappige verklaring voor te geven. Vaak gelachen op deze momenten. Verder waanzinnig om te lezen hoe Virginia over gender dacht/schreef. Ik zou willen zeggen ver voor haar tijd uit maar eigenlijk ben ik alleen maar verbaast dat het meerendeel er niet zo over dacht, en liep de rest dus achter ;). “Orlando was een vrouw geworden – dat valt niet te ontkennen. Maar in elk ander opzicht bleef Orlando precies wie hij altijd was. Deze geslachtsverandering wijzigde weliswaar de hem en haar beschoren toekomst maar in geen enkel opzicht hun beider identiteit. De twee gezichten waren, zoals de schilderijen uitwijzen, vrijwel aan elkaar gelijk. In zijn herinnering - maar voortaan moeten wij, zoals de conventie dit voorschrijft, wel ‘haar’ zeggen in plaats van ‘zijn’ en ‘zij’ in plaats van ‘hij’.” En dit is geschreven in 1928. Top! Orlando was voor mij een reis door de tijd en een boek dat speelt met de regels! (Erg fijn om het boek te lezen met soundtracks van o.a. The crown op de achtergrond.)
Weird AF. In a good way. In Orlando beschrijft een biograaf het over vier eeuwen uitgesmeerde leven van de persoon Orlando, die halverwege zijn/haar leven een transitie maakt van man naar vrouw. Uitgegeven in 1928, wat uiteraard te merken is aan het ouderwetse taalgebruik. Maar tegelijk zo verfrissend als het gaat om Woolf haar kijk op gender, de positie van de vrouw, de moderne tijd etc. Soms prachtig poëtisch, soms onbegrijpelijk (poëtisch), dan weer simpel en droogkomisch geschreven.
Makes me want to rewatch the movie, as the poetic nature of this story is very visual. Really enjoyed this audiobook version with its classical music interludes.
Oltre, ovviamente, al libro magnifico, consiglio a tutt* di leggere la Postfazione di Silvia Rota Sperti dell’edizione di Feltrinelli 2021. Postfazione che fa riferimento al dibattito italiano riguardo al concetto di identità e di genere, trattando uno dei temi più importanti di “Orlando”. Quest’opera non è solo frizzante e vivace, ma è fortemente impegnata politicamente e socialmente. Ai miei occhi è un importante manifesto di critica sociale.
Highlights
And indeed, it cannot be denied that the most successful practicioners of the art of life, often unknown people by the way, somehow contrive to synchronize the sixty or seventy different times which beat simultaneously in every normal human system [...].
Of them we can justly say that they live precisely the sixty-eight or seventy-two years allotted them on the tombstone. Of the rest some we know to be dead though they walk among us; some are not yet born though they go through the forms of life; others are hundreds of years old though they call themselves thirty-six.
‘And what’s the point of it?’ he would ask himself. ‘Why not say simply in so many words—’ and then he would try to think for half an hour,—or was it two years and a half?—how to say simply in so many words what love is. ‘A figure like that is manifestly untruthful,’ he argued, ‘for no dragon–fly, unless under very exceptional circumstances, could live at the bottom of the sea. And if literature is not the Bride and Bedfellow of Truth, what is she?
Altogether, the task of estimating the length of human life (of the animals’ we presume not to speak) is beyond our capacity, for directly we say that it is ages long, we are reminded that it is briefer than the fall of a rose leaf to the ground. Of the two forces which alternately, and what is more confusing still, at the same moment, dominate our unfortunate numbskulls—brevity and diuturnity
but probably the reader can imagine the passage which should follow and how every tree and plant in the neighbourhood is described first green, then golden; how moons rise and suns set; how spring follows winter and autumn summer; how night succeeds day and day night; how there is first a storm and then fine weather; how things remain much as they are for two or three hundred years or so, except for a little dust and a few cobwebs which one old woman can sweep up in half an hour; a conclusion which, one cannot help feeling, might have been reached more quickly by the simple statement that ‘Time passed’ (here the exact amount could be indicated in brackets) and nothing whatever happened.
But Time, unfortunately, though it makes animals and vegetables bloom and fade with amazing punctuality, has no such simple effect upon the mind of man. The mind of man, moreover, works with equal strangeness upon the body of time. An hour, once it lodges in the queer element of the human spirit, may be stretched to fifty or a hundred times its clock length; on the other hand, an hour may be accurately represented on the timepiece of the mind by one second. This extraordinary discrepancy between time on the clock and time in the mind is less known than it should be and deserves fuller investigation.
Ruin and death, he thought, cover all. The life of man ends in the grave. Worms devour us.
For the philosopher is right who says that nothing thicker than a knife’s blade separates happiness from melancholy; and he goes on to opine that one is twin fellow to the other; and draws from this the conclusion that all extremes of feeling are allied to madness.
The age was the Elizabethan; their morals were not ours; nor their poets; nor their climate; nor their vegetables even. Everything was different.
Translating this to the spiritual regions as their wont is, the poets sang beautifully how roses fade and petals fall. The moment is brief they sang; the moment is over; one long night is then to be slept by all. As for using the artifices of the greenhouse or conservatory to prolong or preserve these fresh pinks and roses, that was not their way.
The withered intricacies and ambiguities of our more gradual and doubtful age were unknown to them. Violence was all. The flower bloomed and faded. The sun rose and sank. The lover loved and went. And what the poets said in rhyme, the young translated into practice. Girls were roses, and their seasons were short as the flowers’. Plucked they must be before night- fall; for the day was brief and the day was all
Was this a poet? Was he writing poetry? ‘Tell me’, he wanted to say, ‘everything in the whole world’—for he had the wildest, most absurd, extravagant ideas about poets and poetry—but how speak to a man who does not see you? who sees ogres, satyrs, perhaps the depths of the sea instead?
Green in nature is one thing, green in literature another. Nature and letters seem to have a natural antipathy; bring them together and they tear each other to pieces.
Never need she vex herself, nor he invoke the help of novelist or poet. From deed to deed, from glory to glory, from office to office he must go, his scribe following after, till they reach whatever seat it may be that is the height of their desire.
wtf this is the most beautiful text ive ever seen of being called “theyre beautiful”
'I will write,' she had said, 'what I enjoy writing'; and so had scratched out twenty-six volumes. Yet still, for all her travels and adventures and profound thinking and turnings this way and that, she was only in process of fabrication. What the future might bring, Heaven only knew. Change was incessant, and change perhaps would never cease.
A silly song of Shakespeare's has done more for the poor and the wicked than all the preachers and philanthropists in the world.
Memory is a seamstress, and a capricious one at that. Memory runs her needle in and out, up and down, hither and tither. We know not what comes next, or what follows after. Thus, the most ordinary movement in the world, such as sitting down at a table and pulling the instant towards one, may agitate a thousand odd, disconnected fragments
Has the finger of death to be laid on the tumult of life from time to time lest it rend us asunder?
Life seemed to him of prodigious length. Yet even so. it went like a flash
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 and the future on another.
Night had come—night that she loved of all times, night in which the reflections in the dark pool of the mind shine more clearly than by day.
therefore, society is everything and society is nothing. Society is the most powerful concoction in the world and society has no existence whatsoever
Illusions are to the soul what atmosphere is to the earth.
By the truth we are undone. Life is a dream. 'Tis the waking that kills us. He who robs us of our dreams robs us of our life.
No passion is stronger in the breast of a man than the desire to make others believe as he believes. Nothing so cuts at the root of his happiness and fills him with rage as the sense that another rates low what he prizes high.
As long as she thinks of a man, nobody objects to a woman thinking.
He loved, beneath all this summer transiency, to feel the earth's spine beneath him; for such he took the hard root of the oak tree to be;