Orlando (1928) by Virginia Woolf is an amazing read.
The plot follows protagonist Orlando and is set in England in the period of Elizabeth I’s reign. Orlando is a transgender woman who transitions at 30. She goes on to live for 300 years. She is an avid writer and dedicates much of her life to writing and learning her craft especially in her writing of her poem The Oak Tree. She has numerous relationships over the course of her long life with both men and women including a princess Sasha who cheats on her with a seaman, Marmaduke Bonthrop Shelmerdine who proposes marriage to her but chooses his career over her love and Archduke Harry who she goes to great lengths to be rid of. The book includes Alexander Pope who Orlando has a romantic moment with.
The character of Orlando was based on Woolf’s girlfriend and afterwards friend Vita Sackville-West. You could tell from reading about this book that Woolf really enjoyed writing this book and that came across in the writing. I liked Orlando. She had her classist ways but there was so much very likeable about her. I also was very fond of Archduke Harry but it wasn’t and never was going to be between them! We get to really know Orlando and though the book has not too many major plot lines, what we get is a look at the mundane of life and the hopes and dreams of life and the moments of significance in the middle of it all. It is a very character-driven book and Woolf does a great job of putting across Orlando’s character in all her various aspects from thinking to acting, etc …
I think the way the different ways in which Orlando is treated when the world thinks of her as a man as opposed to when they think of her as a woman is very well put across. I also love that this book was written in 1928 showing that in so many ways Woolf was very much ahead of her time. I love that she had the guts to write a book like this in that time.
There is issues with the book however. While Woolf is very forward-thinking in so much of this book, she certainly wasn’t in some ways. There is some glaring racist slurs used as well as another discriminatory slur used for the Romani people. These are obviously problematic elements which readers would need to know are there before reading this book.
There is unfortunately issues like I said in the previous paragraph and I seriously and obviously wish that Woolf did not include those slurs. Otherwise this book is a masterpiece. I loved it otherwise so first and foremost it is terrible those slurs are there but it is also a pity they are. Because in so many ways this book is incredibly socially conscious and yet in certain parts it just really isn’t. I think it’s a must-read but that doesn’t mean in any way I condone parts of this book.
To get your free copy of Orlando by Virginia Woolf go to:
https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/orlando-a-biography-ebook.html
For more about Virginia Woolf and her work go to:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6765.Virginia_Woolf
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