Rating: 
Summary: A gender-bending saga of three centuries
Review: "Orlando" is a fictional biography whose subject in the beginning is a sixteen-year-old boy in the Elizabethan era and in the end -- three hundred years later -- is a thirty-six-year-old woman. This is not a novel about transsexuality, as such a premise would indicate, but it is a statement about sexual identity and gender roles in English society as only an author like Virginia Woolf could make, territory not even the brazen D.H. Lawrence could traverse with much confidence. It is a lyrical tour de force in which Woolf displays her considerable talent for subtly describing moods and scenery, but most surprisingly, it demonstrates her sly sense of humor and satire. Orlando's gender alteration is naturally the central event of his preternaturally long life, but his aging only twenty years over a course of three centuries is certainly no less bizarre. To describe the circumstances under which he becomes a woman or explain the logic by which he ages so slowly would be giving away too much in this review, nor would it really help to recommend the novel to one who is not yet persuaded to read it, so I will be silent on that account, saying only that these outrageous devices fully succeed as vehicles to explore Woolf's theme of femininity with respect to English cultural and historical frames of reference. The novel examines the effect of gender alteration on Orlando's amorous and professional capacities. As a young nobleman in the Elizabethan court whose interests are swordsmanship and poetry, he is engaged to an aristocratic Irish girl, has a torrid affair with a Russian princess, and meets a silly woman who, resembling nothing so much as a hare, calls herself the Archduchess Harriet. After serving as an ambassador in Turkey, Orlando becomes a woman, joins a band of gypsies, and returns to England where he (she) must handle the legalities regarding his dukeship because of his new gender. As a woman, he manages to gain the romantic attentions of famous writers like Pope, Dryden, and Swift before eventually marrying and having a son. Some surprises ensue, but let it suffice to say that Orlando is not the only androgynous character in the novel. An underlying, and highly controversial, implication is that every human being harbors aspects of both genders, mainly psychological, but Woolf goes so far as to make them physical in order to press the point. Although the idea may seem tame now, "Orlando" may have set a precedent for cross-gender role-playing when it was first published in 1928. The novel is very much ahead of its time; it has a sort of nonchalant sophistication that characterizes the type of magical realism that was to become a large part of European-influenced literature throughout the rest of the twentieth century. My admiration for Virginia Woolf only increases with each novel of hers that I read, and "Orlando" is in my opinion the best yet.
Rating:
Summary: A gender-bending saga of three centuries
Review: "Orlando" is a fictional biography whose subject in the beginning is a sixteen-year-old boy in the Elizabethan era and in the end -- three hundred years later -- is a thirty-six-year-old woman. This is not a novel about transsexuality, as such a premise would indicate, but it is a statement about sexual identity and gender roles in English society as only an author like Virginia Woolf could make, territory not even the brazen D.H. Lawrence could traverse with much confidence. It is a lyrical tour de force in which Woolf displays her considerable talent for subtly describing moods and scenery, but most surprisingly, it demonstrates her sly sense of humor and satire. Orlando's gender alteration is naturally the central event of his preternaturally long life, but his aging only twenty years over a course of three centuries is certainly no less bizarre. To describe the circumstances under which he becomes a woman or explain the logic by which he ages so slowly would be giving away too much in this review, nor would it really help to recommend the novel to one who is not yet persuaded to read it, so I will be silent on that account, saying only that these outrageous devices fully succeed as vehicles to explore Woolf's theme of femininity with respect to English cultural and historical frames of reference. The novel examines the effect of gender alteration on Orlando's amorous and professional capacities. As a young nobleman in the Elizabethan court whose interests are swordsmanship and poetry, he is engaged to an aristocratic Irish girl, has a torrid affair with a Russian princess, and meets a silly woman who, resembling nothing so much as a hare, calls herself the Archduchess Harriet. After serving as an ambassador in Turkey, Orlando becomes a woman, joins a band of gypsies, and returns to England where he (she) must handle the legalities regarding his dukeship because of his new gender. As a woman, he manages to gain the romantic attentions of famous writers like Pope, Dryden, and Swift before eventually marrying and having a son. Some surprises ensue, but let it suffice to say that Orlando is not the only androgynous character in the novel. An underlying, and highly controversial, implication is that every human being harbors aspects of both genders, mainly psychological, but Woolf goes so far as to make them physical in order to press the point. Although the idea may seem tame now, "Orlando" may have set a precedent for cross-gender role-playing when it was first published in 1928. The novel is very much ahead of its time; it has a sort of nonchalant sophistication that characterizes the type of magical realism that was to become a large part of European-influenced literature throughout the rest of the twentieth century. My admiration for Virginia Woolf only increases with each novel of hers that I read, and "Orlando" is in my opinion the best yet.
Rating:
Summary: Pure genius
Review: "Orlando" is the only Woolf novel that engages in fantasy. The main character, Orlando, lives from the Elizabethan era to 1928 and transforms from a man to a woman somewhere along the way. That detail in itself promises an intriguing plot.
Woolf's prose often resembles poetry, and in "Orlando" this is no exception. She cleverly renders Orlando's (and the first-person narrator/biographer) feelings and experiences with a myriad of seemingly useless details. It may take some time to get used to and make sense of how these details fit; yet, that is the beauty and brilliance of Woolf's language that makes this novel (and her other works) such a pleasure to read.
"Orlando" is referred to as Woolf's "holiday" novel and one that Woolf herself said she wrote in preparation for the next (and often considered best) book, The Waves. While "Orlando" does seem more light-hearted and comical than her other work, and this is partly due to the fantasy and her use of satire and parody, it can also be quite political in the issues it addresses, particularly those related to gender, literature, and modernity. Orlando as a character conveys her emotions but does not reflect much on their implications. However, we as readers who witness her transformation and her lifestyle, who are made to read to about Orlando's existence and position in the world, would soon find ourselves thinking about Woolf's recurrent themes and how they relate to humanity.
As a whole, "Orlando" is very thought-provoking. Every time I pick it up, I find something new to marvel at.
Rating:
Summary: Masterful, Genius, "Orlando" Has It All
Review: "Orlando" served as my sweeping introduction to the incredible writing of Virginia Woolf. (For anyone who has seen the movie, do yourself a favor, and read this amazing book!) One is forced to wonder what sort of genius mind Woolf possessed; only a mind of the finest tuning could have produced such a work! "Orlando" is truly representative of superior literature and demonstrates the art of writing at its finest! No review does the novel justice...any topic imaginable is covered..of course, all is reviewed from the standpoint of five passing centuries and multiple backdrops ranging from the exotic to the droll. Woolf's treatment of sexuality, intelligence, consciousness, time, and the human psyche is poignant. "Orlando" is definitely worth the read. No matter the reader, "Orlando" is sure to be an unforgettable novel, its author's genius surely to be admired.
Rating:
Summary: The Old Oak Tree
Review: "Good To Eat" (Woolf 144 )
The Evolution of Meaning as Examined in Orlando
"Time has passed over me... Nothing is any longer one thing! I take up a handbag and I think of an old bumboat woman frozen in the ice" (305).
Orlando examines how experience creates meaning. It is a discussion of intertextuality where metaphors are created diachronically. Meaning is created, however imperfectly, by the piling up of associations with a particular image. The book illustrates both the creation of imperfect meaning, but also the undeniably human desire to communicate those ideas.
By repeating images, Orlando supposes, we give them meaning. The oak tree, for example, evolves meaning through time. At the beginning it's just an image: a boy alone on a hilltop contemplating the way that the roots feel. Then Orlando removes it from reality by making it into a poem. He adds things in the margin, reworking, elevating the image until it is not a boy under a tree at all. He takes the real and compounds it until it becomes abstract. When Orlando finally lays down under the tree at the end, having "given birth" to the manuscript, the action has a completely new meaning. It is attached forever to Turkey and gypsies and the whole life that preceded it. It transcends image and object to become allegorical. When Woolf describes it she is not merely describing an image, she is attempting to communicate a life. By layering the image in the text, adding meaning on top of meaning, the number of interpretations grows exponentially. The novel would submit that this is the way of language and life. Like metaphors, people are not just as they are at the moment but are also everything and everyone that has preceded. They are the past: the trees that they have sat under and the words that they have spoken. The whole of a person can never be communicated, only approximated in images and metaphors. And yet it's "a curious fact that though human's... have such imperfect means of communication, that they can only say 'good to eat' when they mean 'beautiful'... they endure ridicule and misunderstanding [rather] than keep any experience to themselves" (144).
ORLANDO is, definitively, Good to Eat
Rating:
Summary: A song of love
Review: "Orlando" is such a playful novel, full of richness of characters and commentaries. Written as a love letters of sorts to Woolf's lover Vita Sackville-West, "Orlando: A Biography" follows Orlando from the years of Queen Elizabeth I's reign to late 1928, from the time he was a man to the time she became a woman. With this book, Woolf tried to give a fantasy life to her lover, where she could be a man and be her own person, instead of subject to society's ways. And by itself, it's such a gorgeous story! Especially with the fascinating asides where Orlando is addressing the reader.
Rating:
Summary: Masterful, Genius, "Orlando" Has It All
Review: "Orlando" served as my sweeping introduction to the incredible writing of Virginia Woolf. (For anyone who has seen the movie, do yourself a favor, and read this amazing book!) One is forced to wonder what sort of genius mind Woolf possessed; only a mind of the finest tuning could have produced such a work! "Orlando" is truly representative of superior literature and demonstrates the art of writing at its finest! No review does the novel justice...any topic imaginable is covered..of course, all is reviewed from the standpoint of five passing centuries and multiple backdrops ranging from the exotic to the droll. Woolf's treatment of sexuality, intelligence, consciousness, time, and the human psyche is poignant. "Orlando" is definitely worth the read. No matter the reader, "Orlando" is sure to be an unforgettable novel, its author's genius surely to be admired.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best books I've ever read
Review: *Orlando* is a fabulous woman, man, book, character, everything. Woolf's writing style is exquisite--you will stop and gasp at certain phrases, and even if you have never underlined in a book before, you will in this one. You will fold down its page corners, underline fabulous passages, recommend it to all your friends and put it on your "best books I've ever read list." Orlando spans five centuries or so, hobnobs in high society, with his beloved oak tree, receives jeweled amphibians from her potential suitors, et cetera. All attempts to describe this book must fail. Read it.
Rating:
Summary: 14 year old reader
Review: After exploring the literary genius of Virginia Wolff within her book "Mrs. Dalloway", I was eager to read other books by her. My brother's name is Orlando. My mother had been reading the book while she was pregnant with him and loved the book so much that she named him after the main character. Of course I had to read it. I have never read anything like Virginia Wolf's books before. Orlando is probably the best book I have ever read. Her style is so creative and enjoyable. This is a fantastic read. The movie is also good.
Rating: 
Summary: I enjoyed this book...
Review: I thought Orlando's trip through the ages was wonderful and exciting. I didn't know whether to be happy or sad when she/he finally published and parted with "The Oak Tree"! I'm glad I read this book, and I will certainly read more Woolf.
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