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Summary: A wild tromp through literary history
Review: Orlando is simply wonderful. In the novel, Woolf uses the character of Orlando, a person who lives through four centuries as man sometimes and woman sometimes. The term biography might throw you, since Orlando is no normal biography. Woolf personifies literary thought as a person (hence the timelessness and gender changing capability). She depicts Elizabethan times through the early twentieth century with wit and sarcasm. The more that you've read of English literature from Shakespeare forward the more you will catch the little jokes and the reason for why certain things happen. A very enjoyable read. The film version is not exactly the same, so I recommend sticking to the book.
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Summary: Fun! Exciting! Flavorful! Fat-Free! A rollicking good time.
Review: Orlando, by Virginia Woolf, is an extraordinary book! Because Woolf does not write in her traditional stream-of-consciousness style, this novel is much more accessible than some of her others (like "To The Lighthouse"). The "gender-bending" theme was one that Woolf often made use of in her books, but it is never as clearly exemplified as in "Orlando." In addition to her observations regarding gender, Woolf displays a keen perception of the human condition. Her merciless wit comes through in this book with even greater clarity than in her others, making for a truly oustanding novel! Read it!!
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Summary: A wonderful book.
Review: The story, the language, the imagery - together make a masterpiece.
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Summary: Very funny
Review: This book is magical and absolutely hilarious. Okay, so it takes a certain sense of humor to really enjoy it, but if a satire on writing throughout the ages sounds like fun to you, you'll probably enjoy it. Orlando is more than that though, it really has many levels to it, and it is even more interesting when you read the story behind the story, about Vita and Virginia's love affair. I learned about all that stuff while researching for a 15 page paper on the book. Getting a little to much Orlando due to that paper made me lower my rating from five to four stars. It is fun and liberating. Oh, warning: it has a very odd ending. I'm not sure I'll ever understand it. I read it before I finished the book and thought, oh, It will probably make sense after I've read everything in between. Nope. But it was definitely worth the read.
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Summary: A fanciful spoof of literary history and sexual roles
Review: This fake biography (complete with counterfeit photographs and an index) is not Virginia Woolf's greatest novel by any means--but even the least of her works must rank among the finest of early twentieth-century fiction. The "plot" seems more appropriate to a Heinlein novel: a boy raised during the Elizabethan period becomes a woman, lives until the 1920s, and ages only 36 years. During the past century, the novel's reception has evolved much like its lead character: while early critics and readers praised the book as a literary parody bordering on farce, later generations have regarded the novel more as a commentary both on sexual roles and on the oppression of women. Some readers will see Orlando as representing, in human form, the evolution of literature (it's telling that the only other character who lives as long as Orlando is a critic); some will focus on the novel's presentation of gender and sex. Both interpretations (and others) seem to be equally valid--which is why this book is so powerful even today. One of the most charming (and surprising) qualities of the novel is Woolf's refusal to take herself or her book seriously. At times, the novel is laugh-out-loud funny. She mocks her own style (she interrupts one of her infamous run-on paragraphs with "nature ... has so much to answer for besides the perhaps unwieldy length of this sentence"), and she even makes fun of the book's very concept (when Orlando is not doing much of anything, Woolf exclaims: "If only subjects ... had more consideration for their biographers!"). "Orlando" infuses everyday life with both wit and elegance; or, as Woolf puts it, "when the shrivelled skin of the ordinary is stuffed out with meaning it satisfies the senses amazingly."
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Summary: Orlando as a Commentary on Women in History
Review: Throughout history, women have always been the subject of oppression and stereotyping. Today the world is finally beginning to accept women as intellectuals, workers, writers, and other occupations other than housewife. However, women have not always been so fortunate, and history clearly shows their oppression from the lack of information left behind by women. Some of the greatest writers who ever lived may not of gotten anyone to read their writing, because they were women and it was not "politically-correct" for them to do anything but raise the children. Gradually, near the beginning of the century, women were able to start pushing away these stereotypes, and they started to receive more rights and were allowed to publish their writings. Virginia Woolf is able to wonderfully express the struggle of women, in a way in which men could easily relate. By Orlando starting as a man and then seeing all his rights and respect taken away when he becomes a woman, the men reading could understand what they have and take for granted. One example of the unfair way in which the women were treated can be seen when Orlando goes back to England for the first time after the change. She went to get her house but encountered a few problems, "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..." (pg.168) The women of the day were given rights no better than those of a dead man were. Also as soon as she got back, she was expected to settle down and start looking for a husband, instead of writing or working, "In short, they acted the parts of man and woman for ten minutes with great vigor ..." (pg. 179) This is how her life was, secretly hiding herself from society, and also dealing with the courting of men. It is ridiculous how little respect or rights that she received. The best angle of the book, however, is reading through and noticing the growth of independence in woman and how their world expanded. Gender should never be a consideration in decisions or cloud the minds of those who decide, it should be an equal chance for both men and women. Everyone is stuck on this planet, and we might as well try to get along together with as much peace and equality as we can.
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Summary: good
Review: very good story, incredible themes.. took a little long to get into..
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Summary: A brilliant introduction to Virginia Woolf
Review: Virginia Woolf is often a difficult author for students to become familiar with. Her _Orlando_, which strikingly defies placement in a single genre, introduces the reader to Miss Woolf's language, her symbols, and the themes common to her many equisite works. However, _Orlando_ is bereft of the beautiful and detailed stories and ideas which enrich her other works, making the novel on the whole a simple enough read for the beginner. Compared with the span of her works, _Orlando_ stands out as an original among originals. Nowhere else does Miss Woolf so successfully tell a fabulous tale, and nowhere else does she render concrete locations, times, and events so beautifully.
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Summary: A different way to look at gender roles through history.
Review: Virginia Woolf's "Orlando" is unique in form, being a mock biography of a fictional character. We are introduced to Orlando, a protagonist based partly on Woolf's close friend Vita Sackville-West, as a 16-year-old boy, the son of noble parents, in the latter years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. By the end of the book, more than three hundred years later, he has become a 36-year-old woman living in "modern" times (meaning 1928, the year of publication).
Woolf uses Orlando's sexual transformation and long life as a vehicle for investigating influences on and consequences of gender and sexuality through history. Her commentary is pointed and often right on the mark. But at the same time, the book is infused with Woolf's dry wit, giving everything a humorous overtone. For example, when Orlando returns to England after his transformation, everyone at home assuming him to be dead, she finds herself embroiled in a legal battle to get her property back: "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" (168). One can tell that, while these issues were obviously important to her, Woolf was having fun when she wrote this.
Now, as far as my personal reaction, I am going to be among the minority of reviewers here in saying that overall I really didn't much care for the book. In talking to others who have read it, I've noticed that "Orlando" seems to be one of those "love it or hate it" works. Perhaps I went into it with the wrong expectaions, this being my first Woolf novel, but it just kind of fell flat for me. I certainly wasn't expecting it to be the kind of book it was. Thinking it was going to be a historical fiction piece with a serious tone, I found it to be much more like a more emotional version of "Candide." Much of it is farcical, and certainly far from being believable.
Though Woolf makes some very insightful and worthwhile social commentary here, her presentation, I felt, detracted from its impact. The fantasy-world feel that permeates much of it makes it seem unreal, and therefore less applicable to our own world. In addition, the narrative tone changes from time period to time period, which makes the book feel disjointed. Just as you get used to one style - BAM! - it changes to a different tone and you're left feeling disoriented all over again. And furthermore, Orlando her/himself doesn't feel like a real person. No matter how much I tried, I couldn't empathize with her/him. All of this, I found, got in the way of the actual story and its intended impact.
In summary, I do commend Woolf's experimentation in style, and as I noted the underlying messages are important, but overall the book just wasn't as strong as it could have been. If you're a fan of Woolf, go ahead and give it a try. You may well find that you like it after all. But if you like more reality-rooted and tonally serious stories, this probably won't leave you very satisfied. Try it, but calibrate your expectations first.
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Summary: Man and Woman
Review: Woolf's skill of imagery in writing is amazing. Her love of her character Orlando is apparent in the gentle way she carries him/her from the 15th century to 1928. I wanted to jump into the story, sit beside Orlando, ride a horse beside him, and kiss him as a man and then again as a woman. A stunning read and one that should be on any well-read person's read and read again list...enjoy.
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