Book Review: Virginia Woolf - Orlando (1928)

Virginia Woolf - Orlando (1928)

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Welcome!

As this is the first book review of its kind appearing on this blog, I'm going to give some context on me, how I read, and what I like to read about before getting into this review of Virginia Woolf's Orlando:

First, not having tape flags (those little yellow- or red-colored post-its that one can affix to pieces of paper to note important sections from a book or other document) while I have a book open makes reading extremely stressful for me. What if I find a stanza that's absolute dynamite? What if I come across the absolute perfect way to describe a sunset, or burnished metal, or a certain quality of sadness; or some novel means of combining a person's impressions of the world with dialogue? These questions haunt me; and for that reason, I keep an assortment of tape flags on various surfaces around my home or in the pockets of pants I wear often. I have discovered through experience that tape flags are still functional even after going through the wash multiple times.

Second, rarely am I impressed solely by the actual storyline of a book. Instead, it's prose that paints a picture of a certain scene or motif that grabs me and makes me read on. I like new expressions of form, vivid imagery, and creative figurative language. And I can sacrifice a coherent plotline in favor of those qualities any day.

But I know that not everyone reads this way. And for those of you who don't, then I'm sorry. Because I'm going to completely ignore you, and instead (since this is my blog, the specifics contents of which are mine to include at my discretion) say what I want to say about this book.

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Orlando takes the form of a 'biography,' but only to the extent that Woolf injects into the book a purported biographer as a narrative device; as a means of narrating and supplying additional detail to the life and adventures of Orlando [the main character, whose last name is never mentioned]. Otherwise, and despite the fact that Amazon categorizes it as "biographical fiction," the book is a novel, plain and simple, the plot of which is the multiple-century exploits, changes, and general introspections of the protagonist, a character born a man in the late 16th century, and whose story ends as a woman in the year 1928, the same year as Orlando's publication.

As context, and as a basis for the description of Orlando as a character, Woolf allegedly drew inspiration from her friend and lover, Victoria ("Vita") Sackville-West, as well as Sackville-West's wealthy and historically well-connected family. Sackville-West's poetry is quite well-done and explores similar themes to those explored in Orlando. For example, in the first stanza of her 1923 poem "Moonlight," Sackville-West conceives of a world viewed through the lens of nighttime and the milkblue hue of the light of the moon:

What time the meanest brick and stone

Take on a beauty not their own,

And past the flaw of builded wood

Shines the intention whole and good,

And all the little homes of man

Rise to a dimmer, nobler span;

When colour's absence gives escape

To the deeper spirit of the shape[.]

As it is in "Moonlight," the ability of an outside force to change the experience or perception of a certain object is a theme central to Orlando. In the book, when Orlando turns 30, he wakes to find that he has been transformed into a woman. This is not described in the novel as a particularly alarming discovery for him, nor do any of the other characters in the story make much of this change. Instead, Orlando's change in sex is portrayed asymmetrically: as a natural development which alters only Orlando's perception of the world as opposed to the world's perception of her.

If only the real world were so enlightened today as the fictional one that Woolf creates.

After her remarkable (but unremarked-upon) transformation, Orlando begins to see the world around her differently, initially "like a child ... [whose] arguments would not commend themselves to mature women." (156.) And over time, she gains a singular insight into what distinguishes the sexes. Notably, rather than make the argument that there are no material differences, Woolf takes for granted that there are incontrovertible distinguishing features between the sexes, and simply posits reasons for such distinguishment: the utility of modesty and femininity as it relates to gaining something from men, for example. Woolf does this well, and the latter half of the book is preoccupied with this endeavor. She also explores love, finding something "highly ridiculous about" (179) flirtation and love's cheap imitations, in addition to something incomparably satisfying yet manifold; two-faced.

As to the language of Orlando, I was taken with several passages and phrases evincing Woolf's always-impressive powers of description, particularly when Woolf was describing nature or cityscapes viewed from a distance. I am including some select passages here, omitting my own commentary thereon:

"His eyes, globed and clouded like some green stone of curious texture, were fixed." (21.)

"It was a memorable hand; a thin hand with long fingers always curling as if round some orb or sceptre; a nervous, crabbed, sickly hand ... ." (22.)

"[T]he moon and stars blazed with the hard fixity of diamonds, and to the fine music of flute and trumpet the courtiers danced." (36.)

"[T]he pinnacles rose in inky blackness against the furious red sunset clouds." (53.)

"The pith of his phrases was that while fame impedes and constricts, obscurity wraps about a man like a mist; obscurity is dark, ample, and free; obscurity lets the mind take its way unimpeded." (104.)

"[A]s the ear is the antechamber to the soul, poetry can adulterate and destroy more surely than lust or gunpowder." (173.)

"One can only believe entirely, perhaps, in what one cannot see." (198.)

"Illusions are to the soul what atmosphere is to the earth. Roll up that tender air and the plant dies, the colour fades." (203.)

"The buildings had an airy yet formal symmetry not theirs by day. The canopy of the sky seemed most dextrously washed in to full up the outline of roof and chimney." (216.)

There are too many phrases worth inclusion to note all of them here. (To be clear, I could note all the ones I marked, but I simply don't want to.)

Come on, Virginia. Excellent stuff.

This was an excellent story, though not nearly so well-written or cohesive as either Woolf's The Waves or To The Lighthouse. Being an avant-garde tale blurring the lines between the sexes, however (and, in part, representing a love letter to Woolf's female companion), this novel is well before its time and deserves recognition as such. And there were plenty of pretty phrases which I marked with my tape flags and which I enjoyed reading immensely.

Additionally, while there have been several adaptations of this book, the only one worth mentioning is the 1992 film version starring Tilda Swinton, whose androgynous features lend themselves well to the portrayal of Orlando, who is described in the novel as possessing both male and female physical features in addition to both traditionally male and female traits.

While I hesitate to rate any book - since my experience with it is subjective, and yours very well might differ - I give it a 7 out of 10.

Thanks for reading!

And until next time,

Will

(Main Image: Cover of Orlando as published by Mariner Books in 1973.)