Orlando in What's the Name of That Book???

Sep 12, 2014 El rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: biddles, 1001-books-list, 20th-centurylit-early, hear-me-roar-and-gender, fantasy

Somewhat recently I was having one of those moments where I thought I was having a brilliant thought that no one had ever thought before which, as everyone knows, is not likely going to happen, everything is derivative, and oh, I'm just not that brilliant. But I had this idea of writing a fictional biography, and seeing how long it could be played off. Again, obviously not original. But in my thought process, I hadn't even considered Orlando as being exactly that.

Stupid Virginia Woolf, beating m ...more

23 likes · Like · see review

Jun 26, 2012 Marigold rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy, classics, set-in-england, humor, feminist-lit, lgbtq, fiction-1920s

It’s a biography! It’s a fantasy! It’s a fabulous, kaleidoscopic, breath-taking, creative, clever, FUNNY exploration of life, love, English literature & history, & gender roles – written in a time before most people had a thought about gender being a continuum. Orlando starts off as a boy in 16th century England; he kisses the Queen; he becomes a young nobleman of the age. He travels, he writes, he falls in love with a Russian princess who deserts him. “She was like a fox, or an olive tree; like It’s a biography! It’s a fantasy! It’s a fabulous, kaleidoscopic, breath-taking, creative, clever, FUNNY exploration of life, love, English literature & history, & gender roles – written in a time before most people had a thought about gender being a continuum. Orlando starts off as a boy in 16th century England; he kisses the Queen; he becomes a young nobleman of the age. He travels, he writes, he falls in love with a Russian princess who deserts him. “She was like a fox, or an olive tree; like the waves of the sea when you look down upon them from a height; like an emerald; like the sun on a green hill that is yet clouded…” Grief-stricken & angry, he retires from the court & spends all his time reading - & then writing. He meets some of the great Elizabethan dramatists & poets. “For once the disease of reading has laid hold upon the system it weakens it so that it falls an easy prey to that other scourge which dwells in the inkpot and festers in the quill. The wretch takes to writing.” He meets the Archduchess Harriet, & fearful of falling in love again, asks to be posted as Ambassador to Constantinople. And there, one day he wakes up….a woman! After a few more adventures, she returns to England. Somewhere along the way, centuries pass! She meets the Archduchess again, who of course is now the Archduke! She throws a toad at him & proceeds to take a number of lovers. She goes to literary salons & makes fun of the 18th century poets. “It is still more rash to go home alone with a poet.” More adventures! Then it’s the 19th century. Here Woolf really made me laugh by posing the theory that England became a damp country in the 19th century! Climate change as prime mover for massive social change – Woolf really was a woman way ahead of her time! Things that Woolf blames on the new damp, cold weather – men with beards; rugs; overstuffed furniture; doilies; crumpets; coffee; drawing-rooms; Victorian glass cases filled with artificial flowers; mantelpieces; pianos; dogs. She is very, very funny about the way that damp swells everything up including literature, & that in the Victorian era what had been essays a column or two long became encyclopedias of 10 – 20 volumes, & novels became multi-book series of hundreds of pages. Orlando begins to question her 18th century ways of promiscuity & fun! It’s the 19th century! Everyone is getting married & having many children! So (here Woolf made me scream with laughter again) Orlando is out walking in the woods, falls, twists her ankle, & is rescued, a la Jane Austen or the Bronte sisters, by a tall handsome man on a horse!! “A few minutes later, they became engaged.” Here Woolf begins to ease into modern literature by telling us that Orlando & her new guy don’t really need to talk to communicate. “It has come about, by the wise economy of nature, that our modern spirit can almost dispense with language; the commonest expressions do, since no expressions do; hence the most ordinary conversation is often the most poetic, and the most poetic is that which cannot be written down. For which reason we leave a great blank here, which must be taken to indicate that the space is filled to repletion.” More adventures, then suddenly it’s 1928. Orlando jumps into her car! Throughout the novel, Orlando struggles to be a creative spirit, as well as find meaning and love in life. It’s an amazing adventure—I still haven’t completely made sense of it—but it’s beautiful & crazy & I recommend it!

PS To top it off, I bought this copy of Orlando used for a dollar, & inside found a bookmark from “Twice Sold Tales” in a place called Red Bank. I love finding things in used books!! (I looked it up & apparently Twice Sold Tales was a well loved bookstore in Red Bank, New Jersey! How did their bookmark end up in a used book in Tigard, Oregon?!)

...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Mar 03, 2020 Ryan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, classics, 2020

Note to Self: Read more Woolf

1 like · Like · see review

Apr 14, 2007 Debbie is on Storygraph rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2005

I have very mixed feelings about this book. It was interesting from a literary perspective, and I liked how Woolf gave more detail and space to Orlando's early life rather than his/her later, more modern, life. It was a great parallel (and critique) of the pace of modern life. I also enjoyed Woolf's emphasis on the changing role of literature in life and the different cultural attitudes towards living throughout the centuries chronicled. The aspect that most people seem to focus on though, Orlan ...more

Like · see review

Apr 19, 2017 Chrissie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This was unexpectedly light and amusing. I was even interested enough to read the footnotes in this edition.

Like · see review

Jul 19, 2012 martha added it

Shelves: year-2004, queer, gender-id

[Review from 2004.] Long, like only Woolf can make things seem to be, occasionally tedious, but also genderfucked and very funny and sometimes beautiful. Plus everyone was inexplicably immortal, and how can you not like that?

Like · see review