Orlando (Penguin Clothbound Classics)
Virginia Woolf described "Orlando" as "an escapade, half-laughing, half-serious; with great splashes of exaggeration, " but many think Woolf's escapade is one of the most wickedly imaginative and sharply observed considerations of androgyny that this century will see.
Orlando is, in fact, a character liberated from the restraints of time and sex. Born in the Elizabethan Age to wealth and position, he is a young male aristocrat at the beginning of the story - and a modern woman four centuries later. The hero-heroine sees monarchs come and go, hobnobs with great literary figures, and slips in and out of each new fashion. Woolf presents a brilliant pageant of history, society, and literature as well as subtle appreciation of the interplay between endings and beginnings, past and present, male and female.
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Community Reviews
I wrote a paper on this, so I get it more now. I think I love her wording more than anything, and the way her personality comes through in this book.. as if the biographer and narrator and protagonist all share blood.
I do still actually criticize some of her ideas. She has a bit of an elitist edge, inability to see past her class. Aristocratic stories are also really boring, so even though Orlando is an interesting experiment and a dedicated wri...read more
I do still actually criticize some of her ideas. She has a bit of an elitist edge, inability to see past her class. Aristocratic stories are also really boring, so even though Orlando is an interesting experiment and a dedicated wri...read more
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