Orlando by Virginia Woolf

 

For my first read in October, I wanted to complete another book from my Classics Club list. With only two books left to finish (and one gigantic reread looming), my options were limited. I decided on Orlando by Virginia Woolf. I read Woolf's To The Lighthouse not too long ago and didn't completely hate it. Modern novels are not my preferred genre, so my lack of enthusiasm for it wasn't a surprise. I still wanted to try one more by her though, so I got started on this one, hoping for the best.

The novel is set up as a fictional biography of an English noble named Orlando and follows him through about 300 years in his inexplicably long life. He starts off the story as a teenage boy living in Elizabethan England. He enjoys a life of luxury on his vast family estate and has lots of humorous adventures as he grows to adulthood. He meets famous figures like William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope, writes pages upon pages of poetry, and has several love affairs, including an ill-fated romance with a Russian princess. When he turns 30, however, his life takes an unexpected turn. He wakes up as a woman. For the rest of her life, Orlando lives as a female, even eventually marrying and having a son. She explores all sorts of differences between living as a man versus living as a woman, and points out many of the social pressures and expectations placed on each gender in a witty, irreverent way.

That's a very general summary, but it's the best I can do. The book doesn't follow a traditional narrative structure, so it's difficult to describe. It was a  high-spirited and fun story, and not terribly difficult to read in the way that many modernist books are. I finished it pretty quickly and even managed to enjoy it a little, which was more than I thought I would be able to say initially. That being said, I have a very strong feeling that I missed a lot of the points Woolf was making--like I wasn't in on all the jokes. That's not too surprising, seeing as it was written in the 1920s. Beyond not catching out-of-date references though, I consistently felt like I was missing the larger point of it all, like I wasn't smart enough for it. If I was studying this book in a college course and had a professor to point out all the important nuances, I probably would have really liked it.

 I did a little research on my own after I finished and learned that Woolf based Orlando's character on the poet and novelist Vita Sackville-West. Sackville-West was Woolf's romantic partner and close friend, and this book was essentially a love letter to her.  It was also an experiment in the genre of biography and is considered an LGBTQIA+ classic due to the gender shift. There's a lot of layers to the story and it's definitely a unique novel with a lot of different elements to think about. It's not really for me personally as a reader, but I'm glad that I experienced it just because it's so weird.

I finished this book during the first week of October and I've had such a hard time writing this review. I've worked on it a little bit each day hoping for a breakthrough, but it turns out that I just don't have much to say about it. I'm going to cut my losses and end things here. I'm happy to have finished it and I'm happy to be able to finally cross it off my Classics Club list. There's not much left to read on there now. It's hard to believe I'm so close to finishing!

Challenge Tally

Classics Club (#77 on my list): 99/100 books completed

Total Books Read in 2021: 43