Woolf at her fizziest, dizziest, most glittering and playful
Because we know how Woolf met her end, and because we know that she suffered several breakdowns, it is easy to backward read her writing to find evidence of the intensity of her suffering, and forget that she also lived with an intense awareness of joy – and, perhaps more easily ignored, wit, playfulness and ordinary moments of satisfaction , gaiety and pleasure
All these – including suffering, ennui and so-so are to be found rolled up in Orlando – as well as evidence of her intellect, her research and her always questioning mind
Written as a kind of love-letter, game and amusement both for her own creative pleasure and as the same for her lover and friend Vita-Sackville West, Orlando is both a highly readable, accessible introduction to Woolf’s writing, easily enjoyed by a teenager – I was 14, 15 or 16 when I first devoured this – and repaying later, more nuanced and reflective study, after surrendering to her more complex ‘difficult’ work
Vita Sackville-West 1916
Why this is such a pleasurable read for a thoughtful teenager is that one of its major themes is the trying on of identity and the discovering both its fluidity and dizzying possibilities, and its kernel of ‘this is my true core’, inviolate from the influence of time, place, culture – and gender.
What a very surprising and modern book this must have been on its publication, in 1928, for those who looked behind its playful inventions and fantasies
For if it is rash to walk into a lion’s den unarmed, rash to navigate the Atlantic in a rowing boat, rash to stand with one foot on the top of St. Paul’s, it is still more rash to go home alone with a poet. A poet is lion and Atlantic in one. While one drowns us the other gnaws us. If we survive the teeth, we succumb to the waves. A man who can destroy illusions is both beast and flood. Illusions are to the soul what atmosphere is to the earth. Roll up that tender air and the plant dies, the colour fades. The earth we walk on is a parched cinder. It is marl we tread and fiery cobbles scorch our fett, By the truth we are undone. Life is a dream. ‘Tis waking that kills us. He who robs us of our dreams robs us of our life – (and so on for six pages if you will, but the style is tedious and may well be dropped).
Orlando is a beautiful young man, son of an aristocratic family, aged 16, with spectacularly attractive legs, shown to perfection in the costume of the times – the latter years of the sixteenth century. He is a moody, sullen and open-hearted, candid young man. Lest that sound contradictory, people are, and Woolf always reminds us of that. The elderly Queen Elizabeth, who always took a shine to comely young men, makes him an Order of the Garter.
However, there is something strangely androgyne about Orlando and this is not the full extent of his strangeness. He has something, which Woolf does not waste time on trying to explain, which makes him able to jump time as easily as space. She is not interested, as an SF writer might be, in explaining this : her interest is in identity in time, in history, in geography, so we follow Orlando, who not only jumps time – and various of his acquaintances similarly do so – but jumps gender.
Falling into a deep sleep and melancholy following the failure of a love affair with a similarly androgynous young woman in 1608, and after making one of his seamless time jumps to the Restoration, and becoming an Ambassador in Turkey, another sleep follows, and he wakens as a woman. The Lady Orlando is no different in many ways to Lord Orlando – his/her core nature is the same, though gender allows, encourages, forbids – in time and in place, certain manifestations of nature. Woolf has great fun with this, but also, she is offering delicious possibilities to readers who come to her in that time where they are exploring identity, discovering who they are, who they might be, who they won’t be
Certain susceptibilities were asserting themselves, and others were diminishing. The change of clothes had, some philosophers will say, much to do with it. Vain trifles as they seem, clothes have, they say, more important offices than merely to keep us warm. They change our view of the world and the world’s view of us. For example, when Captain Bartolus saw Orlando’s skirt, he had an awning stretched for her immediately, pressed her to take another slice of beef, and invited her to go ashore with him in the long-boat. These compliments would certainly not have been paid her had her skirts, instead of flowing, been cut tight to her legs in the fashion of breeches. And when we are paid compliments, it behoves us to make some return
Woolf of course was the daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen, himself an author, a critic, an historian and biographer – and all of these strands are woven into this book, which is an once a history and a ‘biography’ of Orlando, and a meditation upon writing, reading and literary criticism. In fact, the final joke is Woolf’s presentation of this as a non-fiction by the inclusion of an index. Within which we will find Shakespeare, Pope, Dryden and others referenced, alongside such marvellous inventions as Marmaduke Bonthrop Shelmerdine, and the Archduchess Harriet of Finster-Aarhorn (see Archduke Harry) – who, with a physiognomy remarkably like a startled hare must surely be a little dig at Lady Ottoline Morrell.
Though I did find the final section of the book, bringing it to the ‘now’ of her writing in 1928, dragged a little, this was such a pleasure to read again. And was spurred to this by HeavenAli’s year long Woolfalong, just squeaking into August’s Biography section.
Orlando was of course filmed, with the magnificent Tilda Swinton, intelligent, spirited, mercurial and very much a person out of her own mould, as the central character. The film was directed by Sally Potter.
Lady Fancifull 
Lovely review Lady F – there’s so much humour in Orlando, isn’t there, and yet so much more. Anyone who thinks Woolf is dull should be made to read it!
Thanks, Karen. Funnily enough, something Ali’s project has done for me, as I am mainly re-reading Woolf, sometimes for the 2nd time (i.e., books I have already re-read!) is to make me far more aware of just how witty a writer she is, but because she throws it away, sideways, at the reader, it’s easy to miss. I love, in that first quote, how she mixes deep and thoughtful observation, beautiful writing, blown-up balloons of artifice and then punctures the whole balloon with a pin. I was chortling, pausing to think, stopped by an image, raised an eyebrow thinking ‘is this a bit much’, and then chortling as she goes ‘pop!’ again.
That’s a lovely review. I’m so enjoying Woolfalong, both for re-reads and new reads. I didn’t manage to squeeze in another go with Orlando, but I do love it, and think the film is one of the few films of books I’ve seen which does succeed.
Thank you Liz. It’s been a well-paced, rewarding challenge, and one of my re-reads is likely to figure in my books of the year. I’ve been getting on better with dead authors than living ones generally this year!
Great review – so glad you enjoyed re-reading this. Now I am home from the land of virtually no internet I will link your review to my round up post.
Thank you Ali. I love he virtuous circling of reading blogs, introducing each other to new authors, the revisiting of old acquaintances..,.and putting us in the way of other bloggers and their reading adventures. Of course, the result of this is the frenzied building of the TBR mountains (perhaps NOT such a virtuous circle after all……leaving a slight sense of ‘so many amazing books, so little time, frustration. At least with re-reads of treasures previously appreciated you are pretty well guaranteed the pleasure of meeting an old friend after many years, AND discovering new treasures about them, forgotten, or never noticed before. I’m finding Woolf’s sly sense of humour so much more evident in these reads, than when I first read her.
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Great review. I read Orlando during the begining of this year for the first time. I really loved the lyrical prose Woolf uses in the text. The descriptions as well as the humour was enjoyable
Thank you Susan. She really is a finely crafted writer, and pays so much attention to her writing
Love this book. Read it yonks ago, and scenes remain in my mind, eg front fairs on the Thames. Super!
It’s such good fun, isn’t it!
I meant frost fairs ha!
You know, I never even spotted the typo. Frost fairs was what I expected to see, and frost fairs is what I DID see. Clearly I lack the skills to be an editor or proof reader!
Haha! I love the idea of frost fairs on the Thames. Bloomin global warming ruining all the frost fair fun!
Lovely review! I must read this, it’s a huge hole in my reading experience. Astonishing that she wrote it when she did. I do own a copy buried somewhere in the TBR so hopefully I’ll rectify the situation soon!
Thanks Madame Bibi. The more I think about this the better it becomes!