The first English class I ever took was on Virginia Woolf. After one semester with her you would think I'd never want to see Woolf again, but I fell in love. I feel in love with Woolf and vowed to read everything she's ever written. It took me until this summer to really sit down with another Woolf novel and I decided on Orlando
because it was short and the premise sounded really interesting. At the beginning of the novel Orlando is a young man in Elizabethan England, but by the middle of the novel Orlando finds that he is a woman. This creates lots of interesting experiences and through the change we can see how the life experience of a man is so different from that of a woman. I really thought I was going to love this book, but I just didn't.
Ever other paragraph is complaints about publishing and writing and being a female writer. Woolf spends so much time talking about that it becomes a bit hard to follow what is going on, at least I found it difficult at times. I thought she would really explore gender roles more, but I felt the story was lacking on that exploration because Woolf kept talking about writing and how sad it is to be a writer. The back of my book even says it's "the longest and most charming love letter in literature" but also talks about "the brink of a future that holds new hope and promise for women." I kind of felt like the book wasn't sure what it wanted to be. I realize that female writers have struggled because of their gender and have been less respected but the two never really came to one solid point for me in this book. Normally I love Woolf's ramblings but this time it felt like a bit of a cheap way to fill the book.
It also just didn't really feel like Woolf to me. It's a bit of a time travel book, involving Queen Elizabeth, Constantinople, and finally ending in 1928. It's also more narrative than her other books, which is part of the problem I think. It was like she was trying to take a way of writing and force herself into it, but it just doesn't work. Overall though, I think I was just disappointed because it wasn't what I was expecting. I realize the genius of the idea and there really are some areas in the book that make you stop and explore a little bit in your own mind. By the end of the book though I just felt... bothered.
I give this book a B.
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