Orlando - Virginia Woolf

Reading Orlando was a bit like watching Dallas. Remember when Bobby Ewing stepped out of the shower, when his wife Pam, woke up from a dream which lasted for hundreds of episodes? Nobody remembered her dream starting, but we were reliably informed by the press that what we had actually witnessed for the past few months (or was it years?) was a very badly construed dream sequence that even the writers hadn’t envisaged at the beginning. And so, when reading Orlando I was hoping throughout the novel, that Woolf would then say “It was all a dream, what in fact happened was…” and I would laugh and say “You had me going ...  Read the complete review

Written, most academics agree, as a veiled and extended love letter to Vita Sackville-West, Virginia Woolf’s Orlando is a funny kind of novel. Beginning in the court of Elizabeth I, and moving through the major periods of English literature into the present day, the novel tells the tale of perpetual youth and the transition of Orlando from a man into a woman. But this is not a simple gender bending exercise. Rather, it is a carefully charted, lyrically rendered parody of the gender stereotypes inherent in the classification of English literature, and the assumptions about sex, sexuality and gender that those classifications enforce on readers and ...  Read the complete review

Three years ago, I discovered Virginia Woolf, and I decided to read one of her novels. My choice was relatively simple - as I buy about 5 to 10 books a week, I usually buy second hand books. So I chose the one that was the less expensive, and it was Orlando. Unfortunately, it was in french. That is a very funny book, and some of the puns cannot be translated. For instance, Orlando once says "cape Horn", and then blushes. In french, there is nothing funny, why should someone blush when saying "horn"? It reminds me of a song a few years ago which said "I'm horny, horny, horny, horny tonight". And people would sing it all day ...  Read the complete review

When I was holidaying by Lake Ohrid a little while ago, this odd novella, written by Virginia Woolf as a love letter to Vita Sackville-West, and first published in 1928, was the only English book on sale on a market-stall.. ..I am ashamed to say that I had never heard of the book before, but I enjoyed it's magical sweep, a Count/ess St. Germain-esque tour through history. The book is a biography of the fictional Orlando, who lived in the last half of the last millennium. The life is bizarre, and although I list some of the plot-twists beneath, if I told you the full story I'd be spoiling your enjoyment of the work. Suffice to say it is ...  Read the complete review