Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf and Mark Hussey

In her most exuberant, most fanciful novel, Woolf has created a character liberated from the restraints of time and sex. Born in the Elizabethan Age to wealth and position, Orlando is a young nobleman at the beginning of the story-and a modern woman three centuries later.

This is 327 pages of description and not a single paragraph of plot. There is nothing that happens, and when it seems like the author might be about to make something happen (for example, when Orlando joins a tribe of gypsies) it gets lost in a fog of inner dialogue and grand description, and suddenly the reader finds that whatever might have happened is over without ever materializing. Also, two of the more intriguing promises on the back cover - that Orlando goes from man to woman and lives for 300 years - are not addressed satisfactorily, if at all. The gender change occurs in some mystical fashion that involves Truth and Chastity, and while the change occupies a great deal of the rest of the book the how-and-why is never addressed at all. The longevity issue is only directly mentioned in the following way: a bunch of blah blah blah about a poem she's been working on, then the sentences “She turned back to the first page and read the date, 1586, written in her own boyish hand. She had been working at it for close on three hundred years now”, and then moving on to the changes she made in the poem. That's it! The author seems to have thrown in sex changes and immortality just for the hell of it, and in no way attempts to give context or understanding to the reader. Lots of boring descriptions about London, yes. Plot or coherent use of literary devices, no.

Had no idea what this book was about, just hooked onto it because I'd never read any books by Virginia Woolf and the description mentioned this book as one of her more “accessible” works. Hmmm.... so it hit me like a brick when all of a sudden the male main character is transformed into a woman. It was a shock, and then I was somewhat disappointed because my beginning effort at getting into the book and becoming attached to Orlando and the wonderful rhythm of the language felt yanked out of my grasp. I had to go read some background on the novel to feel like it was “okay” to keep reading–that Woolf had probably based Orlando on a woman Woolf had a “crush” on, etc. I guess I just didn't have enough connection to Orlando as a main character to suspend my disbelief about his sudden gender-switching.

Virginia Woolf took biography writing to a new level with this. She is such a brilliant writer. This book can be analyzed with so many lenses i.e., queer, feminist, sapphic.

Orlando: A Biography is a fantastical period piece surrounding the titular character as they traverse life. It is beautifully written in Virginia's poetic voice and focuses on sexuality, identity, and societal expectations.

I cannot express my love for this book enough. I have never read something that so poetically encapsulates my own feelings of gender. Virginia Woolf's writing is hard to read at times due to the poetic aspects as well as old English, but taking the time to understand is well worth it. It's definitely not a quick read because of that, but it's an enjoyable one nonetheless.

If you're looking for an interesting and unique piece on queer identity set in the Elizabethan period, I can't recommend this enough. Absolutely in my top 10!