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Orlando
674 pages
A lush, time-bending romp that playfully dismantles the boundaries of gender, history, and the self.
What it feels like
Reading this novel feels like wandering through a magnificent, centuries-old estate where the portraits wink at you and the clocks tick backward. It is a lush, exuberant celebration of fluidity, wrapping the reader in a dreamlike atmosphere that is both deeply romantic and sharply satirical. The prose is an absolute feast, lyrical, mock-heroic, and sparkling with a wry, affectionate wit that gently mocks the rigid conventions of history and literature. As the narrative meanders across three hundred years, the emotional texture shifts from the melancholic yearning of youth to a profound, joyful liberation. It is a masterpiece for those who savor gorgeous, poetic sentences and delight in a playful, queer subversion of time, gender, and the self.
- Mood
- dreamlike
- lush
- whimsical
- romantic
- Tone
- playful
- satirical
- exuberant
- wry
- affectionate
- Pace
- meandering
- Themes
- fluidity of identity · the passage of time · gender performance · the nature of art · liberation from societal constraints
- The writing
- Lyrical, exuberant, and mock-heroic, filled with lush imagery and sparkling wit.
- The arc
- A sweeping, centuries-long journey from youthful, romantic yearning to a profound, joyful self-acceptance.
- Who it's for
- Readers who delight in gorgeous, poetic sentences, queer history, and playful subversions of literary conventions.
Content notes
- period-typical sexism
- period-typical racism
About the book
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.
Description from Open Library.
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