Reviews

Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf

hollyway's review against another edition

challenging mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Wow!!!!!! I was already a Virginia Woolf fan but oh my god??! This novel is just... something else. More than anything this is a study of specific ideas (gender, nature, poetry, life, death) but it doesn't feel dry or self-important. It feels lush and magical. The magnitude of a modern myth with the spellbinding quietude of a charming fairytale. I was swept along on all Orlando's adventures as well as their musings, wanderings and daydreams. This novel has such a unique atmosphere about it, it was a pleasure for the senses while also being challenging and stimulating to the mind. It's a short but dense book - that's Woolf for you - and I hope to revisit it many times to gain a fuller understanding of the ideas she explores here. But also, just because it slaps!!

dkai's review against another edition

I don't know how to rate this.

On the one hand, it is a brilliant, genre-bending, gender-bending parody biography of her friend/fellow writer/lover Vita Sackville-West as if Vita had lived for hundreds of years. Woolf is cutting loose, having fun, and being funny in a way that is not associated with her other books. Her insights and introspection are there in plenty of highlightable passages, but there's more of a twinkle in her eye. Time, fame, gender, writing, death, and love are carefully and whimsically utilized to get at the core of the subject (a subject who is extremely extra).

It is also sometimes shockingly casually racist and classist in ways that are not even essential to the book. It's like Woolf prepared a delightful meal and then garnished it with lead shavings. The heart of the meal is still there, but you are left thinking "why is that there?" It's ultimately very disappointing to see.

tayloreve07's review against another edition

Just . . . Virginia Woolf. My absolute and undying love for her and anything her pen has touched is fogging up my brain too much to write any kind of truly helpful review.

Also, talk about a gay plot plot. I loved it.

natt_cbr's review against another edition

hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

mangoball's review against another edition

5.0

this book was so charming to read because you can tell virginia woolf was having fun with it. it made me laugh several times. such a fun commentary on male authors and poets. i just really liked this book, i liked orlando, i wish i could traverse through space and time but it would be so lonely. 

jenonjupiter's review against another edition

4.25

First book I've read by Virginia Woolf that I've heavily enjoyed. In the Voyage Out I felt inklings of possibility, in Jacob's Room I began to understand her mastery at the experimental and prose, in To the Lighthouse, she lost me a bit again (maybe I had too high of expectations). But here in Orlando is where Woolf has fully captivated me. The book starts off strong, has a bit of a slow middle, but the last 1/2-1/3 of the book is where I was amazed by Woolf. Her commentary on sex, marriage, and writing has blown me away in her beauty of crafting sentences. There were multiple times in the book where I wished I could've even come close to writing how she has written. Some flawed parts of the book however, comes with Woolf's relationship and almost fantasy of the 'Orient'. I know it had to be apart of the book as Orlando is slightly biographical. However, I don't think she treated it the best in certain moments. 

bookitalum's review against another edition

2.0

Remember in school when you were assigned a paper and asked the teacher how long it should be? The reply was, “as long as it is good.” This book felt like it was longer than it was good. There were certainly some beautiful passages, but there were too few to hold up the whole work. It felt meandering, convoluted, and incomplete. I simultaneously wanted more and less.

kostula's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective slow-paced

3.75

cc1810's review against another edition

challenging mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

venusverti's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny informative mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Oh Orlando! What a scrumptious read. I had completely forgotten what Woolf was all about and how her work read, and she has left me eager for more with this book. I loved the characters as much as the plot - both were rich, complex and exciting! Woolf provided a brilliant narration full of deep societal commentary paired against light hearted gossip and drama. The plot was engaging and exciting with some real characters! I loved the fictional biography element - something I have not read or experienced before. A great set up. My only down side would be that the end lost the pace and felt slow and less intriguing

Spoiler

as we finally met Orlando in the present, and occasionally the time skips weren't as clear as they could have been.

Despite the slower end (and why it didn't quite make it into my 5/5 reads), the beginning and middle left a great impact and perhaps one of my favourite books.