Orlando Review
Status: #seedling
#orlando #virginia-woolf #modernism
Summary
Orlando by Virginia Woolf tells the story of a male poet who becomes a woman, spanning from 1588 to 1928 - the present time of the publication. During all this time, Orlando ages 36 years (similar to how other characters age as well.)
During the Queen Elizabeth's ruling, Orlando was a noble boy who liked writing poetry and wandering in nature. One day he went into the woods and ran to his house when Queen Elizabeth arrived. She was impressed by him, makes him Steward two years later, while he's already living at the court as her lover and being all adored and cared for. However, Orlando was messing around with some girl, which angered the Queen.
During that time, Orlando liked spending time with "lower" people, in pubs, with other women, till he became tired of all this and goes back to Court, this time with King James I as the ruler. Orlando was set out to marry Euphrosyne - a noblewoman with connections, among many other choices he had. However, one night Orlando meets Sasha, a Russian princess, during the festival of the Great Frost, and falls in love. He was unsure whether Sasha was a man or a woman at first while skating, but nonetheless he was very much attracted to her, and thanks to their knowledge of French, were the only one who could talk together. One night Orlando finds her on the knee of a Russian soldier, but she denied the romantic nature of the gesture. They still plan to run away together, but Sasha never arrived that night. The next day Thames begins to melt and the ship of the Russian Ambassador was moving out of the sea, leaving Orlando behind.
He was depressed, and slept for a whole week, something that doctors could not explain. Orlando woke up with imperfect recollection of his past life, still depressed, and works on the poem "The Oak Tree", which he has been writing for several years. He invites a famous writer named Nicholas Greene, who diminishes the contemporary literature in comparison to the Greeks, in their period of "glawr". [This is a satire for the critics during Woolf's era]. Green comes back home and writes a satirical poem about Orlando, a rich man closed up in his house. Orlando is dejected gain, burns his poems except The Oak Tree, and decides to furnish every room in his gome (365 in total!). He invites all the neighbors in and gains some respect in society. One afternoon he meets Archduchess Harriet of Romania, who makes advances at him. Orlando is repulsed and decides to leave England.
King Charles II sends him to Constantinople as an ambassador; he does such a good job that he awarded as a Duke. During that night, people see him bringing a woman up to his balcony and embracing her. The next morning, the servants find him alone in his room in a trance, and find marriage certificates between Orlando and Rosina Pepita, a Spanish dancer. Insurrection is happening in Turkey, and thanks to Orlando's trance, the robbers think he's dead. After 7 days, again, Orlando wakes up as a woman, which does not seem like a big deal to how she perceives herself and her body. She rides away with Rustum, an old gypsy and joins his tribe in the mountains of Turkey. There, the gypsies mistrust Orlando because she values strange things like houses, poetry, and nature. Orlando decides to go back to England.
On the ship back, she meditates about the gender roles men and women take on while she flirts with the ship's captain. In England she meets Archduchess Harriet again, who reveals he is actually a man, and proposes. Orlando finds him boring and rejects him. She spends time with the time's poets like Addison and Pope, who bore her too in the end. She begins spending time with some London prostitutes, whose stories she finds entertaining. As Orlando looks up to the sky above, she sees great clouds come over London - the nineteenth century has begun.
The Victorian era was concerned with marriage and such, especially at Orlando's age. She goes into the moors, twists her ankle and is rescued by Marmaduke Bonthrop Shelmerdine, a sea captain. They connect instantly and are amazed by each other's feminine and masculine traits. The get married quickly before Shel has to go on duty on his ship.
Orlando finished The Oak Tree and goes to London, where she meets Nick Greene. He is now a sought after literary critic. He is impressed by her poem and ensures its publication with great reviews. The year is now 1901, with Edward VII succeeding to the throne. Orlando is overwhelmed by the arrival of the present (October 11, 1928). Shed goes to the store, smells a candle, and thinks it is Sasha, meditates on her identity, and her many selves. She considers burying her book, but gives that idea up. Thinking of her husband and crying out his name, she is visited by the dead queen, an airplane, a dead bird, in her visions. Shel, now a captain, comes to her. The clock strikes midnight and it is the present.
Thoughts
Before reading it, I was curious about how the transition of time will be handled, as well as the gender transition itself, obviously. The latter was probably one of the most beautiful scenes in the book - it felt like a fairy tale.
I loved the whole premise, the exploration of gender norms and identity, the change of time, and the fluidity of the writing. I read the edition containing the footnotes and all the references to Vita, which made me swoon at the attention to detail and the care with which Virginia laid out Vita's character and life.
In the book, Orlando as a woman wins control of her family estate, which bears a close resemblance to Knole, which addressed Sackville-West's sense of loss about losing the estate that she had grown up in and deeply loved, only because she was a woman. Likewise, Trefusis appears in the novel as the Russian princess Sasha, whom Orlando sincerely loves.
At the same time, Orlando was Virginia's own projection:
For Woolf herself, the book was compensation for a sense of loss. Woolf was often hurt by Sackville-West's promiscuity and unfaithfulness, and Orlando allowed her to have a more idealised version of Sackville-West that would belong to her forever.
That being said, maybe this is the reason why the protagonist herself seemed... vapid, to me at least. Despite the amount of experiences and transformations, Orlando's character did not exhibit a well defined personality. It might be me who appreciates more stubborn, bolder, and less pliable characters, but for all her adventures through time, Orlando was more like a vessel for Woolf's ideas rather then a fully formed individual, which is alright, given the scope of the novel.
Secondly, from the other 3 books written by Woolf that I've read, most of her female characters are similar: upper middle class, attributing the role of a somewhat passive observer or a subject for the author's internal thoughts. Of course, Orlando did change a lot throughout the novel, as a man and as a woman, but the core stayed the same, in its privileged, detached view of the world.
Long live the lesbians:
though she herself was a woman, it was still a woman she loved; and if the consciousness of being of the same sex had any effect at all, it was to quicken and deepen those feelings which she had had as a man. For now a thousand hints and mysteries became plain to her that were then dark. Now, the obscurity, which divides the sexes and lets linger innumerable impurities in its gloom, was removed, and if there is anything in what the poet says about truth and beauty, this affection gained in beauty what it lost in falsity.
Some parts were truly mesmerizing, some parts were boring, and I was catching myself needing to re-read certain parts.
I loved the last chapter. My favorite part of Woolf's book is her stream of consciousness style, which did not disappoint here either.
‘What then? Who then?’ she said. ‘Thirty-six; in a motor-car; a woman. Yes, but a million other things as well. A snob am I? The garter in the hall? The leopards? My ancestors? Proud of them? Yes! Greedy, luxurious, vicious? Am I? (here a new self came in). Don’t care a damn if I am. Truthful? I think so. Generous? Oh, but that don’t count (here a new self came in). Lying in bed of a morning listening to the pigeons on fine linen; silver dishes; wine; maids; footmen. Spoilt? Perhaps. Too many things for nothing. Hence my books (here she mentioned fifty classical titles; which represented, so we think, the early romantic works that she tore up). Facile, glib, romantic. But (here another self came in) a duffer, a fumbler. More clumsy I couldn’t be. And – and – (here she hesitated for a word and if we suggest ‘Love’ we may be wrong, but certainly she laughed and blushed and then cried out –) A toad set in emeralds!
The writing of the poem "The Oak Tree" mirrors Lily's painting in To the Lighthouse.