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Notes Woolf’s Orlando tr. Borges 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 Orlando by Virginia Woolf Chapter 1 HE — FOR THERE COULD BE NO DOUBT of his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it — was in the act of slicing at the head of a Moor which swung from the rafters. It was the colour of an old football,. Sometimes it is not possible to find the cover corresponding to the book whose edition is published. Final cut pro alternative for windows 3. Please, consider this image only as a reference, it will not always be the exact cover used in the edition of the published book.
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Preview — Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf's Orlando 'The longest and most charming love letter in literature', playfully constructs the figure of Orlando as the fictional embodiment of Woolf's close friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West. Spanning three centuries, the novel opens as Orlando, a young nobleman in Elizabeth's England, awaits a visit from the Queen and traces his experience with first lo..more
Published September 28th 2000 by Penguin Classics (first published October 11th 1928)
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Matthew WilliamsI thought that Mrs. Dalloway was a little experimental compared to Orlando. Luis is correct, there is some elevated language in Orlando, however the…moreI thought that Mrs. Dalloway was a little experimental compared to Orlando. Luis is correct, there is some elevated language in Orlando, however the structure of Orlando is much more traditional, and as such, I found it to be a more casual read. Orlando at least has chapter breaks, something Mrs. Dalloway lacks. (less)
Matthew WilliamsOrlando is not exactly representative of her body of work. I would actually call Orlando a wild card. I would start with To The Lighthouse or Mrs.…moreOrlando is not exactly representative of her body of work. I would actually call Orlando a wild card. I would start with To The Lighthouse or Mrs. Dalloway if you want to have a general feel for her work. I have an excellent time reading Woolf. Don't let others scare you off. Virginia Woolf is reader-friendly!(less)
My mom made me clean my room this weekend. No, not a teenage pain-in-the-ass cleaning of the room, this was THE cleaning of the room. As in, it was finally time to take apart the room I’d had in that house since we moved there somewhere around my thirteenth birthday. Look you guys, I get it. I’m twenty-four. That’s another one of those Facts of Life that just happens to you, and most people would say I was far past time for this. And you know what? I was doing okay with it. It went slowly, but i..more
'I'm sick to death of this particular self. I want another.' Orlando to me is a dream come true in literature. Being able to move in time and space and to change my gender with my moods is a deeply satisfying idea. It is the quintessence of what reading means in my life - the opportunity to leave my own life behind and step into the body and soul of other people, only to move on again when I feel like it. I can be intensely engaged for a week, and then put the adventure safely into my memory and..more
Nov 23, 2017Sean Barrs the Bookdragon rated it really liked it
Woolf did not write this book for her readers; she specifically wrote it for her close “friend” and fellow writer Vita Sackville-West. As such Woolf does things she would not normally do in her writing; it is not at all serious but instead takes on the form of a literary homage, homage to reading and writing. My case in point: “For it would seem - her case proved it - that we write, not with the fingers, but with the whole person. The nerve which controls the pen winds itself about every fibre o..more
Apr 30, 2014Renato Magalhães Rocha rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
This was my first time reading Orlando. It was also my second time. I like to think that everything happens for a reason - not that I believe it was planned or decided by a powerful creature for me - but because the idea that everything effects what surrounds it sounds about right to me. So I see a purpose in this reading experience that Virginia Woolf provided me and take it as an important lesson to carry with me from now on - and how appropriate that it came just at the beginning of a new and..more
My second reading of Orlando bore out my overriding impression the first time I read it – that this is a brilliant comic performance until Woolf, before finishing, runs out of steam. Towards the end it becomes apparent she’s no longer in the same spirit with which she began the book. What begins as pure parody ends up a serious attempt to understand her subject. The delicious light skip of her lyrical irony no longer seems at the beck and call of her wit towards the end. You can sense, even see..more
Jul 18, 2018Steven Godin rated it it was amazing
I knew for sure I wasn't expecting anything like 'To the Lighthouse' with Orlando, but what I didn't know is just how much sheer pleasure Orlando would end up giving me, as this went right beyond my expectations, the days reading it seemed invigorated somehow. Woolf has broken with tradition and convention and has set out to explore a kind of fourth dimensional approach to writing. Not that she has abandoned the stream of consciousness method which she used with such conspicuous success in her p..more
Totally new review (replacing ancient, short, less favourable one). Orlando. or-LAN-do. Wrap your tongue around it, and whisper it. There’s a luscious, syrupy, sensual, mysterious feel. Much like the eponymous hero(ine), and the sumptuously described natural and man-made world Orlando inhabits. The name conjures cross-dressing disguises in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, a Marmalade Cat, maybe Tilda Swinton or Legolas, and, for Google, theme parks in Florida. If you know the novel’s USP and Greek my..more
Jul 08, 2013Dolors rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: read-in-2016
Orlando might have been devised as a mere divertimento, as a playful attempt to challenge the established views on sexuality or as a fantastical tale to confront the history of East and West by questioning the boundaries of space and time, but to this reader this novella meant much more. It meant a universe of fluctuating moods, characters and sweeping poetry that gives reason to be through the act of reading. How to describe the nuanced melody of finely threaded irony prodigiously in tune with t..more
Jul 12, 2009Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it · review of another edition
675. Orlando = Orlando: A Biography, Virginia Woolf Orlando: A Biography is a novel by Virginia Woolf, first published on 11 October 1928. A high-spirited romp inspired by the tumultuous family history of Woolf's lover and close friend, the aristocratic poet and novelist Vita Sackville-West, it is arguably one of Woolf's most popular novels: a history of English literature in satiric form. The book describes the adventures of a poet who changes sex from man to woman and lives for centuries, meeti..more
Jun 29, 2013Samadrita rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
The most prudent way to review a Virginia Woolf book, perhaps, would be to write 'THIS IS STUPENDOUS. GENIUS. AMAZING. WHY HAVEN'T YOU READ THIS YET?' and leave it at that. Because not only does this relieve you of the responsibility of casting about for appropriate words to serenade Woolf but also because you know no review in the world does justice to the sheer magic that she is capable of creating with words. But since I have a thing for self-flagellation(not really), I wish to undertake preci..more
Jul 04, 2014Michael rated it it was amazing
Published in 1928, toward the end of the most productive stage of Woolf's career as a writer, Orlando doubles as national history and romance: the playful and ironic novel famously centers on the transformation of its protagonist's gender, near the start of the 18th century, but most of the story deals with Orlando's different loves and England's changing social norms over the course of three centuries. The gender change and kaleidoscopic setting afford Woolf the chance to examine themes especia..more
Dec 29, 2010Paul rated it it was amazing
I first read this many years ago; before I knew very much about Virginia Woolf and her relationship with Vita Sackville-West, to whom this is dedicated. The background is vital because it adds so much and because it helps the reader to reach an understanding of Woolf’s generosity. It is as ever, beautifully written and drifts splendidly through the centuries and the key is Vita and their circle. As Woolf was writing this her affair with Vita was beginning to wane as Vita was moving on to other l..more
Nov 29, 2012Rowena rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
I absolutely adored this book. The style is definitely different from the other Woolf books I've read so far. What stood out for me was the beautiful use of the language, maybe more than the story. The novel had an almost fairytale-like feel to it, and I was definitely enchanted from the start. I don't think the following is a spoiler as it is included in the book's blurb : this book is about a 16 year old boy, Orlando, a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I, who one day wakes up to find that he has be..more
Sep 27, 2007Paul Bryant rated it really liked it
What's the connection between Virginia Woolf and the Russian mafia? Easy - in 1991 Sally Potter decided to film Orlando, one of the loveliest, most ravishing novels in the English language. Somewheres in the middle of the story there, you have a truly extraordinary sequence about the remarkable Frost Fair of 1654, which was when the River Thames itself froze over and they erected a fair with stalls and games and rides and greased pigs and whatnot on it, a carnival of the utmost brilliancy right..more
Mar 08, 2015Fionnuala added it · review of another edition
I like nothing better than when two books I happen to be reading overlap, even if briefly, so I was really pleased when Virginia Woolf’s fictional character, Orlando, suddenly mentioned Jonathan Swift, whose Journal to Stella I’ve been reading recently. Orlando, who in some sections of Woolf’s book uses the title Lady Orlando, has just been receiving a visit from Joseph Addison, Swift’s one-time bosom pal and fellow political essayist, when there's an interruption: .and when Mr Addison has had..more
Orlando was much funnier than I expected, and much less fantastical. Since I was familiar with the plot before beginning the book and had heard much literary criticism concerning the famed transformation, I was expecting the focus to be on gender issues. While these were certainly present, Woolf presents them fairly gently. Orlando is so strongly an individual that his/her sex hardly matters from a readerly standpoint. Indeed, I found it harder to believe that he was a successful ambassador than..more
Apr 20, 2013Edward rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Introduction, by Peter Ackroyd Introduction, by Margaret Reynolds List of Illustrations Preface, by Virginia Woolf --Orlando Index
Jun 25, 2018Darwin8u rated it really liked it · review of another edition
'The change of sex, though it altered their future, did nothing whatever to alter their identity.' - Virginia Woolf, Orlando A beautiful, poetic look at gender, sex, poetry, time, love, living, etc. This gender-studies masterpiece was inspired by Woolf's reltionship with Vita Sackville-West. According to Vita's son: 'The effect of Vita on Virginia is all contained in Orlando, the longest and most charming love letter in literature, in which she explores Vita, weaves her in and out of the centuries..more
Nov 11, 2013Rakhi Dalal rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
As always, Woolf has stunned me with the magic of her prose here. Telling this isn’t important, neither that it is a biography; that it informs us about the affair of Vita and Violet. I guess much has been said about that. When I started reading, I had no idea about the references to people, places, their characters or their lives as are known to be mentioned in this work. In fact, as the novel proceeded from Orlando’s gender change for the first time, I had a notion about the invisible layer of..more
I finished this book about a week ago, and have been trying ever since to figure out how I'm supposed to review it. I honestly can't think of anything to say except this: Every single emotion I've ever felt and every thought I've ever had, had already been felt and thought and written down by Virginia Woolf decades before I was even born. There is not a single concept or feeling in any of her books that isn't already intimately familiar to me. Reading her books is like having someone look into my..more
Jun 27, 2010Sarah rated it did not like it
Vita Sackville-West's son may have called Orlando “the longest and most charming love-letter in literature”, but let me tell you: if someone wrote me a love letter like this, their ass would be getting dumped shortly thereafter. This book was like the song that wouldn't end- it just goes on and on (yet it isn't particularly lengthy) without saying very much of interest. Despite the fact that reading it was a serious chore, for whatever reason I couldn't just give up and toss it aside (much like..more
My second Virginia Woolf book. This further improved my understanding of her work. I loved this one too ! AfterTo the Lighthouseand this one, I have decided to read Mrs. Dalloway in line to reach to a conclusion of my opinion about her books. Only after completing this third book of her, I'll write detailed reviews on her all three books !
Dec 16, 2016Sidharth Vardhan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
You know how people say that some books are ahead of their time. I think Woolf's Orlando is a book which probably won't be understood for another decade or so. The sudden change of Orlando's sex and his several centuries old existence along with/her very easy acceptance of those things rings of magical realism. The fantastic bit that of Orlando's living through several centuries is used to develop the book into what looked like a poem on the spirit of Time. Through different ages, Orlando tastes..more
Jan 26, 2018James rated it liked it · review of another edition
Having read and not enjoyed or appreciated Virginia Woolf’s ‘To The Lighthouse’ (1927) it was with expectation, due to it’s literary reputation, although some trepidation, due to my experience with ‘Lighthouse’, that I approached the markedly different ‘Orlando – A Biography’ (1928). The premise of the life of Orlando was always going to be a highly promising one – beginning as it does with Orlando as a boy at the time of Queen Elizabeth I and following his adventures across different lands, and..more
May 01, 2017Piyangie rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Orlando Virginia Woolf Free Online
Orlando is a biography written about a fictitious character Orlando which was inspired by Virginia's real life friend and lover Vita Sackville-West. The story spans over 300 years where Orlando's life changes from man to woman, from century to century. Gender difference is the main focus of the story. Through Orlando's transformation from man to woman, Virginia subtly addresses gender difference or in her view 'gender neutrality'. Virginia believed in gender neutrality affirming that there is a..more
Let it be known that, despite seeming evidence to the contrary in the form of my reviews, I do indeed have a sense of humor. True, it is a small and desiccated thing, unusual in its feathering and tending towards the qualities of the morbid and the sadistic. However, it delights in incongruity to the extreme, and what makes it laugh will win its love forevermore. This book could have simply tickled my fancies to the bone and nothing else and would still have won me over in a complete state of ado..more
Aug 10, 2018MihaElla rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Maybe not the very first but still my very first seriously engaged meeting with Woolf V. is undoubtedly successful. I picked Orlando after dropping - temporarily and until I get a more senseful sense of her works - its Essays. I was charmed by the language and its expressions but, in parallel, I was aware that nothing of the content sticks with me, because whatever she was saying as for arguments, debating facts, extensive monologues, was really foreign language to me, although I was reading it..more
But what is the present moment?! What does it involve? More than we know, of course. It involves the self, we know. Is that all we know? Me here, writing on my couch, and you, you there. But there is more! Here in this room there is more! A table, its wood, the details, labored, toiled upon for many hours, furnished from carpenters in years past in the great state of Maryland, land of our Great Queen Mary!; a beer sitting on the table, on a book on the table, sweltering, a Mexican beer!; it sits..more
Mar 16, 2015BrokenTune rated it it was amazing
'Are we so made that we have to take death in small doses daily or we could not go on with the business of living? And then what strange powers are these that penetrate our most secret ways and change our most treasured possessions without our willing it ? Had Orlando, worn out by the extremity of his suffering, died for a week, and then come to life again? And if so, of what nature is death and of what nature life? Having waited well over half an hour for an answer to these questions, and none..more
Jul 08, 2013Lynne King rated it liked it
UPDATE - The origins of “Orlando” can be seen in the entry in Virginia Woolf’s diary of Tuesday, 20 September 1927: “One of these days, though, I shall sketch here, like a grand historical picture, the outlines of all my friends. I was thinking of this in bed last night, & for some reason I thought I would begin with a sketch of Gerald Brenan. There may be something in this idea. It might be a way of writing the memoirs of one’s own times during people’s lifetimes. It might be a most amusing..more
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(Adeline) Virginia Woolf was an English novelist and essayist regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century. During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Her most famous works include the novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), and Orlando (1928), and the book-length e..more
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