7/4/09 11:59 am - Thoughts about 'Orlando'I have just finished reading Virginia Woolf's novel Orlando (1928), and I wanted to write down some thoughts and comments from the book. The following might not make any sense to a person who has not read the book, as it probably might not make sense to a person who has read the book, but I shall try my best to explain myself and my thoughts. First of all, I found the book somewhat hard to understand. Partially, I suppose, this was because I felt that I lacked the intellect to understand it properly. This lack of self-esteem when it comes to reading great classics is not a new thing for me - I have experienced a similar thing with almost every "intellectual", philosophical classic text that I have read. Most of the time, I presume, this is due to the fact that I expect a classic linear structure to every text, and am a bit puzzled whenever I read something other than that. Orlando is a text that plays around with the idea of linear structure, as well as realism, fantasy, gender, and most of all, time. Woolf herself called the text "revolutionary in biographic writing", and it documents the life of the protagonist, Orlando, moving on from one event to another in a timely manner. What makes the novel different, however, is that Orlando, who at the end of the novel is thirty-six years old, the novel covers an era from 1588 to 1928, during which time Orlando grows from a young man into a woman approaching middle age. The change of Orlando's gender in the middle of the novel was something I found rather peculiar and strange, but in the end, not all that surprising, as I have always considered Miss Woolf to be a strong feminist enforcing gender equality. Towards the end of the book, in the last chapter if I recall correctly, she writes that a person has many "selves". The change in Orlando's gender can therefore be explained through an argument that both female and male selves are part of Orlando. In fact, this is a huge part of what I thought the main message of the novel was; people have many layers, and you only see one at a time. At first, I was thinking that I would not give the book more than a *** rating, mostly because some of the language used by Miss Woolf I felt was almost too poetic. The meaning of the book would not come to me automatically, but only after a long thinking process. This is surely a matter of my personal liking and taste, but I am a person of my time period, and therefore grew somewhat weary whilst reading the elaborate story of Orlando. In these days it is a sad truth that we would rather have the meaning spoon-fed to us, and therefore the novel probably does not appeal to the public as it perhaps used to. I wish that I would not be part of the mainstream in this sense, but unfortunately, I find myself caught in between these two views. I understand the point of view of the intellectual others, but side with the contemporary morons. Nevertheless, in the same time when I felt overpowered by it, I found myself awe-struck by the powerful imagery and the flowing language Miss Woolf used, and as a result, I felt very inspired by the book. As a conclusion, I could say that the book fascinated me, however in a rather unpleasant manner. I felt that it was a masterpiece, yes, but that the genre perhaps is not for my liking. This brings on a dilemma - should one judge a book by a person's own liking or by the way it serves the purpose set out for it? Orlando surely is a book that has a purpose, but I did not consider it greatly amusing. So, as a book with a purpose the book gets an *****; but as a book judged by my own liking, ***.  accomplished |
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