Review of Orlando by Virginia Woolf

*Orlando* by Virginia Woolf (1928). Published by Modern Classics.

When I was an undergraduate at the Fashion Institute of Technology, one of my favorite classes I took there was with the fashion historian Raissa Bretana. It was Costume and Fashion Through Film, which was a fashion history and film course that was focusing on fashion in film and whether it was accurate or not.

Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, the course ended up being a virtual one, as everything was still shut down at this point, and we would watch the movies on our own instead of having to sit on a Zoom call and watch the films together.

One of the movies we watched for class was the Tilda Swinton film Orlando, and it has stuck with me years later. I was thinking about it again when I was reflecting on the movies I’ve watched in the past decade, and when I was at the library, I had the golden opportunity to spot the source material, the Virginia Woolf novel, in the midst of the shelves.

So I checked it out immediately! And, like the movie, I loved it.

Let’s get into my review.

English nobleman Orlando finds himself a woman one day and somehow immortal.

Orlando begins in the Tudor England period, specifically when Queen Elizabeth is sitting on the throne. Our protagonist is Orlando, a nobleman who benefits from being a man of the elite. He is a favorite of the queen, who is older and actively dying at this point in history, and she does eventually die not long after the start of the novel.

Orlando is smitten with a Russian princess named Sasha, and the early 1600s is the setting now. They go skating on the frozen Thames River at one point, but when the ice melts, Sasha leaves back for Russia and Orlando is peak depressed.

In the meantime he continues his poetry and writing career, and befriends a local poet that later betrays Orlando. He uses his money to tether his spiritual connection to the family home, spending a lot of it on furniture and parties for anyone willing to come inside, again using his male privilege to benefit from society despite having done nothing really to contribute to society.

After being pursued by a woman, Orlando finds a way out of the country once he feels like it’s going too far.

So King Charles II appoints Orlando as the ambassador to Constantinople. In the midst of riots and general turmoil in the country, Orlando goes to sleep one day and realizes that he has become a woman. Despite this being potentially devastating, Orlando just kind of shrugs it off and accepts this new body others.

She doesn’t realize the consequences of it until she’s on the ship back to England, when a sailor falls to his death after spotting her ankle exposed. The woman she thought was pursuing her was a man, and he’s still pursuing her.

The years pass, and Orlando doesn’t age. The poet and critic also doesn’t age, and Orlando is haunted by him appearing again and again to promote her writing, especially as she ends up engaging with the courts throughout the period.

One of the big things to know is that she also lost her beloved home upon becoming a woman, and women can’t really own property at this point. She successfully sues at some point for the state and ends up marrying a sea captain that’s also non gender conforming.

The novel then fast forwards to 1928, the year of its publication. An airplane is mentioned, showing the passing of time since the beginning of the 1600s and the beginning of Orlando’s life.

Overall Thoughts

There’s loaded contexts and analysis when it comes to a book like Orlando, and I suggest reading up on Woolf’s inspirations if you want to dig deeper. The more obvious form of analysis comes with gender and how Orlando never really can understanding being a woman—which is one interpretation, because what really is a woman and a man without being taught through strict binaries.

Lots of commentary and pride on English history, although most of the novel is about the men who made it great until Orlando ends up being transformed into a woman.

I think Orlando is such a fascinating text, and definitely worth studying if you’re into these kinds of debates and discussions around the text.

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