Review: Orlando – Virginia Woolf

Rating – 5*

“He – for there could be no doubt of his sex” is how this book opens, and it is one of my favourite opening lines in literature. Anyone who has been following this blog for a while knows how I feel about Virginia Woolf, and in particular this book. Orlando. This is my 3rd or 4th time reading the book, and this time I took more away than I ever have before.

Orlando is a book written long before its time and it is no spoiler to say that the character of Orlando starts as a boy of 16 in an Elizabethan court and one day, some years later, wakes up as a woman. This book astounded me this time because Woolf was essentially pointing out that sex and gender are two different things in this book. Gender is a social construct which is built around stereotypes of what society expects from people of a particular sex. It explores things like Male Privilege in a time where that wasn’t even a talking point, illustrated by Orlando (as a woman) needing to marry in order to claim her estate.

I don’t think I will ever be able to coherently express my feelings for this book. I absolutely adore it. Parts of this book I just read over and over again. There are so many beautiful passages in these pages, I wish I could share them all but I’d basically just be typing the book out. I think though, the passage below sums up this book quite well:-

“And as all Orlando’s loves had been women, now, through the culpable laggardry of the human frame to adapt itself to convention, 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.”

I also feel it important to mention that this book was a love letter from Woolf to her female lover, Vita Sackville-West, on whom Orlando was based. They definitely don’t write love letters like this any more! This book is, ultimately, about freedom to be yourself, and to love who you want to love, and to be happy with whoever makes you happy.

I said when I first read this book 3 years ago that every time I reread it I would find something new to love, and this time around I took it more slowly and enjoyed the prose – because Woolf writes the most beautiful prose. I don’t regret it.

Honestly, I urge anyone to read this book, and when you do take it slowly. It may be a 220 page book but it’s a book that needs time taken on it to fully appreciate!

Review: The Waves – Virginia Woolf

Rating – 5*

This book is a masterpiece. It’s taken me a couple of days to actually try and find words to write this review because, honestly, this is a book you have to experience and I know that I will not be able to do it justice.

I tried to read it before, last Summer I believe, and we just didn’t get along. I wasn’t enjoying it, I wasn’t in the place where I could lose myself in the pages. This isn’t a book you can dip in and out of, in my opinion, it’s a book you have to let yourself get lost in. As it stands, I read it in two sittings. I tried reading it on my commute to work, but I ended up rereading those passages when I curled up to read the remainder of the book. Woolf is a writer who demands your full attention, and that just cannot be given while sitting on a bus.

In it’s most basic form, this is the story of a group of friends; told through their individual thought processes from childhood, through marriage and children, to middle age and ultimately death. Each of them has a distinct voice, and tells of moments of their lives. Snippets of time, some of which overlap, some don’t. It’s so difficult to put this book in to words because, honestly, I’m not sure I have any of the right ones.

More than anything, the writing is what captivated me. It’s poetic, lyrical and has rhythm. The more I read the more I could decipher the ebb and flow of it, yes there are many references to waves and water but, truly, for me the story itself is told in waves and it is just magnificent. If I can one day write a sentence as well as Virginia Woolf, just one sentence, I will die happy. I want half of this book tattooed on me, but if I were to pick one sentence from this book, one sentence to encourage you to try it. It would be this:

There was a star riding through clouds one night, and I said to the star, ‘Consume me’

I want to read this book again to fully appreciate it. I want to read it in one sitting, not two. I want to completely immerse myself in the lives of the 6 people who tell this story. Woolf for me is an an author whose books have to be read more than once to fully appreciate, and while I appreciated this, while I loved this book, I know that should I read it again and allow it to consume me, I will love it even more.

Give Woolf a go, people. Please. Don’t be daunted by stream of consciousness!

Review: Flush – Virginia Woolf

Flush is a biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s spaniel, Flush. Yes, it is a book which tells the story of a dog, through the dogs eyes but it is actually wonderful however absurd that sounds! This book was picked up purely on the basis that it was written by Virginia Woolf and was published by Persephone, both of whom I love.

It’s a short book at just over 100 pages but every word is wonderful. It was written in the come down from her writing The Waves (a book which I am yet to read) when she was relatively drained. It was something she wrote for fun and you really get that humour come across in her writing in this instance.

Flush was a dog that lived a very varied life, it gave an insight in to Elizabeth Barrett’s life also. From the fields he roamed as a puppy to his life in a London townhouse and then moving to Italy and the freedom he gained, Flush lived a very good life. This is a parody of sorts as the Victorians did love writing a good biography of an esteemed gentleman and from Flushes point of view, he is an esteemed gentleman. Some of the feelings he had were just so human and, really, believable. A particular chapter that really resonated with me is when Miss Barrett meets Mr Browning and Flushes jealousy!

This book is by no means the masterpiece that Orlando is but it is, however, a really charming book. This book is a very accessible book to read if you’ve not read any Woolf or even if you have but didn’t particularly have that resonance with her writing. It’s a solid 4/5 read and, honestly, one I think I would reread because it was just so lovely!

Review: A Room of One’s Own – Virginia Woolf

So, after reading The Count of Monte Cristo I felt bereft. No book I picked up called to me whatsoever so I decided to pick up A Room of One’s Own because if all else fails, Virginia Woolf, right? It was a good choice and, honestly, I wish I had started my love affair with Virginia here. I had actually started this previously, I had almost finished it too, as I was reading this on the bus for several days but I chose to pick it up and read it properly and that was a much better decision. Woolf is an author who needs a lot of attention to pick up the nuances of her work and it is hard to put any of her books down; at least in my experience!

A Room of One’s Own is a non-fiction text, it’s a slim 112 pages and is based on a series of lectures that Virginia delivered in Cambridge. It is pegged as a feminist classic and I have to agree with that term. While it’s a classic and is 86 years old, so much of it still felt relevant today. She covers female writers in history, Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, George Eliot and also, Shakespeare’s fictional sister. She tells us how it is only with a fixed income (500 pounds a year) for independence and ‘a room of one’s own’ that a woman will be free to create whatever they please. She makes sure that as a reader we know how brief and limited their histories are. It seems she wrote this to be enduring as she encourages the reader to to acknowledge how their female ancestors fought for just five minutes peace and a few pieces of paper to pen their thoughts.

Trying to put my thoughts in to words for this book is, again, difficult. I just don’t know how because she has left me with so many thoughts and feelings I don’t even know how to put in to words. Virginia Woolf is just one of the finest writers that has ever lived. This only emboldens that statement, for me. If you haven’t read any Woolf, I would really suggest starting here because it is so readable – it is much easier than Orlando to get through! I ultimately think I give this 4/5 but it is one I know I will revisit and KNOW I will possibly love more on doing that.

Review: To the Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf

I picked this up as a holiday read – it was honestly the perfect thing to read, kicking back in the sun!

Virginia Woolf is an artist and words her medium. She is a genius and I cannot fully express my love for her. The few hours that I spend reading this book, so totally and utterly engrossed in this were some of the best of my holiday.

I really find it hard to let go of a novel by Woolf, it is always one that leaves me hanging; wanting to go back to the start. This will be one I revisit in the sunshine; be it this year or next either way I will read this again, more than once.

It was by no means an easy read. It required concentration and my full attention for 4 or 5 hours to read and fully appreciate but it was totally worth it. She forms sentences so beautifully and intricately that it was impossible to read this with any kind of distraction.

This book is split in to three parts. In the first, we meet the Ramsey family – very little happens, we just follow these characters, spending time in each of their heads and jumping around. It’s just wonderful. Over the course of the novel we follow the plot through several perspectives – men, women and children.

I really don’t feel I can do this book justice. I’m not an academic, at least not in English Literature. But I know a good book when I read one, I can appreciate the artistry and the genius behind it. Virginia Woolf is wonderful and this book is a 5/5 for me.

Review: Orlando – Virginia Woolf

I loved Mrs Dalloway when I read it a few years ago, but I did say it was a book that I would have to reread to appreciate. Because of that I waited, 5 years, before picking up any more of Woolf’s work and… I’m so glad I waited.

Orlando is a book that requires patience. It’s a book that required me to slow down my reading to fully bask in the beauty that it is. I think having a few more years on me also helped comprehend and appreciate her grasp and use of language. She is a genius. I love her. This book has changed me, it has changed how I will read from now on. I just cannot verbalise how amazing it is.

I actually read this twice; the second time straight after the first because I didn’t feel like I took enough out of it the first time around. I read a different edition (I have a mass market paperback sized edition which isn’t nearly as pretty) and actually annotated it – this is a huge thing, I hate to write in a book but it was beautiful to do that. To just fully appreciate her writing and put my own thoughts in the margins, highlighting the bits that stood out to me. A second read made me notice how vividly she describes colours and textures; the first chapter/section has far too many references to the colour green but never once is it repetitive and God – this woman!

Reading this book once is not enough to take everything away from it; it’s just so complex. I know that I can’t write about it and do it justice. I will however, briefly gloss over the general gist; Orlando begins the novel as a man (He – for there could be no doubt of his sex) in Elizabethan England; by the end, Orlando is a married woman in the 1920s.

It is just sublime, there are no other words for it.  The experience I had reading this was transformative; it is already changing how I approach books and what I take away from them. I will reread it again in future and make further notes with a different colour, for sure as it is – undoubtedly – a book that with every reading I will take more away from. Read it. 5/5.