2/27 - Orlando (fin)

Orlando, Orlando, where for art thou, Orlando?

Nah, doesn't really have the same feel as Romeo.

Anyways, getting back to the actual novel, or "biography," if you will. Having just finished the book, I feel as a whole it was definitely very interesting, but at the same time confusing as hell. A character living for hundreds of years? I can get past that. But a character living for hundreds of years and having a "spiritual/physical" sex change in the middle of his/her life? That, I can't really get past - but somehow, it seems to work and became much more than the MacGuffin of the book.

While the book is finished, there are some things I would like to talk about.

First of all, apparently Nick Greene is a highlander, because when Orlando meets up with him in the nineteenth (or was it the twentieth?) century, I was very shocked to see a familiar face in Orlando's apparent time-traveling adventures (though I don't know if I'm more shocked to see Greene or more shocked when Nick knows right away to call him Lady Orlando). It's interesting that Woolf would bring such a bittersweet character back into Orlando's life - I do not think she herself would have chosen to meet up with him in the future. Quite a bit is made about "The Oak Tree" when the two are talking, so perhaps Woolf only brings Greene back to push forward the idea that Orlando gets her manuscript published and into the public eye.

So apparently Orlando has a son, and as shocking as that is, I ponder to ask the question, "Why?" Why would Woolf introduce a possibly life-changing character so late in the game, and then completely ignore him for the last twenty-five or so pages. Is it just to reinforce the idea that Orlando is now a woman? Why put such a throwaway idea into the story and then let it slide away just as easily as it came? I really do not know, and I personally feel that while the idea of her having a son is interesting, her execution of the idea is poor and in my mind sort of takes away from the story on the whole.

The last thing I wanted to mention might just be a coincidence and have no relevance to the subject, but I would still like to get out onto paper (so to speak). On page 198, Woolf begins to speak about a gamekeeper and how this gamekeeper will "whistle under the window" of a "beautiful woman in the prime of her life." This is purely thinking outside some kind of box that lies on the edge of a stair that, with a wisp of wind, could tip over and all its contents could fly out, but is it possible that this gamekeeper that Woolf mentioned is somehow related to the gamekeeper of Lawrence's Lady Chatterly's Lover? Is it possible that Woolf, for one reason or another, is referencing good ole D.H. in one way or another? Why she chooses or not chooses to do this directly, I do not know, but it would be interesting to see if it really is a connection between the two books.

2/19 - Orlando

Orlando is, well, to put it simply - complicated. He was born a he but mid-life he woke up one day (after a visit from three faeries, no less) and he was now a she. From that point on (at least to where I have read), Orlando is in the mindset of a woman, dresses like a woman, and acts like a woman should act (whatever that means).

But Woolf never states that Orlando has changed physically, he has only changed mentally. For instance, on page 102, Woolf states that "Orlando had become a woman - there is no denying it. But in every other respect, Orlando remained precisely as he had been. The change of sex, though it altered their future, did nothing whatever to alter their identity." From this passage, we can glean that Woolf makes certain of two things: 1) Orlando is now a woman, and 2) Orlando looks exactly the same as he did before, nothing has changed but his internal self.

With this idea Woolf challenges society and their "clearly defined" sexual identities involving gender and orientation. She not only challenges it, she almost makes a mockery of it. It's almost as if she's trying to say, "Just because a man walks and talks like a man, doesn't that make him a woman?" - that sort of satire of gender roles in her/our society.

Though this may not be the most relevant to this discussion, but when Orlando is "getting used" to the idea that she is now a woman, it reminds me of the MacGuffin (the plot device that catches the viewers attention) of the film Freaky Friday, - whichever version you imagine here is up to you, the reader - or, at least the basic idea of it. Instead of a mother and daughter switching bodies (or personalities, what have you), it is instead a male personae jumping from his own body into that of an elegant female husk (too graphic language perhaps?). At first, she doesn't know what to do - she freaks out and tries to understand what has happened (at least in the films), but over time she must accept that she is stuck in the body of a man/child/mother and there is nothing he/she can do about it. This is partly what Orlando does - while on the boat to her home, she contemplates what being a woman means for him, and generally accepts and embraces the idea of her new reality.

Now, in regards to reality - there is none, at least not in this "biography." Things go from based in real-life to balls-to-the-wall crazy time in split seconds. First off, a man going to sleep and then days later waking up magically changed into a woman? Yeah, that's not what I would call "realistic," unless of course our main character was an asexual toad creature on the planet WtfftW. I'm not sure why Woolf chooses to add such a thing to this book, but maybe she does it so people won't take it too seriously and realize that it's not a real "biography." I do not want to think of this book as merely fantasy, but at the same time I definitely don't want to take this as non-fiction 100% real. I think the proper way to view this book is like an acid trip - the bits where things go crazy (such as the faery scene before the "change") are when Woolf was at her most high (of herself maybe?) and the "real" bits in between are the lulls when she wasn't doing acid, but wasn't doing anything worse either.