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Orlando by Virginia Woolf

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sidharthvardhan's review against another edition

5.0

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 the life and literary trends of each time, herself changing and maturing over tim, and all this is portrayed in Woolf's beautiful prose.

This is also supposed to be a sort of tribute/love-letter to Woolf's friend, Vita, I don't know how.

However what was hardest for me to digest (really hard) was that Orlando didn't notice the change of her sex for several days (really, really hard.) And (s)he only noticed it when (s)he started getting in touch with other people, and his/her further experiences to seem to validate the theory that gender behavior is induced by social expectations (rather than something inherent), a nurture thing rather than nature. I don't think such a theory existed at the time the novel was written. Even the best psychologists like Freud thought the gender differences are inherent in sex.

Even now, we tend to use the words 'sex' and gender' interchangeably. Psychologists differentiate between two, sex is a biological characteristic determined by one's private parts while gender is a social construct includes all the attributes (stereotypes, roles, behavior etc) that society expects from people of each sex.

Thus male and female are sexes, while masculinity and feminity are genders. Too technical, isn't it!.Woolf was pointing the difference between two and proposing that gender is a social construct (something society conditions us into though tools like clothes, language etc.), so loved by feminists, quarter a century before the term 'gender role' was coined. And she does it in subtle and, at times, hilarious manner.

Still, I think it is too big an exaggeration to say Orlando won't notice the change for days. Any guy will smell a difference when he wakes up one day and .. lo, he has breasts ... I mean obviously ...