Public Domain 2024 Reviews: Orlando: A Biography
A review of Virginia Woolf's groundbreaking novel exploring gender identity.
Stories involving gender swapping can mean a lot of things. In some cases, they serve as a funny troupe meant to place characters in awkward situations and see how they react to suddenly becoming the opposite sex. Such stories can often be found in sitcoms or comedic films. In others, it can be used to establish a new direction in how a popular franchise will portray certain characters, as was with the 2016 Ghostbusters movie and the modern Doctor Who series when actress Jodie Whitaker was cast to play the famous Time Lord that had always been played by male actors in the past. Such stories can be controversial due to how even the smallest of changes can be interpreted as political by fandoms, although they can admittedly have mixed results no matter how others initially feel about the changes.
In Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel Orlando: A Biography, we get not just an early example of a gender bending story, but a complex novel with themes related to feminism and gender identity that happen to be remain relevant to this day. In what was a major break from her more serious postmodern work, including Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and To the Lighthouse (1927), Woolf took what was both a satire of biographies written at that time (complete with acknowledgements, photos, and an index) as well as a love letter of sorts to her friend and lover Vita Sackville- West -for whom the novel was dedicated to-and wrote a novel about the life of an aristocrat named Orlando which begins with the protagonist as a young nobleman in the Elizabethan era and ends with them as a married woman living in London in 1928. In the time between, Orlando has many experiences with pursing writing, finding love, and witnessing the many changes society goes through over the centuries.
The novel begins around the 16th century when Orlando is sixteen years old. He often spends his days in his attic room plunging a blade into the air and pretending to slice the head of a skull which is said to have been originally sliced off by either his father or grandfather during their travels to Africa. Right away, this shows that Orlando has an adventurous spirit and seems to hint that his life will soon be full of adventure, albeit of a somewhat different sort. At the same time, Orlando has an interest in poetry, and he manages to write ten pages of it shortly after his exercise with the blade. We’re told the following about his early skills, which will probably sound familiar to those of us who are writers ourselves:
“He was fluent, evidently, but he was abstract. Vice, crime, misery were the parsonages of his drama; there were Kings and Queens of impossible territories; horrid plots confounded them; noble sentiments suffused them; there was never a word said as he himself would have said it, but all was turned with a fluency and sweetness which, considering his age…were remarkable enough.”
Orlando soon has encounters with two individuals who visit his home. The first is a poet. This visitor is of great interest to Orlando, and there is much which he’d like to say to him, but when he manages to see him, he’s left speechless and can only watch him from a distance. The next visitor is Queen Elizabeth, and when Orlando offers a bowl of rose water to her, he’s once again very shy and can only notice how she places her ringed hand in the water, which is enough to leave a lasting impression on him. He later gets a message that he is to meet the Queen at Whitehall, where he goes on to serve as her page. He goes on to do quite a lot and has several suitors before he meets Sasha, a Russian princess while he’s out skating during the Great Frost of 1608. She dresses in an androgynous way, usually in Russian trousers, and leaves Orlando unsure of her exact gender when he first sees her. The two of them become lovers, and at one point they agree to meet up at a certain location to run away together. Orlando shows up, but Sasha never arrives. Orlando soon finds her in a boat alongside another man and instantly feels betrayed.
This incident leaves Orlando in a deep state of despair, and he retreats to remain alone for a long time, devoting most of his time to working on a long poem titled The Oak Tree. One day, he meets a poet named Nicolas Greene who spends too much time rambling about his distaste for most current literature and writers (with one of the many names he brings up being Shakespeare), and how most of what could be considered great writing had been done in the past. When Orlando shows him The Oak Tree, the poet is not impressed and goes on to satirize Orlando in one of his own works. This encounter leaves Orlando discouraged, and for a while, he loses interest in literary pursuits. He goes to serve as a host to the populace from his home.
After an incident where Orlando gets intimidated by the Archduchess Harriet, who’s very tall and androgynous, he agrees to serve as an ambassador to Constantinople so that he has an excuse to leave the country, as well as Harriet as soon as he can. He does well over there until one chaotic night in which riots and civil unrest occur.
At the time of this incident, Orlando remains asleep for several days. As this happens, three figures referred to as the Sisters show up in his room. They include our Lady of Purity, Lady of Chasity, and Lady of Modesty. They each announce their virtues, which are met with the pealing of trumpets and calls demanding “Begone Purity! Begone Chasity! Begone Modesty!” Upon these orders to leave, the Sisters say they will instead go to those who love and honor them, who include virgins, city men, lawyers, and doctors, for whom they give wealth, prosperity, comfort, and ease in exchange for their attention. Once they leave, Orlando arises, and it turns out that he is now a woman.
Orlando goes on several adventures expanding time afterwards. She stays with a group of Romani (who are referred to as ‘gypsies’ in the novel) for a while, attempting to take part in their way of life but often failing to fit in with them due to her tendency for being too reflective. The Romani refer to this as a problem of “nature” and disapprove of it. She leaves the group and returns to England by boat. While on the boat, a man who notices a flash of her ankle as she’s wearing women’s clothing almost falls to his death. This incident leaves Orlando realizing she has a certain influence over men now, and she views this as an advantage of being a woman.
Despite her change of sex, she still does many of the activities she took part in as a man, including writing and outdoor activities. On several occasions during the 18th and 19th centuries, she holds court with many established writers, including Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift. However, she still comes across many challenges. She sometimes finds it difficult to speak with the writers she holds court with, since they would often ridicule her and refuse to take her seriously. And since she is now a woman, she finds herself faced with lawsuits over her family’s estate, which she is at risk of losing. Therefore, she realizes how things aren’t always easy for her as a woman.
She also has several affairs with both men and women, including a prostitute with whom she finds it easier to have a conversation with than with the men she often interacts with. The following is said about her romantic tendencies as a woman:
“And as all Orlando’s loves had been women, now, through the culpable laggardy 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.”
It turns out that Orlando isn’t the only one person who’s remained alive over the centuries, and she once again encounters certain individuals from her past. Among them is Nicolas Greene during the 19th century, who now rambles about how inferior the writers of that century are in comparison to the great writers of the past, but appears to have a change of heart about Orlando’s work, agreeing to help her publish The Oak Tree. She also comes across Archduchess Harriet once again, who turned out being a man- the Archduke Harry- all along; he’d been in love with her when she’d been a man and had put on women’s clothing in an attempt to get his attention. He tries proposing to Orlando, but she turns him down in a rather amusing way. There’s no explanation given for how all these characters manage to live this long.
Around the 19th century, Orlando meets a sea captain named Marmaduke Bonthrop Shelmerdine, who also happens to be gender nonconforming. By then, Orlando is legally recognized as a woman and will be able to maintain her family’s estate under the condition that she produces a male heir. Because of this, as well as to conform to Victorian standards for relationships, she decides to marry Shelmerdine. She later gives birth to a son, does some more with her writing while awaiting the return of her husband from the sea, and witnesses the many changes London has undergone in the year 1928. She concludes that her time living as long as she’s been might be coming to an end, which she accepts easily enough. The books ends with Orlando welcoming back Shelmerdine back as he returns home, which occurs on October 11th, 1928, the date in which the novel was published.
There’s much to enjoy about Orlando. From the amusing events, over-the-top characters, and satirical takes on historic norms to the many observations on the state of nature, what’s expected of biographies and those writing them, and gender norms. Since this was my first time reading anything by Virginia Woolf, I had a hard time understanding some of the passages due to how dense they could be, as is often the case with postmodern literature, but I still enjoyed the story overall.
One of the most remarkable things about Orlando is how it almost completely rejects certain common conventions for how men and women were supposed to be at the time. As a man, despite how he enjoyed pretending to fight and his aspirations for an adventurous life, Orlando also displays a sort of vulnerability which many people often associated with women. When he notices that a poet is visiting his home, he’s so shy that he can’t even walk over to meet up with him, much less speak to him. And when he’s betrayed by Sasha, he becomes so depressed that he barely wants to do anything for a while. This is quite different from what would have been expected of men at that time, who were always supposed to be confident around others and not show any signs of emotional weakness.
As a woman, Orlando remains a rather adventurous person, doing much of she did as a man. She even appears to be more direct when it comes to her romantic relationships, rejecting a proposal from one person and even having some relationships with other women. She still must go through many of the challenges women faced during these eras, which prevents her from maintaining all the power she had as a man. However, she overcomes several of these challenges over time, even though she still must confirm to certain standards of the times to get what she wants. Whether as a man or a woman, Orlando doesn’t fit anyone’s perceptions of masculinity or femininity, whether by 16h century or 1920s standards.
Some modern readers see the story of Orlando not just as a key feminist text, but also as an early look into transgender identity, since Orlando changes sex and undergoes this transition without any major struggle, almost acting as if it’s just a minor change or something she’s already used to. In addition, Woolf refers to Orlando by the pronoun “they” at one point in the novel, which is now often used by those who identify as gender fluid to indicate their gender identity, when it’s stated that “The change of sex, though it altered their future, did nothing whatever to alter their identity. Their faces remained, as their portraits prove, practically the same.” This was decades before the singular, gender elusive “they” began being used, which according to Marriam-Webster dates back to the 1950s. Also, the years of legal challenges Orlando faces upon becoming a woman could be compared to the struggles trans individuals currently face in terms of legal and political recognition of their gender identity. Because of this and the brief passages describing Orlando’s affairs with those of the same sex, I think we should be able to consider this as an LGBT classic. However, because it only offers commentary that’s rather subtle when it comes to the recognition of those with different sexual orientations and gender identities, I would be cautious about considering this to be the defining early novel on the subject.
I do think the story has some plot holes that are difficult to overlook. First, there’s no explanation given for why Orlando and several characters live for centuries without aging significantly. We know that perhaps the rejection of the three women that came see Orlando when they were bedridden has something to do with how they became a woman, but could this have caused some form of immortality too? And is it possible the other characters have a similar experience Furthermore, is this supposed to symbolize how artists can manage to obtain immortality through their work, and how both the work and the artists themselves go on to be interpreted in different ways as the years go by? There probably isn’t a clear answer, and that might be one of the story’s major mysteries.
We also barely get any information about Orlando’s son. There’s only a brief description of her son’s birth, and that’s it. We never learn his name, how Orlando raises him, or what happens to him when he grows up. Perhaps Woolf did this to emphasize how women shouldn’t be defined by their children or their roles as mothers. Or maybe it was to defy the conventions of biographies that often place too much emphasis on the subject’s family members. After all, we only get a few details about Orlando’s father, and barely anything at all about their mother. I personally thinking knowing more about her son could have been of benefit to readers, showing how many women are capable of being good mothers while also obtaining a career and living life on their own terms. But regardless, what stands out in this novel still outweighs these plot holes.
Of course, the real- life friendship and romance between Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville- West can’t be overlooked when reviewing this book. On the novel, Sackville-West’s son Nigel Nicolson wrote “The effect of Vita on Virginia is all contained in Orlando, the longest and most charming love letter in literature, in which she explores Vita, weaves her in and out of the centuries, tosses her from one sex to the other, plays with her, dresses her in furs, lace and emeralds, teases her, flirts with her, drops a veil of mist around her.”
Woolf and Sackville-West originally met around 1922 when they were both part of the Bloomsbury Group, which was a group of writers and artists consisting of individuals such as Woolf’s artist sister Vanessa Bell and her husband Clive Bell, her brothers Thoby and Adrian Stephen, artist Duncan Grant, art critic Roger Fry, and writer E.M. Forrester, and which among other things was known for giving support to fellow writers and artists within the group, as well as their liberal views on sexuality and their tendencies for having affairs within the group. Vita Sackville-West was a poet and novelist who had some novels, including Seducers in Ecuador (1924), published through Hogarth Press, the publishing company which Virginia and her husband Leonard Woolf ran together. Although both Woolf and Sackville-West were married, they went on to have a romantic relationship that lasted around a decade and remained friends after it ended.
Among other things, the novel satirized Sackville-West’s interest in the Romani people (as well as her possible Romani ancestry through her mother’s side) and how she liked to imagine joining a Romani caravan but was unwilling to go to so due to not wanting to give up her wealthy lifestyle. The novel also served to make up for the sense of loss Sackville-West felt over losing her childhood home, which could have gone to her had she been born a man but instead went to a cousin, with Orlando managing to gain control of her family’s estate when she’s a woman.
But the representation of Sackville-West is not always positive, with the image of a grey goose that Orlando goes after but never catches in the novel representing a great novel that Vita considered writing but never managed to do so. This also shows how Woolf considered Sackville-West to be a mediocre writer, despite how Sackville-West’s writing was more successful that Woolf’s at the time.
And just as Orlando underwent their transition in Constantinople, Sackville-West lived there for some time with her diplomat husband Harold Nicolson, where she wrote several of the poems that launched her career as a writer. Meanwhile, Princess Sasha was based on Violet Keppel, with whom Vita had an affair with before she met Virginia. When the two went out in public, Vita would often dress as a man and pretend to be Keppel’s husband, and they ran off to Paris together at one point. Their relationship ended in 1920 due to the interference of their family members and Keppel’s marriage.
But while Orlando had a rather satisfying ending, things did not really go the same way for Woolf. Having suffered from mental illness for years and attempted suicide at least once before, Woolf’s mental health problems started increasing towards the start of World War 2, and fearing she would succumb to this, Woolf drowned herself in 1941. Although these problems did not seem to be brought about over struggles with her sexuality, she nevertheless suffered a fate that was not that different from that faced by many sexuality minorities at a time when there wasn’t a lot of social acceptance for them, not to mention the many other writers over the years who’ve died due to suicide.
Vita Sackville-West outlived her former lover by twenty-one years and devoted most of her later years to running a column on gardening for The Observer, having taken an interest in the subject after innovating the gardens of the Sissinghurst Castle during the 1930s. Her son Nigel Nicolson published a collection of letters and journals written by Vita and Harold Nicolson in 1973 titled Portrait of a Marriage: Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson. Several of these letters and journal entries went into detail on Sackville-West’s awareness of her bisexuality and her often conflicting feelings about it.
There are probably many individuals who wonder how things would have turned out if Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West had remained together as a couple and had been more open about their sexual identities, and if perhaps Woolf wouldn’t have faced such a tragic fate if they’d gone forward with this. During the time they were together, Sackville-West had help Woolf overcome some of her mental health challenges for a while, including the trauma resulting from being sexually abused by her stepbrother. Also, while male homosexuality was illegal in the UK back then, lesbianism was never similarly criminalized there, and several other famous queer women at the time managed to be together as a result despite how this was still frowned upon by society.
But such situations were complicated; it wasn’t always possible for established writers and public figures to have been open about their sexual orientations, or to address such issues in their work. Looking into how Orlando was written can give us some insight into these challenges. The main reason Orlando didn’t face the same attempts at public bans as the lesbian novel The Well of Loneliness did that same year (a subject I’ll be looking into in my next review) was because it was set mainly in the past and was presented in what was considered as a “fantastical allegory”, which allowed Woolf to get away with writing such material. It also didn’t address what would have been considered “sexual inversion”, as homosexuality was often referred to at the time, in a straight- forward way or tried to openly advocate for it to be accepted within society. If Woolf had been willing to go by such restrictions with her novel, then it shouldn’t be too surprising that she wouldn’t go so far with her personal life either.
And when you also consider how she had a good marriage with her husband Leonard Woolf despite how she wasn’t really attracted to him and how neither of them were faithful to each other, and how her mental health problems most likely came about from factors other than shame over her sexuality, and you can see how it’s hard to know for sure whether living openly as a lesbian would have made things any better for her. Sometimes, it’s just fair to say that we don’t have all the answers for cases like this.
Orlando has been adapted into a film several times. One of the first feature -length adaptations was 1981’s Freak Orlando, a German film directed by Ulrike Ottinger which blends aspects from Tod Browning’s 1931 horror film Freaks into the story, and another was in 1992 through a British production directed by Sally Potter and featuring Tilda Swinton as Orlando. And in 2023, we got a documentary called Orlando: My Political Biography, which features several trans and non-binary individuals as Orlando while going into detail about what it’s like to currently live as a transgender person. I haven’t been able to access any of these films, but I would be interested in watching them in the future (and maybe review them here later).
And since this novel will be entering the public domain in a month, I’ll be looking forward to seeing if anyone attempts to either make a new adaptation of it or retell it in some way. One thing I’d like to see is someone continue to tell Orlando’s story from 1928 up to the present day, so we could see how Orlando adjusted to life as the 20th century continued and how it’d be for her during these times that are both more progressive than they used to be but also very tumultuous. Or maybe Orlando’s life could begin from a different time, like the 17th or 19th centuries, or the character can be rewritten as an individual who isn’t very well-off in terms of wealth and social status. And maybe these new retellings could come up with an explanation for how Orlando and other characters in the story are able to live so long, the deeper meaning behind the change of sex, or include more information about their son or their family overall. And if someone attempts making a horror movie out of it, maybe making Orlando a vampire or some other immortal monster? Well, I might be interested in that too.
Either way, Orlando: A Biography is one of those works entering the public domain that I recommend people try checking out if they don’t mind reading a challenging modern classic, and which I hope won’t be overlooked due to a certain cartoon mouse who’s highly associated with a city which somehow happens to share the same name as this story.