Virginia Wolf”s Orlando runs through three centuries from 1588 to 1928. The story is a fantasy with Orlando changing gender from male to female. Orlando is a youth born in a noble family imagining that he is beheading the Moors like his ancestors. He walks into the forests to pen down poetry and then succumbs to sleep. Trumpets awaken him to announce the arrival of Queen Elizabeth. He visits the Empress and wins her confidence with his freshness and blamelessness. Later she makes him her lover giving him high posts and wealth. But when the queen spies him in an amorous position with another young girl, she is furious.
For sometime Orlando keeps company with the “low kind” frequenting pubs and prostitutes. When this tires him he returns to court now under the rule of King James I. He courts many wealthy women and finally becomes engaged to a lady of high birth and connections – Euphrosyne.
In a royal carnival on the frozen river and here Orlando is attracted to a strange skater – Russian princess Sasha. Soon they became lovers and connived to run away. But one day seeing Sasha on the knees of a Russian sailor, Orlando is angry but Sasha soothes his fears, makes him wait for her so that they can run away but she failed to turn up. Going to the river Orlando found that the frost had broken and the ship was sailing away.
With a broken heart Orlando shuts himself up in his mansion having 52 stair cases and 365 rooms. He then puts his mind to his compositions. He calls a well-known bard Nick Greene to his residence but their financial and social category dissimilarity acts as an obstruction to their companionship. Returning home Nick pens a parody on Orlando. Frustrated Orlando burns all his writings except for one poem – The Oak Tree. Orlanodo next redecorates his mansion lavishly and invites his friends to gain their kudos. The Archduchess Harriet of Romania arrives on horseback and makes advances to him. Orlando is repulsed and decides to leave England.
At that time the ruler of England was King Charles II who sent Orlando as ambassador to Constantinople. Satisfied with his services King Charles makes him a Duke. On that night Orlando lowers a rope from his balcony to pull up a Spanish dancer Rosina Pepita. The following morning their marriage certificate is found on his desk. Suddenly Turkey is overtaken by an insurrection that led to the killing of many foreigners. Robbers crashed into Orlando’s room but seeing him in a trance they take him to be dead. After a week when he wakes up he is amazed to find himself transformed into a woman.
Soon Orlando gets accustomed to her new body and joins the tribe of Rustum, an old gypsy, roaming the Turkish mountains. Orlando is not trusted by the gypsies because of her love for things that are strange to them – houses and rooms. Orlando then leaves them and journeys back to England. En route on the ship she strikes a romantic alliance with the captain of the ship – Nicholas. She savors her womanhood to the full.
After she returned to England, it was time that she found out that Archduke Harry has been acting as Archduchess Harriet and in reality he was a male. He proposes but gets refused by Orlando who found him too plodding and boring. Orlando soon became familiar with several individuals of literature like Pope, Dryden and Addison. However, soon this too made her tired, and she turned to prostitutes of London listening to their fascinating tales. Looking up at clouds hanging over London Orlando sees the end of 18th century and the start of the 19th century.
The Victorian Age is gloomy sans any sunlight with overgrown green. Orlando surrenders to “the spirit of the age” and looks around for a spouse. She imagines herself to be the bride of Nature and married to a moor. A fall twists her ankle and the man who rescues her is Marmaduke Bonthrop Shelmerdine. It takes two minutes for them to know and understand each other. But Shel has to go back to the sea which he does after a hasty marriage. While returning back to England she finishes her poem The Oak Tree. Nick Greene was a literary critic and she quickly became acquainted with him.
The time advances to 1901 with King Edward VII succeeding Victoria. Suddenly a strong light hits Orlando ten times and she enters the present period at the age of thirty six. She thinks of the various selves that comprised her. She wants to know the real Orlando, only to understand that she is a combination of all these characters. The reality of the present scares Orlando. She goes out to the oak tree wanting to bury it but then changes her mind. Looking out of the house she realizes that she belongs to the past as well as the present. The sound of an overhead plane takes her to the sky and as a sea captain she leaps downwards. But a wild bird pops up, the clock sounds midnight and she returns to the present.
Review
Orlando is the main character in the novel capturing the reader’s interest and focus. The story reads like a biography truthfully recounting the life history of Orlando. The gender change happens half way through the book and is an important turning point. The novel starts with a frolicking young man but ends up with the broodings and reflections of a middle aged woman. The many selves in the past make up her present character and then she realizes that this character too would fade away.
Princess Sasha awakens despair in Orlando. Till then he had everything – nobility, wealth and connections. But the mysterious Sasha rudely breaks the complacency of Orlando. Sasha’s importance is because of the effect she had on the main character, Orlando. A deep seated sexuality awakens in Orlando.
On the other hand the Marmaduke Shel sweeps the female Orlando off her feet in keeping with the age. In the 19th century Orlando feels lost and cannot tune in with the age. In Shel Orlando sees somebody like her not limited by the boundaries of gender. His is a personality with many facets – bold, brave and also subtle like a woman. Archduke Harry is a comical character whose temperaments clash with Orlando. The gender change in the Archduke is not real but comic. Orlando is an elaborate mythical drama that is crafted as a mature poem of epic dimensions. The reading of the book is mystifying as it covers many lives. While laced with all the thrills of adventures and romance it leaves the reader wondering about actually who we are with the present being a rich combination of the past.