334 pages
Published 1928
Read from March 14 to March 19
Rating: 3 out of 5
The current moment has seen the fascist movement manufacturing genocidal outrage toward trans and other queer people just living their lives. Part of this astroturfed sentiment has involved programming rightwing tools on the internet to parrot "No one ever thought about gender before the last five years!" It doesn't count for much as a protest against the vast crush of fascism afflicting my nation, but as a tiny fuck-you I decided to finally read Orlando.
My partner R introduced me to the 1992 film starring Tilda Swinton, which is fantastic and -- if I'm being honest -- superior to the book. It took me a while to vibe with the book. It has an antique feel I wasn't expecting from modernist lit, though that is part of its literary satire. Woolf toys with mores of gender and sexuality, equally in her own time and in the various eras that Orlando is said to live through. But there's a further element of satire against literature, the literary canon, the English custom of elevating men of "genius" into said canon. If you go into Orlando expecting sexy genderfluid adventures in piracy, you'd be much better off with some modern queer YA.
Much of Orlando hasn't aged well, particularly its casual 1920s racism. There are some delightfully dry lampoons of sex and gender conventions, but they're buried in much more expansive satires of literary worthies and the romance of poetry. Nonetheless, it's edifying to see a writer in the 1920s with a more sophisticated understanding of sex and gender -- and the very different definitions of each -- than present-day reactionaries could ever hope to achieve. Let's all hope that the modern fascists' attempt to speed-run the 1930s will end in their full humiliating defeat, and quickly.
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