Orlando
Por Virginia Woolf
4/5
()
Información de este libro electrónico
Con esto, la historia, ambientada siempre en sugerentes escenarios e impregnados la particular obsesión de la autora por el transcurso del tiempo, se desliza como un deslumbrante cuento de hadas ante los fascinados ojos del lector. En definitiva, Orlando (1928) es, sobre todo, un texto peculiar y tremendamente original, una novela tan maravillosa como difícilmente clasificable. Sólo una agilidad narrativa como la de Woolf podía trenzar un juego literario semejante, y sólo un autor como Borges estaba en condiciones de verterla a nuestra lengua.
Hay una guía de lectura disponible para el profesorado, pueden solicitarla a la editorial Edhasa por correo electrónico.
Virginia Woolf
VIRGINIA WOOLF (1882–1941) was one of the major literary figures of the twentieth century. An admired literary critic, she authored many essays, letters, journals, and short stories in addition to her groundbreaking novels, including Mrs. Dalloway, To The Lighthouse, and Orlando.
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Comentarios para Orlando
1,793 clasificaciones80 comentarios
- Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas4/5my first virginia woolf! what a remarkable work that does not feel dated at all. i knew this book tackles gender and sexuality (always a timely topic), but i did not know orlando was woolf's love letter to her friend and lover, vita sackville west (according to one of vita's son). viewed as that, the story feels even more luxurious. need to watch the movies ^_^ need to re-read ^_^
- Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas3/5In this strange book, fantastically privileged protagonist Orlando sails through time periods and genders, starting out as a male during the Renaissance and ending up as a female during the early twentieth century. There are some witty remarks about the British literary canon (when was the last time you had a laugh at Alexander Pope's expense?), and sharp observations about gender roles, but overall, this book is an achievement to be admired rather than a work to be loved.
- Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas3/5A satire on gender. This book was written in 1928 and covers 300 years but Orlando hardly ages and changes from man to woman. It is biography of Ms Woolf's poet friend/lover Vita Sackville-West, but it is also fictionalized and it is satirical.
- Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas4/5"Orlando" is one of those books that is not about what you think it is about. I watched the movie years ago and thought I knew what this book was going to be, but what the movie focuses on and what the book is about are two different things. It is, of course, about the sexes, but also about personhood, time, literature, history. Woolf has a wonderful way of lifting the reader's own perception of the story so beyond plot and character that I, at least, have a hard time remembering what actually happens, and want to reread the book just for the exhilaration of the flight through its pages.
- Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas3/5Some classics are too strange for me, but I managed to hang on for this one.
- Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas3/5I can't believe this book was published in 1928, almost 100 years ago! It is a fascinating classic, particularly in its views on gender and the roles assigned to women and men in our society. It feels very modern. I felt like it worked more as a discussion of that theme than as a fictional biography of Orlando. I cared more about those thoughts than about how Orlando's life progressed. “As long as she thinks of a man, nobody objects to a woman thinking.”“No passion is stronger in the breast of a man than the desire to make others believe as he believes. Nothing so cuts at the root of his happiness and fills him with rage as the sense that another rates low what he prizes high.”“By the truth we are undone. Life is a dream. 'Tis the waking that kills us. He who robs us of our dreams robs us of our life.”
- Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas5/5I laughed out loud a lot more than I expected. Unusually, I thoroughly enjoyed this book without particularly liking any of the characters in it -- perhaps because the narrator was such a strong (and delightful) presence. For me, it was all about the metacommentary.
- Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas5/5This is a complex classic, genre bending as well as gender bending. What I love most about it, however, isn't the interplay between forms and voices, or the entrancing plot. It's the language, the sheer flow of beautiful English. For such an intellectual writer Woolf triumphs here in vividly physical imagery, in prose the trembles into poetry, in wit and cadence and so many instances of le mot juste. Loved it when I was 15, still love it at 75. It has certainly aged better than I have!
- Calificación: 2 de 5 estrellas2/5If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.Biological Constructs: "Orlando" by Virginia Woolf(Original Review, 2002-06-18)I’m probably in a minority, but I find Woolf hugely overrated. A snob in the way that Wilde was a snob before her, sucking up to the wealthy and titled and, like Wilde, happy to be unfaithful if it ingratiated her with the gentry. People go on about ‘a room of one’s own’ but have they read the whole piece? She thought only a few superior personages should be allowed to write, and then only for a select audience.
- Calificación: 2 de 5 estrellas2/5A surreal novel, unmoored from conventional time framework, centred on an immortal, sometimes male and sometimes female. Woolf was a highly skilled writer, and though the work is sometimes entertaining, overall, I found this exercise dull.
- Calificación: 2 de 5 estrellas2/5about a person that changes genders and lives over several centuries
- Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas4/5I read this one not knowing exactly what it was about - and I find a very funny, well written, Satire-ish book on what it means to be man or a woman in the British England. First - this is a book you have to read carefully. Orlando doesn't age like a regular person, so years pass, societal beliefs, and general culture change in a blink of an eye. But, it is written in an easy style, with a light touch that makes it a very accessible book. It's a completely different style than Virginia Woolf's other books (Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, etc.)Ms. Woolf has a way of writing that manages to capture the absurdity of culture's expectation of both being Male and being Female. Orlando, being both at different times, shows just how limiting both are sexes are. Its also a critique of Victorian England and how stifling it is to women.
- Calificación: 1 de 5 estrellas1/5Possibly one of the strangest novels I've ever read. So... flexible (for lack of a better term) in time and gender, not to mention the legality of identity. I finished it thinking how the story worked which was amazing because logically it doesn't work what so ever.
- Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas3/5Woolf presents a satirical biography of Orlando, a young man who lives for over 300 years and has a mysterious transformation into being a women along the way. It's never clear how it is Orlando is able to gain this immortality (perhaps his obsession with thought, words, poetry?) or how it is that Orlando becomes a woman, which worked for the way the story unfolded. I really wanted to be charmed by this, as I had been with other books by Woolf, but whereas the vibrancy of language and compactness of the stories in both To the Lighthouse and Mrs. Dalloway delighted me, Orlando failed to hold my attention. Also, I was deeply bothered the racism within the book, particularly the opening scene (in which Orlando toys with the head of a nameless dead Moor), but also by the Orientalism in the scenes in Turkey and the portrayal of the "gipsies." The fact that the story was "of it's time" is not enough to shake the unsettled feeling from me.
- Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas4/5"A poet is Atlantic and lion in one. While one drowns us the other gnaws us. If we survive the teeth, we succumb to the waves. A man who can destroy illusions is both beast and flood. Illusions are to the soul what atmosphere is to the earth."—Orlando by Virginia WoolfParenthetical with pleonastic dalliances, Woolf’s “Orlando” was a joy to read aloud. Gender-bending throughout the ages, breaking the fourth wall of literature as well as sexual taboos, forging a weapon of fiction that was usually beaten on the anvil by calloused, masculine hands. Her work may not always resonate with me, but the echoes off the walls sure sound nice. A novel about a poet would normally push me to the wall, find a stud (or mare) and pound my brow flat with repeated blows. Writing about a writer is as dirty a trick as reading your own poetry in public, measuring one’s pink parsnip with a tape measure in a late night dick pic, writing yourself into a screenplay as the main character or revving your engine at a stoplight while scrolling through insipid social media. Fortunately, this classic was more about the interplay of sex in literature and whose voice will be paramount amongst the crashing icebergs in a freshly thawed river. And, zounds! Gerunds abound! Well, at least in the second sentence of this reviewnotreview of a manwomanman tripping over three hundred years. It’s all I’ve got time for. My own shit to scrawl. In a quarter of the time (if I’m lucky). And so:“Over the obscure man is poured the merciful suffusion of darkness. None knows where he goes or comes. He may seek the truth and speak it; he alone is free; he alone is truthful; he alone is at peace.”
- Calificación: 1 de 5 estrellas1/5Not what I like about VW's writing. Didn't finish.
- Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas3/5I'm not sure what to make of this. As a novel, far too many things are left hanging or unexplained. How come Orlando can live for 400 years and be 36 being just one... As a thought provoking piece of writing, however, it asks a lot of questions that are not uncontroversial now, so goodness only knows what it was like when it was published. On the face of it, Orlando is a biography of the titular character, an Elizabethan Nobleman who has too much time on his hands and a penchant for poetry. He goes to Constantinople as ambassador and comes back transformed into a woman. From that point, the love of literature persists, although the adjustment to life as a woman takes some time. The questions raised are about who we are, the face we present to the world. Orlando starts as a man, ends as a woman, and so has a lot of adjusting to do, in terms of what is expected of her now in her thought, speech, dress and behaviour. Why do we expect, even now, women and men to act differently in the same situations? Then there are questions about conformity, Orlando feels obliged to conform to the times she lives in, but how to do that while remaining true to herself. Some people are of their time, others appear to be ahead or living in the past. They're all equally valuable, should they conform and change their thinking to accommodate their times? There's a lot of what might be described as the thought police
- Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas4/5Everyone in our book circle agreed that this was a funny book, not what you would expect from Woolf, but it is after all a gloss on Vita Sackville-West and Woolf's complicated relationship with her. What is impressive: Well, for one, the brilliant evocation of such different times across the four and a half centuries of Orlando's existence. As Karenmarie mentioned, the evocation of a frozen Thames and the celebrations on the ice, and then the breakup and disaster that came after, are beautifully realized. And this continues through the coming times, in England and in Constantinople and in the gypsy camp. Then there are the changing attitudes toward women in society that Orlando lives through and adjusts to. And there are the sly sideswipes and writers past and present, which in some cases were laugh-out-loud funny.My edition had notes in the back to help readers who don't know the historical references. Sometimes they were a bit overdone, but often helpful.Sometimes it feels a bit like an adult fairy tale, or a fantasy adventure. Sackville-West's life has something to do with that, but to read this only as a roman-a-clef would do it an injustice. So much daring in Woolf's time and before had to do with breaking conventions that deserved to be broken, it's hardly avoidable to see this as a social commentary as well as a romp.
- Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas3/5Another classic I had to read for a research project. And I liked it even less than I thought I would. I have no idea why the "experts" rave about this so much... as a lesbian love letter to someone "in the know" (i.e. they have a clue what Woolf was going on about) maybe it is okay. But as a story?? not so much... there is no plot and no suspense... Basically it is a biography of a woman who pretends to be a man so she can have sex with women (and some transgender theorists claim she was transgendered but I didn't see this, I just saw a lesbian trying to live as a man in a world that didn't allow lesbians) and writes page after page about their clothing, their culture, their houses, their roads, their scenery.... ad nauseam.Again, I tried to read this in text form but the paragraphs are very very long and it was hard to keep my place without my eyes glazing over in boredom, so I got it in audio... which was better, only because my eyes no longer hurt.
- Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas5/5"Are we so made that we have to take death in small doses daily or we could not go on with the business of living? And then what strange powers are these that penetrate our most secret ways and change our most treasured possessions without our willing it ? Had Orlando, worn out by the extremity of his suffering, died for a week, and then come to life again? And if so, of what nature is death and of what nature life? Having waited well over half an hour for an answer to these questions, and none coming, let us get on with the story."
What a ride! Virginia Woolf and I don't often get on. At all. I usually despair over her stream-of-consciousness style of writing and her characters. So, I approached Orlando with some trepidation. And what happens? Woolf pulls this masterpiece of a romp out of the hat which shows not only that she was a very clever writer but that she also had a delicious sense of humor.
Of course, it may be that that side of hers does only show in Orlando because it is a mock biography of and a tribute to Vita Sackville-West. One review I read even described the book as one of the most marvelous of love letters ever written - though both Virginia and Vita might have disagreed.
According to Nigel Nicolson, both Vita and Virginia denied rumors spread by Vita's mother that their liaison was a serious one:
"She told me that everything was true except the part about Virginia endangering their marriage, but none of it mattered a hoot because the love they bore each other was so powerful that it could withstand anything. ‘My diary entry for Sunday, 28 May, three weeks later, reads: Virginia and Leonard came to lunch . Virginia looking well and happy after her Italian trip. She listened to the whole story of my visit to Brighton with her head bowed. Then she said: “The old woman ought to be shot”."
(Nigel Nicolson - Portrait Of A Marriage: Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson)
Apart from the biographical aspect of Orlando being the fictionalised account of Vita's life, the book also amazes in that it dares to address the issues of identity and gender-bending or rather gender-switching - making it one of the most outspoken works of literature of its time to criticise a society that would condemn people to distinct roles based on their gender.
"And she fell to thinking what an odd pass we have come to when all a woman’s beauty has to be kept covered lest a sailor may fall from a mast-head. ‘A pox on them!’ she said, realizing for the first time what, in other circumstances, she would have been taught as a child, that is to say, the sacred responsibilities of womanhood."
Of course there are many other topics that Woolf takes up in Orlando, such as the nature of time, the vanity of poets, the nostalgia for things in the past which blinds us from an appreciation of the present, etc. but I have to admit that most of my admiration for Orlando is based on how Woolf reflects some of Vita's convictions in her fictionalised account and how to the point Orlando seems as a character who is at home in his/her identity.
Having read Nigel Nicolson's biography of Vita, his mother, at the same time asOrlando, it was delightful to see the links between the two accounts of someone who possessed a rather unconventional outlook for her time:
"I hold the conviction that as centuries go on, and the sexes become more nearly merged on account of their increasing resemblances, I hold the conviction that such connections will to a very large extent cease to be regarded as merely unnatural, and will be understood far better, at least in their intellectual if not in their physical aspect. (Such is already the case in Russia.) I believe that then the psychology of people like myself will be a matter of interest, and I believe it will be recognized that many more people of my type do exist than under the present-day system of hypocrisy is commonly admitted."
(Nigel Nicolson - Portrait Of A Marriage: Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson) - Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas3/5Surreal and eclectic. As a piece of allegory, this was an interesting book. A bit long-winded in places but still mostly entertaining.
- Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas4/5I struggled with this. I always expect to love Virginia Woolf's novels but the stream of consciousness style is a bit of a chore for me, ashamed as I am to admit it. There were a lot of in-jokes in this and I felt a very strong sense of nudging or smirking from the author, which I tired of. It seems like she wrote it for her inner circle and I consequently felt excluded from full enjoyment of it. That said, it is a cleverly crafted farce with exploration of gender roles which would have been ground-breaking at the time.
- Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas5/5It’s a mistake to reduce this book, as Vita Sackville-West’s son did, to ‘the longest and most charming love letter in literature’. I hate that characterization. While clearly inspired (and dedicated) to her lover for a few years in the mid 1920’s, an affair that neither husband apparently objected to, this book is far more than that. In ‘Orlando’ Woolf explores the individual’s role in society, what it means to be a woman or a man, what it means to be rich, and in short, what it means to live. Along the way she is whimsical, fantastical, and progressive in both her experimental prose, and her feminism. This is a profound book, not a simple expression of adoration. Much is made of Orlando ‘magically’ transforming into a woman midway through the book, and in the fact that he, then she, lives for hundreds of years, both of which are completely unexplained by Woolf. In having Orlando transform into a woman, and in describing her later as having multiple selves, all at the same time, Woolf explodes the view that we as individuals are one thing, or need to define ourselves that way. In having Orlando live for centuries, she shows that cultural norms will change, and that even though we may not always perceive that fact, we can open our minds, live unconstrained, and embrace progress. Included in what’s arbitrary are clothing and sexual preference, which is liberating. At the same time, the book is sentimental at times. Written at age 46, Woolf both remembered her past through mature eyes, and had a better understanding of her own mortality. This manifests itself in Orlando’s character as having her essentially be middle-aged across centuries, observing changes in London, society, and scientific progress, while occasionally calling up memories from long ago. This puts our situation as individuals with relatively short lives in extremis, magnifying the act of recollection and memory that normally spans decades, and yet also shows the thread of humanity at large continuing on through all these years.Woolf was troubled, having suffered sexual abuse by two older half-brothers growing up, and headaches throughout her life which culminated in occasional breakdowns, and her tragic suicide at age 59. Read her words, look at the beautiful pictures of Vita which illustrate the book, particularly “Orlando on her return to England”, and enjoy her moment in the sun.Quotes:On how complex individuals are; I loved this one, especially with the tongue-in-cheek ‘unwieldy length of this sentence’:“Nature, who has played so many queer tricks upon us, making us so unequally of clay and diamonds, of rainbow and granite, and stuffed them into a case, often of the most incongruous, for the poet has a butcher’s face and the butcher’s a poet’s; nature, who delights in muddle and mystery, so that even now (the first of November, 1927) we know not why we go upstairs, or why we come down again, our most daily movements are like the passage of a ship on an unknown sea, and the sailors at the mast-head ask, pointing their glasses to the horizon: Is there land or is there none? to which, if we are prophets, we make answer ‘Yes’; if we are truthful we say ‘No’; nature, who has so much to answer for besides the perhaps unwieldy length of this sentence, has further complicated her task and added to our confusion by providing not only a perfect ragbag of odds and ends within us – a piece of a policeman’s trousers lying cheek by jowl with Queen Alexandra’s wedding veil – but has contrived that the whole assortment shall be lightly stitched together by a single thread. Memory is the seamstress, and a capricious one at that. Memory runs her needle in and out, up and down, hither and thither. We know not what comes next, or what follows after. Thus, the most ordinary movement in the world, such as sitting down at a table and pulling the inkstand towards one, may agitate a thousand odd, disconnected fragments, now bright, now dim, hanging and bobbing and dipping and flaunting, like the underlinen of a family of fourteen on a line in a gale of wind. Instead of being a single, downright, bluff piece of work of which no man need feel ashamed, our commonest deeds are set about with a fluttering and flickering of wings, a rising and falling of lights.”On memories, and the art of life:“’Time has passed over me,’ she thought, trying to collect herself; ‘this is the oncome of middle age. How strange it is! Nothing is any longer one thing. I take up a handbag and I think of an old bumboat woman frozen in the ice. Someone lights a pink candle and I see a girl in Russian trousers. When I step out of doors – as I do now,’ here she stepped on to the pavement of Oxford Street, ‘what is it that I taste? Little herbs. I hear goat bells. I see mountains. Turkey? India? Persia?’ Her eyes filled with tears.That Orlando had gone a little too far from the present moment will, perhaps, strike the reader who sees her now preparing to get into her motor car with her eyes full of tears and visions of Persian mountains. And indeed, it cannot be denied that the most successful practitioners of the art of life, often unknown people by the way, somehow contrive to synchronize the sixty or seventy different times which beat simultaneously in every normal human system so that when eleven strikes, all the rest chime in unison, and the present is neither a violent disruption nor completely forgotten in the past.”On the rich:“Looked at from the gipsy point of view, a Duke, Orlando understood, was nothing but a profiteer or robber who snatched land money from people who rated these things of little worth, and could think of nothing better to do than to build three hundred and sixty-five bedrooms when one was enough, and none was even better than one. She could not deny that her ancestors had accumulated field after field; house after house; honour after honour; yet had none of them been saints or heroes, or great benefactors of the human race.”On scientific progress:“The very fabric of life now, she thought, as she rose, is magic. In the eighteenth century, we knew how everything was done; but here I rise through the air; I listen to voices in America; I see men flying – but how it’s done, I can’t even begin to wonder. So my belief in magic returns.”On sex, I loved how she put this:“In short, they acted the parts of man and woman for ten minutes with great vigour and then fell into natural discourse.”On sexual identity:“The difference between the sexes is, happily, one of great profundity. Clothes are but a symbol of something hid deep beneath. It was a change in Orlando herself that dictated her choice of a woman’s dress and of a woman’s sex. And perhaps in this she was only expressing more openly than usual – openness indeed was the soul of her nature – something that happens to most people without being thus plainly expressed. For here again, we come to a dilemma. Different though the sexes are, they intermix. In every human being a vacillation from one sex to the other takes place, and often it is only the clothes that keep the male or female likeness, while underneath the sex is the very opposite of what it is above. Of the complications and confusions which thus result every one has had experience…”
- Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas3/5'The longest and most charming love letter in literature.’Virginia Woolf’s Orlando is the well known story an English Nobleman who works for the Queen in Elizabethan times. He has his heart broken by a Russian princess, and so he decides to leave the country. He becomes an ambassador for England in the city of Constantinople. During a fight in Constantinople, Orlando falls into a deep sleep, awakening days later as a woman. The novel then returns to England, where Orlando must take her place as an English woman in 19th century society.I'm not entirely sure this book was for me. The more I reflect on reading it, the more I'm not entirely sure I enjoyed it. I have only read one other book by Virginia Woolf and that was Mrs Dalloway, and that too gives me that same sense of “what did I just read?” I guess my feelings are partly due to Woolf’s stream of consciousness style. It’s very quick and I sometimes felt lost, like I was reading pages and pages and wasn’t entirely sure what the point was. I put this book down so many times and it took me a good while to finish it.That being said, I still think Orlando is a pretty interesting work, and I much prefer it to Mrs Dalloway. Orlando has a lot to say about women and the way women are treated. The story is written as a love letter to Vita Sackville-West, a woman Virginia Woolf had an affair with. It shows the passion of the Elizabethan age as well as both resenting and craving the idea of love.It is written in a very experimental style, it has a biographical feel to it, and I liked the elements in which the narrator stepped in to say a few words. It was full of wit and humour, as well as telling a very tender love story. It has very beautiful writing and imagery, but I still found it a very strange book to read.There is also a rather interesting film adaptation with Tilda Swinton, and I have to say it does a pretty great job of converting the book to the screen. While this book may not have been entirely for me, I think it’s a really important piece of literature. It discusses a lot about writing and why people choose to write, and overall is an immensely influential piece of writing.
- Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas5/5This book was so much fun. The whole time I was reading it, I felt like I could picture Virginia Woolf with an amused smile on her face, half making fun of herself and half making fun of her wider circle of friends. Orlando is the biography of Orlando who starts out as a young man living in the Elizabethan era of the 1500s and ends the book as a 36 year old woman in 1928. Along the way he/she has many life experiences, travels, and forays into writing. It's hard to say what this book is actually "about", but it's fun to read, amusing, and clever in the best senses of all of those words. Woolf makes no apologies or explanations for Orlando's sex change or longevity. I was expecting all of this to be confusing and shrouded in mystery, but Woolf just clearly lays out the events and expects the reader to go along. I loved it. I'd recommend reading some of Woolf's other works first or you might not get the lighter, more playful tone that she uses in this novel.
- Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas4/5Woolf takes on the role of "biographer" to Orlando, who starts out as a young man in Elizabethan England. At a point in the book when he is about thirty years old, some magic occurs and he becomes a woman. He is the same person as before, just now in skirts and a different place in society. The change gives plenty of room for commentary on society and typical attitudes to and about women. This is pretty much what I expected, but I also found out something I didn't expect at all: Virginia Woolf had a sense of humor.Many parts of this book are funny. Quotably funny, although Woolf does love a sentence that runs on (she actually even pokes fun at that at one point!). She has humorous things to say about men, women, the relationships between them, writing, writers, society, politics, you name it. I was convinced I was going to love this book unabashedly, and then it inexplicably bogs down about two-thirds of the way through it. By then Orlando is living in the modern age (1920s). The immortality, unlike the gender transformation, has never been explained at all, by the way. I don't know exactly how Woolf lost me here, but she did. Maybe it wasn't as funny anymore? Maybe it was that the weirdness had piled on top of itself to a point that it no longer worked? I don't know exactly what happened, but the last part was a slog for me. Nevertheless, I enjoyed much about this book and came away with pages of quotes pulled from it.Recommended for: people who like snarkQuote: "No passion is stronger in the breast of a man than the desire to make others believe as he believes. Nothing so cuts at the root of his happiness and fills him with rage as the sense that another rates low what he prizes high."
- Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas4/5I've read some Virginia Woolf before but this is very different. In fact, in a strange way what it reminds me of more than anything is A Hundred Days of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: there are definite overtones of magic realism here. Orlando is introduced to the reader as he practises his fencing by attacking the dried up heads of Moors brought back from the crusades by his father (or was it grandfather) in the attic of the mansion owned by his family for generations. And this is the first clue perhaps that time in this book does not flow as quickly as might be expected, for Orlando is a boy in the later days of Elizabeth I, and the crusades are long gone. But his ambitions of martial glory are thwarted by the Queen, who ordains that a military life is too dangerous for her favourite. So Orlando becomes a young man at the court of Elizabeth I and falls in and out of love, all the while concealing his desire to write, as to be a writer is not at all a respectable thing for an aristocrat. But time passes very slowly indeed for Orlando (although in the best tradition of magic realism, this is not commented on, or even seemingly noticed by Orlando himself or those around him) When Orlando requests the king to send him abroad as an ambassador to avoid the unwanted attentions of a suitor, the king is Charles II, more than seventy years have passed since he was the favourite of Queen Elizabeth, but Orlando is still a young man of less than thirty. And it's while an ambassador to the Turkish Court at Constantinople that Orlando's life changes for ever, as he becomes a woman overnight. There is no explanation of this, and although there are court cases aplenty to determine his legal situation on his return to England, the reality of the situation is accepted without query by all around him.On my first reading of the book I was expecting a very different book from the one that I thought I eventually got, and I think that detracted slightly from my enjoyment. On this second reading I just went with the flow and enjoyed the ride, as here when the break-up of the frozen Thames is being described:'Where for three months and more, there had been solid ice of such thickness that it seemed permanent as stone, and a whole gay city has been stood on its pavement, was now a race of turbulent yellow waters. The river had gained its freedom in the night. It was as if a sulphur spring (to which view many philosophers inclined) had risen from the volcanic regions beneath and burst the ice asunder with such vehemence that it swept the huge and massy fragments furiously apart. The mere look of the water was enough to turn one giddy. All was riot and confusion. The river was strewn with icebergs. Some of these were as broad as a bowling green and as high as a house; others no bigger than a man's hat, but most fantastically twisted. Now would come down a whole convoy of ice blocks sinking everything that stood in their way. Now, eddying and swirling like a tortured serpent, the river would seem to be hurtling itself between the fragments and tossing them from bank to bank, so they could be heard smashing against the piers and pillars. But what was the most awful and inspiring of terror was the sight of the human creatures who had been trapped in the night and now paced their twisting and precarious islands in the utmost agony of spirit. Whether they jumped into the flood or stayed on the ice their doom was certain.'A strange book that is apparently a tribute to Vita-Sackville-West. Nothing is ever explained, and quite a lot makes very little sense but it has some interesting thoughts on gender and the nature of time.
- Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas3/5I didn't particularly enjoy Virginia Woolf's "Orlando". It was a rather fantastical yet dull story.... and I really wasn't able to discern what Woolf was trying to say.There are a few brilliant passages of prose -- particularly the part with the frozen river Thames. The story is of a man who turns into a woman and then lives 300 years.... I'm not sure what the point of it all was. This is the fourth Woolf book I've read and she clearly isn't a good match for me. I only really enjoyed "The Years," which has a much more traditional narrative and style. There are several authors that I feel like I'm just not smart enough to understand and Woolf is among them.
- Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas3/5Orlando features less of the beautiful prose passages that I associate with Woolf's writing than her other works, which leaves the story to carry much of the burden. Unlike Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse (and I suspect The Waves, which I shall read shortly), there is an actual story here focusing on the life of the titular Orlando. Orlando occupies a strange semi-supernatural role where both sex and gender shift and the years pass without leaving much trace. It's an interesting center for the story in theory, though in practice I found Orlando to be a rather uninteresting character who goes from a pining youth to a married woman without inspiring much interest or sympathy from me. The character exists in different time periods more than s/he lives in them, making the different ages mere window dressing. Eventually the book ends, though it doesn't feel so much like the story has concluded as it does that Woolf thought she had written enough.
Decidedly different from most Woolf in both style and substance, I thought this one was alright. - Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas5/5A lovely, lively meditation on biography, history, reading, human nature and sexuality. Amusing, witty, and thought-provoking all at once. Highly recommended.
Vista previa del libro
Orlando - Virginia Woolf
1
Él –porque no cabía duda sobre su sexo, aunque la moda de la época contribuyera a disfrazarlo– estaba acometiendo la cabeza de un moro que pendía de las vigas. La cabeza era del color de una vieja pelota de football, y más o menos de la misma forma, salvo por las mejillas hundidas y una hebra o dos de pelo seco y ordinario, como el pelo de un coco. El padre de Orlando, o quizá su abuelo, la había cercenado de los hombros de un vasto infiel que de golpe surgió bajo la luna en los campos bárbaros de África; y ahora se hamacaba suave y perpetuamente, en la brisa que soplaba incesante por las buhardillas de la gigantesca morada del caballero que lo tronchó.
Los padres de Orlando habían cabalgado por campos de asfódelos, y campos de piedra, y campos regados por extraños ríos, y habían cercenado de muchos hombros, muchas cabezas de muchos colores, y las habían traído para colgarlas de las vigas.
Orlando haría lo mismo, se lo juraba. Pero como sólo tenía dieciséis años, y era demasiado joven para cabalgar por tierras de Francia o por tierras de África, solía escaparse de su madre y de los pavos reales en el jardín, y subir hasta su buhardilla para hender, y arremeter y cortar el aire con su acero. A veces cortaba la cuerda y la cabeza rebotaba en el suelo y tenía que colgarla de nuevo, atándola con cierta hidalguía casi fuera de su alcance, de suerte que su enemigo le hacía muecas triunfales a través de labios contraídos, negros. La cabeza oscilaba de un lado a otro, porque la casa en cuya cumbre vivía era tan vasta que el viento mismo parecía atrapado ahí, soplando por acá, soplando por allá, invierno y verano. La verde tapicería de Arrás con sus cazadores se agitaba perpetuamente. Sus abuelos habían sido nobles desde que empezaron a ser. Habían salido de las nieblas boreales con coronas en las cabezas. Las barras de oscuridad en el cuarto y los charcos amarillos que ajedrezaban el piso, ¿no eran acaso obra del sol que atravesaba el vitral de un vasto escudo de armas en la ventana?
Orlando estaba ahora en el centro del cuerpo amarillo de un leopardo heráldico. Al poner la mano en el antepecho de la ventana para abrirla, aquélla se volvió inmediatamente roja, azul y amarilla como un ala de mariposa. Así, los que gustan de los símbolos y tienen habilidad para descifrarlos, podrían observar que aunque las hermosas piernas, el gallardo cuerpo y los hombros bien hechos estaban decorados todos ellos con diversos tintes de luz heráldica, la cara de Orlando, al abrir la ventana, sólo estaba alumbrada por el sol. Imposible encontrar cara más sombría y más cándida. ¡Dichosa la madre que pare, más dichoso aún el biógrafo que registra la vida de tal hombre! Ni ella tendrá que mortificarse, ni él que invocar el socorro de poetas o novelistas. Irá de gesta en gesta, de gloria en gloria, de cargo en cargo, siempre seguido de su escriba, hasta alcanzar aquel asiento que representa la cumbre de su deseo.
Orlando, a primera vista, parecía predestinado a una carrera semejante. El rojo de sus mejillas era aterciopelado como un durazno; el vello sobre el labio era apenas un poco más tupido que el vello sobre las mejillas.
Los labios eran cortos y ligeramente replegados sobre dientes de una exquisita blancura de almendra. Nada molestaba el vuelo breve y tenso de la sagitaria nariz; el cabello era oscuro, las orejas pequeñas y bien pegadas a la cabeza. Pero, ¡ay de mí!, estos catálogos de la hermosura juvenil no pueden acabar sin mencionar la frente y los ojos. ¡Ay de mí!, pocas personas nacen desprovistas de esos tres atributos; pues en cuanto miramos a Orlando parado en la ventana, debemos admitir que tenía ojos como violetas empapadas, tan grandes que el agua parecía haber desbordado de ellos ensanchándolos, y una frente como la curva de una cúpula de mármol apretada entre los dos medallones lisos que eran sus sienes. En cuanto echamos una ojeada a la frente y los ojos, nos extraviamos en metáforas. En cuanto echamos una ojeada a la frente y a los ojos, tenemos que admitir mil cosas desagradables de esas que procura eludir todo biógrafo competente. Lo inquietaban los espectáculos como el de su madre, una dama hermosísima de verde, que salía a dar de comer a los pavos reales con Twitchett, su doncella, a la zaga; lo exaltaban los espectáculos –los pájaros y los árboles; y lo hacían enamorarse de la muerte–, el cielo de la tarde, las cornejas que vuelven; y así subiendo la escalera espiral hasta su cerebro –que era espacioso– todos estos espectáculos y también los ruidos del jardín, el martillo que golpea, la madera hachada, empezó ese tumulto y confusión de las emociones y las pasiones que todo biógrafo competente aborrece.
Pero prosigamos: Orlando lentamente encogió el cuello, se sentó a la mesa, y con el aire semiconsciente de quien está haciendo lo que hace todos los días de su vida a esa misma hora, sacó un cuaderno rotulado «Adalberto: una tragedia en cinco actos» y sumergió en la tinta una vieja y manchada pluma de ganso.
Pronto cubrió de versos diez y más páginas. Era sin duda un escritor copioso, pero era abstracto. El Vicio, el Crimen, la Miseria eran los personajes de su drama; había Reyes y Reinas de territorios imposibles; horrendas conspiraciones los consternaban; sentimientos nobles los inundaban; no se decía una palabra como él mismo la hubiera dicho; pero todo estaba enunciado con una fluidez y una dulzura que, considerando su edad –estaba por cumplir los diecisiete– y el hecho de que el siglo dieciséis tenía aún muchos años que andar, era asaz notable. Sin embargo, al fin, hizo alto. Describía, como todos los poetas jóvenes siempre describen, la naturaleza, y para determinar un matiz preciso de verde, miró (y con eso mostró más audacia que muchos) la cosa misma, que era arbusto de laurel bajo la ventana. Después, naturalmente, dejó de escribir. Una cosa es el verde en la naturaleza y otra en la literatura. La naturaleza y las letras parecen tenerse una natural antipatía; basta juntarlas para que se hagan pedazos. El matiz de verde que ahora veía Orlando estropeó su rima y rompió su metro. Además, la naturaleza tiene sus mañas. Basta mirar por la ventana abejas entre flores, un perro que bosteza, el sol que declina, basta pensar «cuántos soles veré declinar», etc., etc. (el pensamiento es harto conocido para que valga la pena escribirlo), y uno suelta la pluma, toma la capa, sale fuera de la pieza, y se agarra el pie en un arcón pintado. Porque Orlando era un poco torpe.
Cuidó de no encontrarse con alguien. Por el camino venía Tuff, el jardinero. Se escondió tras un árbol hasta que pasó. Se escurrió por una puertita del muro del jardín. Orilló los establos, las perreras, las destilerías, las carpinterías, los lavaderos, los lugares donde fabrican velas de sebo, matan bueyes, funden herraduras, cosen chaquetas –porque la casa era todo un pueblo resonante de hombres que trabajaban en sus varios oficios–, y tomó, sin ser visto, el sendero de helechos que sube por el parque. Tal vez haya una relación consanguínea entre las cualidades; una arrastra a la otra y es lícito que el biógrafo haga notar que esta torpeza corre pareja con el amor de la soledad. Habiendo tropezado con un arcón, Orlando amaba naturalmente los sitios solitarios, las vastas perspectivas, y el sentirse por siempre y por siempre solo.
Así, después de un largo silencio, acabó por murmurar: «Estoy solo», abriendo los labios por primera vez en este relato. Había caminado muy ligero, trepando entre helechos y matas espinosas, espantando ciervos y pájaros silvestres, hasta un lugar coronado por una sola encina. Estaba muy alto, tan alto que desde ahí se divisaban diecinueve condados ingleses: y en los días claros, treinta o quizá cuarenta, si el aire estaba muy despejado. A veces era posible ver el Canal de la Mancha, cada ola repitiendo la anterior. Se veían ríos y barcos de recreo que los navegaban; y galeones saliendo al mar; y flotas con penachos de humo de las que venía el ruido sordo de cañonazos; y ciudadelas en la costa; y castillos entre los prados; y aquí una atalaya, y allí una fortaleza; y otra vez alguna vasta mansión como la del padre de Orlando, agrupada como un pueblo en el valle circundado de murallas. Al este estaban las agujas de Londres y el humo de la ciudad; y tal vez, justo en la línea del cielo, cuando el viento soplaba del buen lado, la rocosa cumbre y los mellados filos de la misma Snowdon se destacaban montañosos entre las nubes. Por un instante, Orlando se quedó contando, mirando, reconociendo. Ésa era la casa de su padre, ésa la de su tío.
Su tía era la dueña de esos tres grandes torreones entre los árboles. La maleza era de ellos y la selva; el faisán y el ciervo, el zorro, el hurón y la mariposa.
Suspiró profundamente, y se arrojó –había una pasión en sus movimientos que justifica la palabra– en la tierra, al pie de la encina. Le gustaba, bajo toda esta fugacidad del verano, sentir el espinazo de la tierra bajo su cuerpo; porque eso le parecía la dura raíz de la encina; o siguiendo el vaivén de las imágenes, era el lomo de un gran caballo que montaba; o la cubierta de un barco dando tumbos –era, de veras, cualquier cosa, con tal que fuera dura, porque él sentía la necesidad de algo a que amarrar su corazón que le tironeaba el costado; el corazón que parecía henchido de fragantes y amorosas tormentas, a esta hora, todas las tardes, cuando salía.
Lo sujetó en la encina y al descansar ahí, el tumulto a su alrededor se aquietó; las hojitas pendían, el ciervo se detuvo; las pálidas nubes de verano se desmoronaban; sus miembros pesaban en el suelo; y se quedó tan quieto que el ciervo se fue acercando y las cornejas giraron alrededor y las golondrinas bajaron en círculo y los alguaciles pasaron en un destello tornasolado, como si toda la fertilidad y amorosa actividad de una tarde de verano fuera una red tejida en torno de su cuerpo.
A la hora o algo así –el sol declinaba rápidamente, las nubes blancas fueron rojas, las colinas violeta, los bosques púrpura, los valles negros– resonó una trompeta.
Orlando se puso de pie de un salto. El sonido agudo venía del valle. Venía de un lugar oscuro allá abajo; un lugar compacto y dibujado; un laberinto; un pueblo, pero ceñido de muros; venía del corazón de su propia casa grande en el valle, que, antes oscura, perdía su tiniebla y se acribillaba de luces, en el mismo momento que él miraba y que la trompeta se duplicaba y reduplicaba con otros sones estridentes. Algunas eran lucecitas apresuradas, como llevadas por sirvientes apresurados, que atravesaban los corredores contestando órdenes; otras eran luces altas y brillantes como si ardieran en salones vacíos, listos para recibir invitados que aún no llegaban; y otras bajaban y oscilaban, subiendo y descendiendo como sostenidas por las manos de legiones de servidores, saludando, arrodillándose, levantándose, recibiendo, guardando, y escoltando con toda dignidad una gran princesa al descender de la carroza. En el patio, rodaban y circulaban coches, los caballos sacudían sus penachos. La Reina había llegado.
Orlando no miró más. Se precipitó cuesta abajo.
Entró por un portillo. Trepó la escalera de caracol. Llegó a su cuarto. Tiró las medias por un lado, el justillo por otro. Se empapó la cabeza. Se lavó las manos. Pulió sus uñas. Sin más ayuda que seis pulgadas de espejo y un par de viejas bujías, se metió en bombachas coloradas, cuello de encaje, chaleco de Pekín, y zapatos con escarapelas tan grandes como dalias dobles, en menos de diez minutos por el reloj del establo. Estaba pronto.
Estaba sonrojado. Estaba agitado. Pero estaba en terrible retardo.
Por atajos que conocía, se abrió camino a través del vasto sistema de cuartos y de escaleras al salón del banquete, distante cinco acres del otro lado de la casa. Pero a medio camino, en los departamentos del fondo, habitados por la servidumbre, se detuvo. La puerta del saloncito de Mrs. Stewkley estaba abierta –se había ido, sin duda, con todas sus llaves a atender a su señora. Pero ahí estaba sentado a la mesa de los sirvientes, con un cangilón a su lado y papel delante, un hombre algo grueso, algo raído, cuya gorguera estaba algo sucia, y cuyo traje era de lana parda. Tenía una pluma en la mano, pero no estaba escribiendo. Parecía revolver y hacer rodar algún pensamiento para darle ímpetu y forma. Sus ojos, redondos y empañados como una piedra verde de extraña configuración, estaban inmóviles. No vio a Orlando. Con toda su prisa, Orlando se paró. ¿Sería un poeta? ¿Estaría escribiendo versos? «Dígame», hubiera querido decir, «todas las cosas del mundo» –porque tenía las ideas más extravagantes, más locas, más absurdas sobre los poetas y la poesía–, pero, ¿cómo hablar a un hombre que no le ve a uno, que está viendo sátiros y ogros, que está viendo tal vez el fondo del mar? Así Orlando se quedó mirando mientras el hombre daba vuelta la pluma en sus dedos, de un lado a otro; y miraba y pensaba; y luego, muy ligero, escribió sus líneas y miró para arriba. Con esto Orlando, lleno de timidez, se fue y llegó a la sala del banquete con el tiempo contado para caer de rodillas, inclinar confundido su cabeza, y ofrecer un aguamanil con agua de rosas a la gran Reina.
Era tan tímido que no vio de ella sino la anillada mano en el agua; pero bastaba. Era una mano memorable; una mano delgada con largos dedos siempre arqueados como alrededor del orbe o del cetro; una mano nerviosa, perversa, enfermiza; una mano autoritaria también; una mano que no tenía más que elevarse para que una cabeza cayera; una mano, adivinó, articulada a un cuerpo viejo que olía como un armario donde se guardan pieles en alcanfor; cuerpo aún recamado de joyas y brocados, y que se mantenía bien erguido aunque con dolores de ciática; y que no flaqueaba aunque lo ceñían mil temores; y los ojos de la Reina eran de un amarillo pálido. Todo esto sintió mientras los grandes anillos centelleaban en el agua y algo le oprimió el pelo –lo que, quizá, fue motivo de que no viera nada más que pudiera interesar a un historiador. Y en realidad, su mente era un cúmulo tal de antagonismos –de la noche y las encendidas velas, del poeta raído y la gran Reina, de los campos silenciosos y el rumor de los servidores– que no pudo ver nada; o sólo una mano.
Del mismo modo, la Reina pudo ver sólo una cabeza. Pero si de una mano se puede derivar todo un cuerpo, con todos los atributos de una gran Reina, su perversidad, su coraje, su fragilidad y su terror, una cabeza puede ser igualmente fértil, mirada de lo alto de un sillón de estado por una dama cuyos ojos estaban siempre, si podemos dar crédito a la figura de cera de la Abadía, bien abiertos. El largo cabello rizado, la oscura cabeza inclinada con tanta sumisión, con tanta inocencia, prometían un par de las más hermosas piernas que jamás sostuvieran a un joven noble; y ojos violetas; y un corazón de oro; y lealtad y viril encanto –todas las cualidades que la vieja adoraba más y más a medida que le fallaban. Porque iba envejeciendo, cansada y encorvada a destiempo. El estampido del cañón estaba siempre en sus oídos. Siempre veía la brillante gota de veneno y el largo estilete. Al sentarse a la mesa estaba escuchando; oía los cañones en el Canal; recelaba, ¿sería un rumor, una maldición, sería un santo y seña? La inocencia, la sencillez, le eran más queridas por ese fondo oscuro que las destacaba. Y, esa misma noche (según lo quiere la tradición), mientras Orlando dormía profundamente, ella hizo entrega formal, poniendo su firma y su sello en el pergamino, de la gran casa monástica que había sido del Arzobispo y luego del Rey, al padre de Orlando.
Orlando durmió toda la noche sin saber nada. Sin saberlo, había sido besado por una reina. Y quizá, porque los corazones de las mujeres son intrincados, fueron su ignorancia y su sobresalto cuando lo tocaron sus labios, lo que mantuvo la memoria de su joven primo (porque eran de la misma sangre) fresca en su mente.
Sea lo que fuere, no habían transcurrido dos años de esa quieta vida de campo, y Orlando no había escrito arriba de veinte tragedias y una decena de historias y una veintena de sonetos cuando llegó la orden de que compareciera ante la Reina en Whitehall.
«Aquí», dijo ella, mirándolo avanzar por el largo corredor, «viene mi inocente». (Había en él una serenidad que se parecía a la inocencia, aunque, técnicamente, la palabra ya no fuera adecuada.)
«Ven», le dijo. Estaba sentada muy tiesa, junto al fuego. Y lo tuvo a un pie de distancia mirándolo de arriba abajo. ¿Estaba comparando sus especulaciones de la otra noche con la ahora visible realidad? ¿Encontraba justificadas sus conjeturas? Ojos, boca, nariz, pecho, caderas, manos –todo lo recorrió; sus labios se contrajeron visiblemente al mirarlo; pero cuando vio las piernas se rió abiertamente. Era la viva imagen de un caballero. ¿Y por dentro? Le clavó los amarillos ojos de halcón como para atravesarle el alma. El joven sostuvo esa mirada sonrojándose como correspondía.
Fuerza, gracia, arrebato, locura, poesía, juventud –lo leyó como una página. En el acto se arrancó un anillo del dedo (la coyuntura estaba un poco hinchada) y, al ajustárselo, lo nombró su Tesorero y mayordomo; después le colgó las cadenas de su cargo, y haciéndole doblar la rodilla, le ató en la parte más fina la enjoyada orden de la Jarretera. Después de eso nada le fue negado. Cuando ella salía en coche, él cabalgaba junto a la portezuela. Lo mandó a Escocia con una triste embajada a la desdichada Reina. Ya estaba por embarcarse a las guerras polacas cuando lo hizo llamar. ¿Cómo aguantar la idea de esa tierna carne desgarrada y de esa crespa cabeza en el polvo? Lo guardó con ella. En la eminencia de su triunfo, cuando los cañones tronaban en la Torre y el aire estaba tan espeso de pólvora que hacía estornudar y los hurras del pueblo retumbaban al pie de las ventanas, lo tumbó entre los almohadones en que sus damas la habían acomodado (estaba tan gastada y tan vieja) y le hizo hundir el rostro en ese sorprendente armazón –hacía un mes que no se había mudado el vestido– que olía exactamente, pensó él, invocando antiguos recuerdos, como uno de los viejos armarios de casa donde las pieles de su madre estaban guardadas. Se levantó medio sofocado con el abrazo. «Esta», ella susurró, «es mi victoria» –mientras un cohete estallaba, tiñendo de escarlata sus mejillas.
Porque la vieja estaba enamorada. Y la Reina, que sabía muy bien lo que era un hombre, aunque dicen que no del modo usual, ideó para él una espléndida y ambiciosa carrera. Le dieron tierras, le asignaron casas.
Sería el hijo de su vejez; el sostén de su debilidad; el roble en que apoyaría su degradación. Graznó estas esperanzas y esas curiosas ternuras autoritarias (ahora estaban en Richmond) sentada tiesa en sus duros brocados junto al fuego, que por más alto y cargado que estuviera nunca la podía calentar.
Mientras tanto, los largos meses de invierno se arrastraban. Cada árbol del Parque estaba revestido de escarcha. El río fluía soñoliento. Un día en que la nieve cubría el suelo y los artesonados cuartos oscuros estaban llenos de sombras y los ciervos bramaban en el parque, ella vio en el espejo, que siempre tenía a su lado por temor a los espías, por la puerta, que siempre estaba abierta por temor a los asesinos, un muchacho –¿sería Orlando?– besando a una muchacha –¿quién demonio sería la desorejada? Agarró la espada de empuñadura de oro y golpeó con fuerza el espejo. El cristal se rompió; acudieron corriendo; la levantaron y la repusieron en el sillón; pero después se quedó resentida y se quejaba mucho, mientras sus días se acercaban al fin, de la falsedad de los hombres.
Era tal vez culpa de Orlando; pero, con todo, ¿culparemos a Orlando? La época era la Época Isabelina; su moralidad no era la nuestra, ni