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Orlando cover art

Orlando

By: Virginia Woolf
Narrated by: Clare Higgins
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Summary

Exclusively from Audible

Fantasy, love and an exuberant celebration of English life and literature, Orlando is a uniquely entertaining story. Originally conceived by Virginia Woolf as a playful tribute to the family of her friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West, Orlando's central character, a fictional embodiment of Sackville-West, changes sex from a man to a woman and lives throughout the centuries, whilst meeting historical figures of English literature.

The book opens with Orlando as a young nobleman in Elizabethan England who finds love with a Russian princess. During Charles II's reign, he is an ambassador to Constantinople and becomes a Duke. Orlando then goes on to wake as a beautiful woman, exploring the roles of women in the 18th and 19th centuries. Eventually becoming a wife and mother the tale ends in the year 1928, a year consonant with full suffrage for women. Upon plans to publish her 1588 poem 'The Oak Tree', written in the opening of the book, she reflects on her centuries of adventure.

An exploration of androgyny and the creative life of a woman, it is considered a feminist work. Arguably one of Woolf's most popular stories, it marked a turning point in her career, departing from her more introspective works. Receiving both critical and financial success, it guaranteed Woolf's financial stability.

There have been many adaptations made, including a 1992 film starring Tilda Swinton and an opera by composer Peter Aderhold which premiered at the Braunschweig State Theatre in in 2016.

Narrator Biography

Clare Higgins is an accomplished actress of screen and stage, winning three Olivier Awards for Best Actress for her roles in Sweet Bird of Youth (1995), Vincent in Brixton (2003) and Hecuba (2005). With a long and successful career in British and American theatre, she has also been a regular feature on our television screens. Her recent roles have included Miss Cackle in The Worst Witch (2017), Ohila in Doctor Who (2013 and 2015), Hazel Warren in EastEnders (2015) and Vivian in Rogue (2014).

Claire Higgins is probably best known for her memorable and sinister performance as Julia in the horror films Hellraiser (1987) and Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988), with other film appearances including The Golden Compass (2007) and Small Faces (2006). With a voice and timing perfect for audio she has narrated many audiobooks, including Nick Hornby's How to Be Good and Joanna Trollope's The Best of Friends, and in 2009 portrayed Margaret Thatcher in the BBC Radio 4 drama A Family Affair.

Public Domain (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Clare Higgins's supple, silky voice does justice to Woolf's literary landmark. The language of Orlando, peppered with alliterative phrases, flows effortlessly with perfect pacing by Higgins, and Woolf's dry wit shines through her performance." ( AudioFile)

What listeners say about Orlando

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Wonderful

They stream of consciousness style and dry wit is suited perfectly to an audiobook. Also, Clare Higgin's voice is perfectly suited to the work, and I want her to record all of Virginia Woolf's work.

It is magical, perfectly produced and the only disappointment is that 8 hours and 43 mins is over much, much too quickly. It is one of the few audiobooks that I will listen to again.

Wonderful, magical, surprising, original, beautiful, bold and full of love.

Listen to the sample . . . and then you will find that you must get this audiobook.

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

An imaginative classic...

This is an outstanding pieces of literature. I came to this title by accident following a audible recommendation link from a previous title, The Time Travellers Wife by Audrey Niffeneggar.
This voyage through life and time is superb. Humorous, intense and subtle. He, then she, Orlando, touches, brushes and grasps each era from the 16th to the 20th century. An imaginative classic, this work is accessible and highly recommended!

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Deserved classic

I deliberately didn't read up about Orlando before I started listening to my Audible download because I didn't want to be be distracted by trying to fit facts of Woolf's life with Vita Sackville-West into whatever the story would bring. I think I made the right decision - and probably wouldn't have got the references anyway!
Orlando is written as the biography of an Elizabethan boy who ages only twenty-odd years while the rest of the world advances by several hundred years. Oh, and Orlando also becomes a woman. As you do.

I absolutely adored Woolf's descriptions of Elizabethan England. Her prose when she allows it to run away with her is sublime and many times I felt as if I were really there. My audio was narrated by Clare Higgins who does a fantastic job throughout, especially during such passages. Other highlights for me were the encroachment of the damp and the sudden sweep of the Victorians. However, I wasn't convinced by the Turkish Gypsy episodes and felt they lacked the same immediacy, and the writing seemed to lose structure towards the very end, probably deliberately, but I thought this made the conclusions tough to follow.

Recurring characters made it seem perfectly natural that Orlando aged so slowly and the story never came across as contrived which, having just reread my two line synopsis, is pretty amazing! The poet Nicholas Greene and his Groundhog Day pronouncements showed just how far people haven't come in so many years. And the same is true of Orlando's androgynous outlook which Woolf uses to great effect to show the restrictions placed on women by societies that revere and patronise concurrently.

I enjoyed listening to Orlando and would even wish that it had been longer. There is a lot of humour, which I hadn't expected, and it didn't seem to matter that I didn't recognise the real people behind many of the characters. The story can be appreciated on its own terms with further layers of understanding added by Googling later.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Entertaining, if a little odd

Virginia Woolf is an author I'd never read and felt that I probably should, so I was expecting this book to be "good for me" rather than particularly fun. I found myself pleasantly surprised, The writing was elegant and easily consumable. I was kept interested by the ideas raised and liked that they were posed in a meditative manner that one could take or leave without feeling hounded into agreement by the author.
I wouldn't read the book again for the story or the concepts, but the prose would definitely draw me back:
"For it would seem - her case proved it - that we write, not with the fingers, but with the whole person. The nerve which controls the pen winds itself about every fibre of our being, threads the heart, pierces the liver."
The narrator did an excellent job of not getting in the way of this introspective story.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Gorgeousness heaped on gorgeousness

Seen the film starring Tilda Swinton? It's pretty awe-inspiring in its sumptuousness and magical atmosphere. So, you won't be surprised, is Woolf's novel. Hilarious at times (a surprise for someone who'd only read her experimental works before) and truly revolutionary in its assumptions and form.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Subtle and beautifully written

A delightful voice lulled you through this very diverse tale of an extended life, with its myriad of twists and turns. Easy to get a bit lost at times if the intonation didn't stimulate enough, but a very interesting listen in the main. The screen version from 1992 with Tilda Swinton was my initial experience of this tale, and I was pleased that the book was more compelling than its visual counterpart.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Long winded literature

There's an ebb and flow to this story. It captures and then loses you. And follows that cycle throughout. It felt both finite and whimsical, aged and contemporary, seperate and inclusive. A little late to this piece of literature, I manage to ingest most of it, but it was a bit indulgent at times.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Interesting, but quite pointless?

At the end of the day the story is interesting, makes you curious enough to go on and find out what happens to Orlando. But at some point it gets almost annoying as not even the main character knows what actually wants. Too bad because it kind of made the whole book way too slow. Also, the writing style wasn’t of the simplest but it was okay overall. Performance was amazing, the narrator was captivating and managed to express the concepts and the emotions perfectly. Didn’t dislike it, would recommend if you are looking for a novel that is quite philosophical but that doesn’t give that many answers and if you like Virgina Woolf, but definitely is not really in my alley.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Interesting

A lyrical farce examining the evolution of gender roles from the 17th - 20th century. There were times when the writing style was quite confusing and I lost the thread of the story but it was never that difficult to be pulled right back.

Not one for those who need an explanation for everything as lots of things in this book seem to happen just because they do but I really enjoyed it.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Orlando

A wonderful read that is recommended. A story of strong will that will never give up.

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1 person found this helpful