Orlando is historically significant, boring to read

I can appreciate the historical and cultural significance of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, but my goodness, blah blah blah. I found the book to be boring to the extreme. It is the fictional biography of Orlando and his/her life.

Orlando was born a boy in 16th Century England. Growing up loving nature and poetry, he isn’t a “manly man” but is a favorite of the ladies. He is also blessed with long life, only aging a couple decades over the course of 300+ years, though the book never explains why. After a failed romance with a Russian heiress, Orlando flees society and goes to be a diplomat in Constantinople. Living there for a few years, he goes to sleep one night during a revolution, and wakes up as a woman. Again, no explanation, but Orlando accepts it and goes on to live her new life.

Up to this point, at least stuff was happening in the novel. Afterwards, the plot slows down to a crawl. Orlando, always fascinated by poetry and intelligent thinkers, spends the rest of the book doing more thinking than doing. She shows equal love for men and women, finally finding a man much like her whom she marries.

Historically, it is accepted that Woolf wrote Orlando for her lover Vita. I can appreciate the significance of the book, written in the 20’s, showcasing women as being equal to men, and especially at a time with homosexuallity was more than just taboo, it was criminal. But still, definitely not a page-turner.