Taking place over three centuries during which Orlando changes sex, not older than 20 years (from 16 to 36 years), and continues throughout the story one true dream to become a poet, the book is a vivid reflection on the relativity of boundaries between the two sexes, the role of women in society, on the passing of time without going over the limits of language as a communication tool (words often being unable to describe the thoughts, desires, love, the character of moods, by the admission of its pseudo-biographer who has also just to let a whole paragraph in white as an admission of impotence the word), but also on artistic creation, for this book is the description of a quest, of the birth of the vocation to the dream, the common thread being the long preparation, one might say mature, the poem "Oak" Orlando puts 300 years to build and which the reader, strangely, will never know the text (again, the words are not what matters ...).
One could easily draw a parallel with the search of Proust, also the story of the birth and maturation of an artistic vocation, the book itself being the result. Orlando is therefore a book rich, deep, sometimes difficult, writes in a style that however can annoy the reader by his bombastic character who leads a swim.
