Customer Reviews

Orlanda

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If you've ever wondered what it would be like to become the opposite sex, this may be the book for you. Orlanda is a strange examination of the erotic nature of human beings through spiritual body hopping. The book opens in a Paris train station with Aline, a 35-year-old literature professor who is reading Virginia Woolf's "Orlando." Aline leads a safe and boring life. She has lived in the same apartment with the same man for the last 10 years. Even the literature courses she teaches are beginning to bore her. Aline's repressed libido suddenly jumps out of her and inhabits a 20-year-old man. His name is Lucien Lefrene - a young journalist who lives simply and cheaply. But after the transition of spirit, he renames himself Orlanda in honor of the Woolf novel Aline is reading. And Orlanda - or Aline's repressed spirit - freaks out with his newfound freedom. He immediately develops a taste for picking up guys. He spends much of his time living life to its utmost - eating, drinking and studying. And, like Aline, his mind has an insatiable appetite for knowledge. Eventually Aline and Orlanda meet and discover their intimate connection. They become closer and closer, until they are so close the coupling threatens every other relationship in Aline's life. She realizes she must get Orlanda back into her body, but Lucien resists. He is enjoying his guilt- and hassle-free life too much. "Orlanda" takes an interesting look at the difference between the sexes and the differences within people's own minds. There are some discrepancies - Harpman changes the narrator's perspective several times and occasionally it's too dramatic to take seriously. But it's also a very weird ride into a fantasy of "what if?"