The Hours: A Novel (Picador Modern Classics, 1)

I can't believe I put off reading Michael Cunningham's THE HOURS for this long. This spectacularly written novel resonates with emotion and insight as it follows the relatively ordinary details of the lives of three women separated by decades. Each woman lives a single day here, each is haunted by the novel MRS. DALLOWAY. Virginia Woolf is preparing to write the novel in the midst of unsettling thoughts and surroundings. 50's housewife Laura Brown finds refuge in the book as she prepares for her husband's birthday and finds herself tempted by thoughts of death. Clarissa Vaughan has been nicknamed Mrs. Dalloway by her closest friend, the dying poet Richard, for whom she is about to throw a party. The three stories converge thematically; two are brought together by a shared character. You don't need to read Woolf's MRS. DALLOWAY to appreciate this book because Cunningham has constructed a moving tale that stands on its own. Although a knowledge of Woolf's novel reveals the layers the author has carefully constructed, there is much here to enjoy without that frame of reference. The language is stunning, and the sentiments even more so. Surprisingly, Virginia Woolf is the strongest character despite her iconic place in literature, with Clarissa almost as well drawn. Laura is less memorable. Some of the minor characters appear with clarity while others seem tacked on, there only to support the ties to Woolf's novel. The homosexual characters (most notably Clarissa and Richard, with fleeting impulses from Laura and Virginia) are treated with affection and respect. THE HOURS is a short, easily readable book, although you shouldn't - and most won't want to - breeze through it. I recommend this book for a general readership.

You'll either love this novel so much you'll read passages over and over, or you'll give up after a couple of chapters. I think the reason so many people have problems with "The Hours" is that they don't enjoy reading a novel with such a dark mood. Some people aren't entertained by reading about such tragic loneliness. Cunningham deals with characters who who are depressed to the point of despair even when they are surrounded by people who love them unconditionally. It's probably hard for most people who are reasonably happy to grasp that kind of pain. The author's beautiful and sometimes poetic writing is an amazing work of art; the novel deserved all the praise it received. The way the story parallels Virginia Woolf's masterpiece "Mrs. Dalloway" is inspired. The book truly takes the reader into the world in which Virginia Woolf lived her brilliant and tortured life, and the transitions from Woolf's era to those of Laura Brown and Clarissa Vaughn were beautifully done. The best way to read this book is on a rainy day, classical music in the background and a pot of tea on the stove. If only other novels could compare...

In 1925, Virginia Woolf published her masterful novel, "Mrs. Dalloway". Set during a single day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, Woolf brilliantly used techniques which became hallmarks of the modern novel--interior monologue, first person narrative and a stunning, albeit unrelentingly difficult, stream-of-consciousness rendering--to produce one of the masterpieces of twentieth century English literature. Nearly seventy-five years later, Michael Cunningham has used many of these same techniques to write "The Hours", a fitting homage to Woolf and a novel which deservedly won both the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize."The Hours" tells the story of a bright June day in the lives of three different women living in three different times and places. The first story is that of Virginia Woolf during a day in 1923, when she is writing "Mrs. Dalloway". The second is the story of Laura Brown, a thirtyish, bookish married woman living in the suburbs of Los Angeles. Laura has a four-year-old son and is pregnant with another child as she plans a birthday dinner for her husband on a day in 1949. The third story is that of Clarissa Vaughn, a fifty-two year old, slightly bohemian, literary agent who is planning a party for Richard, her long-time friend and one-time lover, a prominent writer dying of AIDS."The Hours" is, among other things, a nuanced and sensitive picture of middle age in the lives of its characters. Like the novel to which it pays tribute, "The Hours" relies heavily on interior monologue-on thoughts, memories and perceptions-to drive the narrative and to establish a powerful bond between the reader and each of the female protagonists. The reader feels the psychic pain of the aging Virginia Woolf as she contemplates suicide in the Prologue. The reader has an almost tactile sense of Laura Brown's claustrophobia, of her feeling that life is closing in around her, as she flees to a hotel for two hours in the middle of the day simply to spend time reading ("Mrs. Dalloway", of course). And the reader can identify with the yearning, the melancholy, that is suggested when Clarissa Vaughn thinks back to the time when she was young, when her life's choices had not yet been made. "The Hours" is written, in short, like all great fiction--with deep feeling and love for its characters-and it stands as one of the outstanding American novels of the past decade. While resonating with the themes, techniques and characters of Woolf's difficult modern masterpiece, "The Hours" is masterful and original in its own right, an accessible and engaging work that is worth all the time you spend with it.

I must say I'm a bit surprised by the vicious attacks launched at Cunningham, especially by readers who admit they have not read anything by Woolf -- there is the first mistake. Though I haven't read Mrs. Dalloway in quite a while, I have read To the Lighthouse (one of my all time favorite novels) and Cunningham captures her genius perfectly! This book demands a certain amount of concentration on the reader's behalf, but it's worth it. If you have ever read anything by Woolf, you will immediately appreciate the nuance of his language. It's not pompous just because he gets the prosody and rhythm of Woolf right on the nose! Normally I don't like split narratives that jump from chapter to chapter, but Cunningham does it so seamlessly and with such a feel for the 3 main characters that I found myself drawn into all three story lines. I don't want to reveal how they all come together, but let's just say they do, and with a bang. To give an idea of the kind of subtlety Cunningham displays, let me give one example: Lara Brown, the housewife, feels unconnected to her husband and 3 year old child and all she wants to do is finish reading Mrs. Dalloway. But, since it's her husband's birthday, she follows the expected role and tries to make him a fantastic cake. When the cake turns out to be amateurish and imperfect, she becomes almost suicidally depressed and decides to throw it out and start again. The scene continues, but the disappointment with the cake takes on a life of its own. Readers of To the Lighthouse will be reminded of the central dining scene when Mrs. Ramsey prepares a magnificant feast in much the same vein for her family. Cunningham's writing and grasp of Woolf is inspired -- I can see why he got the Pulitzer Prize. For those who criticize, be sure to catch up on your Woolf before nailing Cunningham to the cross. It's really a terrific book.

Journal Entry, 2:30 AM, Jan. 3: What a lark! What a plunge! What a wonderful, delightful week, end to a year, a holiday, a millennium! And capped off with such a divine book, a sparkling diamond--The Hours, by Michael Cunningham. This (dare I say perfect?) book takes on all of the complexity of human interaction to come to the essence of Virginia Woolf's writing (I can't say it better than Cunningham or Woolf do, but for the purposes of posterity, let me record it): we die--by accident, suicide, disease, or the passage of time, and on the way there we are faced with seemingly insurmountable sorrow, regret, and the imprisonment of everyday life. Yet most of us choose to live through the next hour, even if it is agonizing, with the vague certainty that at any moment we could encounter a feeling of ephemeral, ineffable joy. We also have the liberating power to choose, to decide, to make an educated guess as to whether there will be any more hours of joy, and if not, to end our own lives. This book, as far as I have read, is the best attempt to analyze Woolf and her writing concisely and comprehensively, in the context of her life--it is at once great literary criticism and a work of incandescent art. Cunningham stands on the shoulders of the person who I believe is the greatest literary giant of all time. Miraculously, and, perhaps more clearly and concisely than the giant herself and her umpteen biographers, successfully sorts out the difficult layers and issues in her writing (at various times, one feels sure her main purpose is to write about the creative process, at others, the nature of gender and sex, patriarchy, biography, politics, economics, celebrity, or philosophy), making them newly relevent in the present age.Cunningham's Mrs. Brown asks herself, how...could someone who was able to write...like that...come to kill herself? He addresses the theme of despair in Woolf's books and life, which is often over-emphasized by critics. Cunningham reminds us that although Woolf took her own life, the ultimate purpose of her art was a celebration of life, love, and happiness in the midst of a heavy, chaotic, and massive world. Cunningham, as if working and communicating with Woolf directly, helps us to see as we enter the new century that headache, sorrow, regret, and their very stark contrast to joy, are essential to human life--that without the depths of despair, we have no joy, we have nothing. And with all joy and happiness and no sorrow, we become numb to the simple good fortune of being alive. What more appropriate homage could be paid to Virginia Woolf, who changed the world in subtle and profound ways? I am so grateful to Cunningham for reviving Woolf so vividly, almost as though he earned the Pulitzer Prize for her. If only she could see that a man has done it! I believe that his purpose in writing this book was to share Woolf with the world again, to remind us that her insight into the h