The Hours: A Novel (Kushiel's Legacy)

Excellent read. This captures women's everyday struggles and emotions beautifully. Truly a delight to read and a comfort to feel I'm not alone in many of the sentiments. Also, I must note better than the movie.

The other reviewer is correct -- the author does not read his work well. Imagine an amateur actor having just learned what an iamb is, but paying no attention to the flow of the line: now IS the WIN ter OF our DIS con TENT.

Once the author gets going, picking up speed, he's OK...but you stay nervous, waiting for that next lapse into every word getting an undue emphasis.

This refers to the audio version only, as the novel itself is quite good.

First off, I can't stand Virginia Woolf's writing; it is pointless and un-entertaining--BORING, to put it simply. With that said, a book ABOUT Virginia Woolf as a character that remains true to her writing style, is a no-go for me. I didn't GET this book, therefore, I didn't like it. I liked the scene toward the end where the guy falls out of the window and dies on the pavement below. Believe me, that is the ONLY interesting thing that happens in the entire book. And that's after page 200. Other than that, I couldn't say what the rest of the book is about because I didn't care; I was just trying to get through it. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1999 (the reason I read it), so obviously SOMEONE really enjoyed it. Bottom line, it's an unfulfilling, unexciting book. Now let's cross our fingers and hope the movie is better!

Everything that I felt about this book has already been said in other reviews. It was contrived, it was juvenile, it was all of that. The characters all basically have the same voice: Cunningham's. Also, this is another example of a gay man whose creation implies that he believe a gay man can have only one sort of soul mate:a woman. Perhaps it's some kind of internalised homophobia. I found the whole thing rather creepy and sickening myself.

The Hours just reaffirms my notion that Virginia Woolf is overrated, not just overrated but way way overrated. If Michael Cunningham can write just like her, which he does, then just how great can she be? And the presumption that a man knows enough about how women think and act to be credible is a little silly. (I know Cunningham's sexual orientation and that may help him somewhat to understand women, but really?)

This is Michael Cunningham's tribute to Virginia Woolf.

We have the lives of three women connected in a literary way: Virginia Woolf in her retreat away from London; Clarissa Daloway, an editor preparing a party for her birthday, and, finally, Mrs Brown, a housewife in the 50s living an unsuitable life for herself.

All of then are struggling with her own issues. Virginia is fighting with the fact that she is hearing voices again, writing Mrs Dalloway and trying to make her husband understand that she would die of boredom if she stays in the countryside as the doctors recommend.

Clarissa moves herself through contemporary New York, buying flowers and in a way, reenacting what happens to her according to what Virgina has written in her already classic novel. She visits her dearest friend, ill with AIDS and trying to keep him alive.

Mrs Brown is desperately trying to convince herself that becoming a housewife and mother is what she has desired all her life. Being an invisible bookworn, she couldnt say no to the captsin of the school/medalled veteran asking her to marry him. Now, she feels imprisoned.

Cunningham cleverly interwines their lives, making a path for the reader to discover the secrets they are hidding from themselves in plain sight.

You are going to love the literary reference to Woolf's life and works, and the poetic language the author uses to create beautiful atmospheres that surrounds the characters. You will anguish with the characters' decisions, their hearts full of fear, their minds full of voices.

I read Science Fiction. This book was recommended by my woman friend. We decided to 'swap' She would read a Sci-fi book of my choice. And I would read a 'romance' or 'whatever' novel of hers.
I am now finishing my second re-read of this book, and it is absolutely fascinating.
What an in depth, just beautiful piece of art.
I had to do some research on Mrs. Dalloway, obviously, to get a lot of the nuances. But it is such am amazing, different, lovely, wonderful, wonderful read. I am so PROUD of my woman friend. I thought for sure, I was going to be reading a Harlequin Romance, Twilight, or some other piece of garbage.... And what a shock. And it has a neat little twist a the end that just wraps the whole piece of magic into a complete act. I cant even fathom writing something like this.... But whatever, I just hope there are enough people left in the world to appreciate it.

I expected this to be good, which is always dangerous. It wasn't. It was wonderful. Nearly every page conatained an observation or description that was perfect. The writing style is just so lovely, it works as a tool to tap into your emotions. And not in a manipulative way. I felt as if I were on a small journey with Michael Cunningham, as if we were comparing notes on the sweet sadnesses, the regrets, the slight state of mourning we are perpetually in, even on the sunniest days. It's all the price of self-awareness, and Cunningham invites you to dive off the cliff and examine how you really feel about some of life's most imponderable and ever-present dilemmas. The observation concerning the special love we feel for the people with whom we shared our most hopeful moments took my breath away.

A tough novel to leave unread once you've started it. I picked it up because 'Pulitzer Prize', but at the halfway through point was ready to put it down. Very dark, seemingly no relief from desolation, and no good end in sight -- even though beautifully written. But that's the problem with such novels, you have no choice but to finish reading, otherwise you are stranded in the pit. If you finish reading there is hope of deliverance. As it turned out, there was deliverance of a sort. The unexpected plot twist at the end made the whole thing come together - even though still dark, hope shining from the end of the tunnel.

I admire the extreme restraint of the writer. He is like a sculptor cutting his way through his weighty material, producing something very elegant. The end notes mention as research 10 weighty biographies of Virginia Woolf & her family, surely a year's worth of reading. Cunningham distills all this into a few short chapters. A couple of memorable sentences tells you everything you need to know about Vanessa Bell.

This is an interesting book. It's fairly challenging in form and flow, but it's also pretty accessible for anyone who's a steady reader. It's based on a conceit, or a series of conceits, that weave together the lives of three women living decades apart and in different parts of the country. The women themselves are very different, too, but they share a tendency towards deep introspection and engaging in a lot of regret about their paths their lives have taken. Interestingly, all three acknowledge to themselves that they have actually quite lucky about how their lives have turned out and have, more or less, avoided tragedy.

The conceit is how the author weaves these stories together. One story line follows author Virginia Woolf, beginning with her suicide by drowning. It then looks back at her daily routine and the depression that ruled her life, even as she crafted masterpieces such as "Mrs. Dalloway."

The second story follows Clarissa, a 50-ish lesbian intellectual who's living in Greenwich Village in the 1990s. AIDS is ravaging the male gay community, and Clarissa is watching the only man she loved, Richard, die of AIDS just as he's becoming acknowledged as a great poet. Richard named Clarissa "Mrs. Dalloway" when they met as college students, by the way.

The third story looks at Laura Brown, a bookish housewife and mother in 1950s Los Angeles. She's married to a war veteran who's adjusted very well to civilian life, and they're climbing the ranks in a brand-new suburb north of Los Angeles. But Laura is probably clinically depressed. She's reading "Mrs. Dalloway" on the day of her husband's birthday.

Clarissa's story gets the most attention. Unfortuantely, it's the least interesting for me. It's obvious stuff like intellectuals sort of sneering at writers who have more temporal success, or lesbians challenging each other for either selling out by acting "normal" or putting on a show by trying to be butch. And Richard, whose mind is allegedly so ravaged by age that he can't remember if he went to a party in his honor, will suddenly clear his mind and have a deep conversation with Clarissa. Not realistic.

I find that story of Laura much more compelling. She simply wants to stay in bed and read, while abandoning all the responsibilities that she never intentionally accepted. I feel that way sometimes, and then I just put my shoulder to the wheel and go on -- just like Laura. The Virginia Woolf story is interesting in the sense that you see inside the mind of a smart person who is frozen by indecision and depression.

Here's what I like about the story. I love the descriptions of the physical world of New York, such as when Clarissa steps out from her brownstone on a beautiful summer morning to buy flowers. The scene, the weather, even the sandpaper feel of the stoop on which she steps is perfectly rendered. I also like Laura's panic and indecision in the face of her responsibility to her son -- but her ability to ultimately get through the day in a fog. I also like the interweaving of themes to pull together the stories. It's done with flowers, bowls, relations with busy-body neighbors, and even sexually charged kisses between women who aren't necessarily lesbians but might have been tempted if they lived in another era. Sometimes, the linking of themes is a little contrived, because one chapter might end with Clarissa thinking about a yellow scarf and the next will start with something yellow in front of another person. But it's effective, by and large.

Anyway, it's a good book with an interesting idea. But the execution is not good enough to merit a super-high rating (nor a Pulitzer Prize, to be honest).

So much lavish praise has been heaped upon this novel already that I feel rather embarrassed by my own reservations. Yes, the book is well-written, it reads very fluently. It is also mercifully short. And yes, Mr. Michael Cunnigham is conversant with literary history and with the rarefied atmosphere in which the Village gliterati moved about twenty years ago.
What irks me is not style, but substance. First, the relative lack thereof: nothing much happens. And then, what little substance there is to keep the reader's interest awake is so gloomy and dispiriting.
The narrative is about a single day in the life of three different women, one real and two fictional characters: Virginia Woolf sometime before her suicide in 1941, Clarissa Vaughan, nicknamed "Mrs. Dalloway" by her dying poet friend Richard, around 1985, and Laura Brown, who reads the novel "Mrs. Dalloway" in California around 1948. V.Woolf is therefore the main thread, and the prologue of the novel is an account of her suicide.
The main themes are, first, death: Virginia Woolf's suicide, Laura Brown's fascination for death, Richard's suicide (and at the very end of the novel the reader is informed that Laura's ex-husband died of cancer and that her daughter was killed by a drunk driver). A second pervasive theme is ennui, world-weariness. It is so boring to be rich and carefree. Laura Brown is married to a doting and handsome husband, a war-hero who makes a good living and whom she despises, and she is blessed with an adoring three year old boy who is very afraid of losing his mother. She'll desert them. Richard, the aids-infected poet, justifies thus his impending suicide:
"-- I don't know if I can face this. You know. The party and the ceremony, and then the hour after that, and the hour after that."
"-- You don't have to go to the party.You don't have to go to the ceremony.You don't have to do anything at all."
" -- But there are still the hours, aren't there? One and then another, and you get through that one and then, my god, there's another. I'm so sick."
This passage gives the novel its title.
A third theme is of course homosexuality. Clarissa Vaughan is a lesbian living with her female partner Sally, Richard has lived for twelve years with Louis, Clarissa's daughter Julia (conceived in vitro with a sample from a sperm bank) lives with Mary Krull, Clarissa's friend Walter lives with his partner Evan (also dying from aids), the failed mother Laura Brown is deeply moved by a kiss on the mouth from her neighbor Kitty, and Virginia Woolf by a similar kiss from her own sister Vanessa. Well, well. Who's straight in this story ? Laura's despised husband, and Virginia Woolf's devoted husband Leonard, who grates on her nerves. It is a well-known fact that homosexuals are over-represented in the arts. They are often sensitive, brainy people and I feel deep sympathy with them. With the appearance of aids in the eighties, they became a kind of cultural heroes. They died in droves and this fatal disease became a taboo of sorts, akin to antiracism. It was evoked in hushed tones of respect and any hint of testing provoked moral indignation. Madonna sand "Papa don't preach".
I spoke of a gloomy and dispiriting content. Certainly these cases of sickness and suicide are gloomy enough, but there is more, and worse. The whole novel is pervaded by a nauseating sense of nabel-gazing, of self-indulgence, of egotism. With the obvious exception of Virginia Woolf, these people don't seem to work. It takes Clarissa eighty pages to go and buy some flowers, and on the way she regales us with profound wisdom: "Still, she loves the world for being rude and indestructible, and she knows other people must love it too,poor as well as rich,..." The unemployed homemaker Laura (this is the year 1948) : "She exhales a rich gray plume of smoke. She is so tired. She was up until after two, reading," and therefore she cannot bring herself to get up and prepare her little son's breakfast. Tellingly, Clarissa mentions Doris Lessing's 'The Golden Notebook" which used to lie on her nightstand. (In the first part of it, two idle women, Anna and Molly, heap scorn on Anna's husband, a successful entrepreneur, a squarehead unable to access the lofty realm of their thoughts). The most hilarious and revolting conclusion comes from Laura, the failed suicide and failed mother who survived her whole family:
"We did the best we could, dear. That's all anyone can do, isn't it ?"
Well, these people do exist or have existed. Why not write a novel about idle, self- engrossed egotists ? Cunningham's psychological remarks aren't wrong, he's very intuitive, as well as talented as a writer. But then again, why read a dispiriting and boring novel ? There are lots of great American novels out there, Franzen's " The Corrections", Russell Banks' "Continental Drift", Donna Tartt's "Secret History", Richard Ford's "Independence Day", to name but a few. "The Hours" really cannnot compare.

I loved the movie, and thought Julianne Moore gave a captivating performance that still lingers and haunts.

I was excited to read Michael Cunningham's novel, and "The Hours" is really his masterpiece, both in terms of writing and plot. The three different storylines, all covering the course of a day, are interwoven masterfully, and the ending in this novel is just as heart-breaking as in the movie.

But while this novel is certainly a pleasure to read, I felt uneasy as a reader at the predatory, opportunistic, and cynical manipulations that Cunningham was employing as a writer. The Laura Brown storyline felt especially contrived, and it's hard to gauge her character and motivations, and I sometimes felt that the most sympathetic character in this novel is merely just a plot device.

The Hours by Michael Cunningham is the story of three women and how each of them are suffering from depression as they are constantly being pressurized by society expectations. For instance, they lived in a time period where gender equality was still a major issue. Females were expected to get married and eventually be real mothers and home builders of the country, while males had to go out to work in order to support their family and provide their needs. However, none of the three women seem to be satisfied with their lives even being able to achieve the American Dream. Virginia Woolf was suffering due to her lack of superiority in society, not being able to speak up about the conditions of her mental illness as no one would listen to her. Laura Brown who is constantly stressed due to her lack of perfection in not being able to keep up with society's expectations of being a good role model to the family, and plans on running away from her miserable live. Lastly, Clarissa Vaughan who is the least affected by the issue of gender inequality, but is confused about her relationship with her friend she once dated who is also dying from AIDS.

Personally I did not like the novel, because it mostly contains details that were pointless and unentertaining to readers, which also makes things confusing for me as I have to go back and forth between pages, and sometimes chapters in order to fully understand the situation that particular character is going through. However, this was the author’s unique style of writing to create a sense of curiosity and mysteriousness in a particular scene in the reader’s mind to grab onto their attention and excitement as to where it was going to end up next, but I felt that it was not suitable to my preference.

I've never read anything by Virginia Woolf and therefore some of the glowing reviews mentioning that this book revives Woolf's work were lost on me. Nevertheless even without a strong appreciation for the strength of the Woolf homage, I still found The Hours to be an excellent novel.

There are three main characters. One isVirginia Woolf herself, the second is Clarissa living in the New York literary world of the late twentieth century and the third is Laura living as a standard 1950s housewife. The stories are superficially linked by some Woolf references. Laura is reading Mrs. Dalloway and Clarissa's close friend refers to her as Mrs. Dalloway. As the story unfolds they are much more closely linked than may at first be apparent.

Each story is just a snapshot but deals with the inner lives and thoughts of women just living through the next hours of their lives. The book leads off with Virginia's suicide and then proceeds to describe the lives of the other women from different times. There's great sadness and the famous term "living lives of quiet desperation" came to mind during the book.

For me, the most profound ties were between Laura and Virginia who really struggle through their lives. All of these struggles occur despite what on the surface would appear to be successful and vibrant lives. All of the women have very supportive partners and few financial worries. They are loved, yet they struggle.

I found Cunningham's writing to be very insightful and thematically rich. It is particularly unusual that a male writer would so poignantly capture the feelings and lives of three female characters. We usually see this insight from women writing about women or men writing about men. Obviously being male, I do not necessarily have the definitive opinion on how well Cunningham has captured the inner struggles and lives of these women. I'd be very curious to hear more from female reviewers on this.

From my perspective The Hours is an excellent novel that I definitely recommend.

While Michael Cunningham’s The Hours stands alone as a novel, it works best when read in tandem with Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. That’s because the Cunningham work is really an homage to Woolf’s work.

Woolf wrote her novel, which basically describes one day in the life of her heroine, in the early nineteen-twenties. Cunningham wrote his book about seventy-five years later. It tells the story of three women, one being Mrs. Woolf herself, who were markedly influenced by the original Mrs. Dalloway.

Neither book is easy to read, because it is often written from an interior perspective. That is, we are privy to what’s happening in the characters’ minds as well as what is happening in real time. It makes for a jumbly approach to the story and requires good concentration on the part of the
reader.

But it is well worth it.

It takes more than one reading to see all the ways Cunningham has mirrored Woolf’s work while creating women of his own. And how he brings it all together in the end is surely part of the reason he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for this work. When you’re looking for a challenge, consider The Hours.

Synopsis: Virginia Woolf is living in London in 1923, and is beginning to write and work on the now-famous, Mrs. Dalloway. Concurrently, a woman in Los Angeles in 1949, finds herself unhappy after three years of marriage with her husband. Despite this, she is trying her best to be a good wife and a soon-to-be-mother. One day, she picks up Woolf's novel, and begins to read. In it, she finds herself getting lost, as she sees the parallels and similarities between her life and the story. Meanwhile, in present time, there is 52-year-old, Clarissa Vaughan, a self-proclaimed modern version of "Mrs. Dalloway." She is preparing a party dedicated to her former lover -- a poet -- who is now dying of AIDS.
This book surrounds three completely different women, leading very different lives and having their own different stories. In the end, they find that their lives are touched and interwoven together across time, by one powerful and important novel.

Review: First of all, this, no doubt, has an intriguing premise and offers a unique perspective on things.
With clarity and sincerity, the author makes a genuine take on common people, like us, and their ordinary lives, through multifaceted characters. It is really not at all difficult to relate to them, not exactly because of their situations, but mainly for the emotions that they feel and the thoughts that they ponder on. I realize that, everybody feels and thinks about these things. Some, more often than others. And this book, simply, shows that sadness -- that depressing -- side of life, that everybody goes through at one point or another.
As for the writing, I thought that the author did a great job showcasing his talent and skill appropriately, by perfecting the book's pace and flow. Also, he made it all work through his poetic but effortless wordplay. It was simple and easy to grasp, but on-point and complex. It also just had the right amount of drama and emotion, without getting too corny, sappy, or cliche.
I have to admit though, there were a few negative things about the novel. There were few, but they're there nonetheless. I found that at times, it was difficult to figure out who's narrating. The speaker changes constantly, and their voices are not as distinct the way their personalities are, in my opinion.
Also, I have heard a lot from people (friends, family, other reviews) that they did not enjoy this one. One reason is probably because of its dark and "depressive" mood and atmosphere. Also, another possible reason, would be that at times, there were a few lengthy, and even unnecessary, descriptions every now and then. Some people don't mind the long descriptions, others do.
Despite this, I still do recommend it. I also would give it 4 stars -- definitely an entertaining and emotional read, but not "You-have-to-read-this-now!" sort of great. It is more of a "Add-this-to-your-TBR-if-you'd-like" kind of good. I guess though, in a way, this is just one of those books that you either like or you don't. Personally, I liked it.

The Hours by Michael Cunningham, is an important book due to the unique way that it explores the damage that gender roles can cause in society. Although the novel can be hard to follow due to the stream of consciousness style, the reader is able to explore how society's constricting gender norms can take a toll on an individual's well being. This is a result of the novel following the stories of three different women in three different time periods. In my opinion, the most important aspect of the novel are the characters that are represented. Each character faces an unique struggle and the portrayal of each struggle is crucial to the development of the story and is what makes the novel so special. The struggles that the character's face are so important because they are topics that are taboo and by bringing them to light in literature, Cunningham takes a risk that allows the reader to gain a better understanding of mental illness and how people can react in compromising situations. Each character is extremely well developed and as the reader progresses in the novel they are able to peel back the layers of the characters and understand why the act the way that they do. Additionally, an important theme that is discussed in the novel is mental illness and Cunningham does an excellent job of breaking common stereotypes that are associated with illnesses such as depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia. The topics discussed in the novel culminate to make the novel a very interesting and educational read and I would heavily recommend it to anyone who is interested in the effects of gender roles and mental illness on individuals.

I had some trepidation about reading this novel. First, it was a Pulitzer Prize winner. And while that is supposed to be a badge of honor, often it only seems to work against a novel by setting up overly high expectations. Second, knowing "The Hours" was a homage to Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway" I read that classic work beforehand but found it nearly unbearable. Despite having these two early strikes, Michael Cunningham's novel hits one out of the proverbial literary ballpark. It flawlessly weaves three narratives - Clarissa Vaughn (nicknamed Mrs. Dalloway), a 50-something editor living in present day New York City - Laura Brown, a troubled housewife reading "Mrs. Dalloway" in 1950s Los Angeles - and a fictionalized account of Virgina Woolf herself as she prepares to write "Mrs. Dalloway."
One review blurb on the book's cover says this is a "tour de force" and it is certainly a fitting description. The allusions between the fictional character of Mrs. Dalloway and the three women (as well as amongst the three themselves) are truly wonderful. Perhaps, the only complaint is that the book is TOO well-crafted or gimmicky.
Despite not very much liking it, I must reluctantly recommend that one reads (or attempts to read!) "Mrs. Dalloway" before reading this novel as it will make for a much complete and rich reading experience. I can not imagine I would have "got" this novel having not worked my way through Woolf's work (which, by the way, is relatively short). On the heels of this book's transition to the silver screen, there is no better time to read "The Hours." It is certainly a daunting task as much of the book explores the fragile (and often unspoken) emotional state of the three women. But in the hands of its stellar cast (including Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, and Julianne Moore) at least the chances of success appear to be good. By far this was one of my best reads of the year.

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.

"Here, then, is the world (house, sky, a first tentative star)..." These words are not the words of Virginia Woolf, although readers could certainly be forgiven for thinking so, they so accurately catch her idiosyncratic cadence and her offhand thrilling shimmer; they are the words of an invented Woolf in The Hours--"The Hours" was Woolf's working title for Mrs. Dalloway--a novel in which the American writer Michael Cunningham imagines several episodes in Woolf's life over the course of a single day in 1923 (the year she was writing Mrs. Dalloway). He then sets these episodes against a single day in the life of a young married woman and her little boy in California in 1949 and, in alternating chapters, against a day in the life of a middle-aged New York editor and her (gay) circle of friends at the end of the twentieth century.

He also invents the afternoon of Woolf's suicide: "She hurries from the house wearing a coat too heavy for the weather. It is 1941. Another war has begun." But even on the way to her own drowning, the writer in Virginia (and the writer was all of her) is distracted by "a scattering of sheep, incandescent, tinged with a faint hint of sulphur..."

How accurate Cunningham's evocation of her subsequent drowning is we can never know, but it feels inspired and terrible, and there is even, at the heart of it, the kind of mad glee of a children's book: "She appears to be flying, a fantastic figure, arms outstretched, hair streaming, the tail of the fur coat billowing behind..."

A mother and her little boy, walking across a nearby bridge, just narrowly miss catching sight of her. They foreshadow another mother and little boy living in Los Angeles in 1949. Laura Brown (the other mother) is longing to stay in bed so she can finish reading Mrs. Dalloway--she reaches for it automatically "as if reading were the singular and obvious first task of the day, the only viable way to negotiate the transit from sleep to obligation"--but she forces herself to get up and have breakfast with her husband (who, when he takes a bath, boyishly floats in the tub, his "sex shrunk to a stub") along with their son Richie who makes her think "of a mouse singing amorous ballads under the window of a giantess."

Laura Brown later escapes to a hotel room for an illicit afternoon with her book, an escape that parallels Virginia's earlier attempt to escape suburban Richmond for the psychic dangers of London. But then there are so many parallels: Richie will grow up to be called Richard (the first name of Mr. Dalloway) and before he comes to accept the fact that he's gay he'll have an affair with a girl named Clarissa Vaughan (but the fact that her first name is Clarissa will lead Richard to call her Mrs. Dalloway) and Vanessa Bell will come to tea with Virginia, and Vanessa's children will find a dead bird in the Woolf garden and circle it with roses so that Virginia, looking down at its "modest circlet of thorns and flowers" will think, "It could be a kind of hat. It could be the missing link between millinery and death." Years later, back in New York City, Clarissa (the other Clarissa), on her way to buy flowers for a party for Richard--he's dying and is about to receive a major literary prize--will spot a famous face peeking out of a movie trailer and wonder if it belongs to Vanessa Redgrave (not only another Vanessa, but also the actress who played Clarissa in the movie version of Mrs. Dalloway).

There are non-Woolfian allusions as well: Clarissa Vaughan leaves a copy of Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook on her nightstand, and at Laura Brown's hotel the desk clerk gives her the key to Room 19 ("To Room 19" being the title of one of Lessing's most anthologized stories) and the writer in The Golden Notebook is another sort of Woolf (Anna Wulf) and later still, Clarissa Vaughan concludes that Lessing has long been overshadowed by other writers. All of this might sound just too postmodernly coy for words, but in fact Cunningham is playing--just as Woolf did--not only with time and ideas about time, but also with ideas about how much we are not only part of one another but also ghosts of one another. He also quotes the part of Mrs. Dalloway in which Clarissa sees herself as part, "she was positive, of the trees at home; of the house there, ugly, rambling all to bits and pieces as it was; part of people she had never met; being laid out like a mist between people she knew best, who lifted her on their branches as she had seen the trees lift the mist, but it spread ever so far, her life, herself."

Even the typography of The Hours supports these death-in-life and life-beyond-death intensities via the ghostly aura given to the chapter headings, making use of the pale-grey names of the characters whose chapter it isn't to flank the name (in bold type) of the character whose chapter it is. But is this evocative and tender novel derivative? Only in the sense that it couldn't have been written if Mrs. Dalloway hadn't been written first; except for a very brief flat patch in the middle and a ho-hum ending, it's too inspired to ride on Woolf's coat tails. Its buoyant precision also catches Woolf's clarity and comedy, along with her clear-eyed ability to be critical of herself and her work. It's also an extremely intelligent novel that ends up feeling like an extended riff by a gifted jazz musician on the work of a genius of a classical composer: with its complex arrangements of literary reverberations and its memorable descriptions of regret and civilised squalor, with a woman's straw sandals making a "small, crisp sound when she walks" and "decapitated flowers floating in bowls of water", it has its own marvels.

And yet the movie made from this often fascinating book was pretty awful, in spite of the brilliant casting of Nicole Kidman to play Woolf (she was a revelation). Most of the other actors were extraordinary too. So was it the script? The direction? That turned it into a period piece that was also a soap opera? I can't remember it well enough at this point to hazard a guess.

Oh, what a wonderful and etopic work of art! -and even if you've seen the movie, read it anyway. The best advice I can give anyone.. READ MRS. DALLOWAY FIRST!... If you don't you will miss out on all the beutiful inuendos and mirror imaging of The Hours. I had not read the aforesaid work when I started this, in fact- before this book I despised Virginia Woolf- but I forced my self to stop reading 'The Hours' and complete Ms. D and what a great decision! I read, enjoyed and admired Mrs. Dolloway, reading it first made me better appreciate Cunningham's style, message and plot, I felt like I was in on a little secret shared only by me and the author!
The best thing about the Hours is that it shows us how similar our lives our to our seemingly ancient, outdated and foreign ancestors. It it truly is a modern day version of Virginia's masterpiece and is totally intertwined with it. I think Michael Cunningham was in cahoots with Virginia's spirt when he wrote this! I so believe that if she were here to read this, she would endorse, celebrate and embrace 'The Hours'. After reading it, I have a better understanding of Woolf's writting style and was better able to appreciate other works of hers. More importanlty, I have a better understanding of the circle of life.
Cunningham's tribute to Ms. Woolf was admirable and amazing. But his own talent eminated through this novel as well. He has incredible communicative skills and was able to tie three seperate and seemingly polar lives in such a creative and dramatic way. I was impressed by his talent and ablility to take contraversial topics (such as AIDS and homosexuality) and make them so ordinary and everday. It appeals to so many different classes, ages, genders, ideologies- It captivates so many audiences that I believe anyone who reads it will appreciate and relate to it's theme and characters. Most importantly, I think this novel shows us that even though every generation thinks themselves and thier struggles isolated and individualistic, really we are all the same. It made me realize that what I go through now, my great grandmother went through a hundred years ago and my great grandchildren will essentially go through 100 years from now. As much as we think WE have changed; really the only thing that has really changed is the hours that have passed.

Cunningham has done what regretfully few writers are able to do: written a thoughtful, interesting, deep, easy-to-read masterpiece that is enjoyable on multiple levels. He writes as if he is singing, or writing poetry; on almost every page, there is a gem of a sentence which is just food for thought for hours. For example: "Then the feeling moves on. It does not collapse; it is not whisked away. It simply moves on, like a train that stops at a small country station, stands for a while, and then continues out of sight." Or: "If they both survive long enough, if they stay together, they will watch each other fade." Wonderful.
You do not need to know Virginia's Woolf generally, or her novel "Mrs. Dalloway" in particular, to appeciate this book. I've been assured, however, that reading Mrs. Dalloway only enhances the experience. There are multiple parallels between the two books. This book examines -as did "Mrs. Dalloway" - one day in the life of three characters. Each one's day, as it unfolds before us, could easily be its own short story. Cunningham's genius, however, is the way in which he ties together the three individuals into one novel. Watch for the Hitchcock-like ending. I don't want to say what it is (it would be like telling the end of a movie to someone about to enter the theater) but read the last chapter carefully. If you want to discuss the ending, or what the Hitchcock piece is, drop me an e-mail. (I missed it the first time around until someone pointed it out to me).
All in all, this novel examines, in strikingly beautiful language - love, and life, and fear, and insecurity, and sanity, and marriage, and parenthood, and relationships. There is something in this deeply textured novel for everyone. It follows three women at three different times - the 1930s, the 1950s, and modern day - as they seek to understand their lives, their futures, and themselves. The manner in which these women react to life is truly extraordinary.

Michael Cunningham did a great job researching and writing about Virginia Woolf and of course, some imagination went in there as to how Woolf was feeling at the time of writing her great novel, Mrs. Dalloway, and dying.

Here, we get three different stories of true emotions, each heartfelt in its own way, combined into a cohesive novel that will have you in tears a couple of times before the end.
The link here is Viginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway". Virginia Woolf, an author troubled by by own insanity in Richmond (early 1920s) is in the midst of writing her book, Mrs Dalloway. Choosing between living in Richmond and death, Virginia Woolf will finally succumb to the voices in her head by drowning herself. As she questioned her existence, life and love for her husband, Virginia put part of herself in the book she was writing.
Almost 30 years later, a lonely housewife, Laura Brown in Los Angeles (195o's) picks up the book for a read and questions her own life and feelings. It looked as if her life was perfect, a loving husband, a son and an unborn coming their way. It was her husband's birthday and she wa going to make a cake. She made one and another. Her best friend, Kathy, came for a visit with bad news and both parted with a kiss, a kiss that transcended time, gender and emotions. Laura chose to leave her family while the impact on her son, Richard, was so devastating in years to come.
In modern day 90's New York City, a gay woman, Clarissa Vaughn being nicknamed "Mrs. Dalloway" by her dying AIDS friend, Richard (Laura's grown-up son), questioned her own existence and priorities when Richard re-ascertained his love for her before leaping to his death.
In this well-executed novel, feeling is operative here. In a complex web of life, love and relationships, one day in the life of three women in different times was to be so life-altering.
Absolutely smashing.

A stunning book, beautifully written, absolutely marvelous. I'd give it more stars if I could. Cunningham, who has written some stellar books ("A Home at the End of the World" especially), makes this one his masterpiece.

Of crucial importance for this book is reading Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway," preferably as soon as possible before reading "The Hours." Cunningham's brilliance here is his homage to Woolf's great book, entwining modern characters and situations into his book, all of which have root-- no matter how subtle-- in the Woolf book. These surprises-- this connections of time, continuity, emotional desperation, the siren's song of death, the search for meaning in the smallest actions-- all of it is rooted in "Mrs. Dalloway." How Cunningham transposes it to "The Hours" is sheer bliss, a one-of-a-kind experience like no other book I've ever read.

I don't know what he reader would take without having read "Mrs. Dalloway" first. I intentionally read the Woolf right before reading the Cunningham, knowing that he wrote "The Hours" as both an homage and a sort of continuity-- not a sequel, or follow-up, but a careful rethinking that leads one great novel into another. I assume the reader would enjoy "The Hours" without having read a lick of Woolf. But don't-- the pleasures of the second derive from its astonishing intimacy with the first.

Granted, Virginia Woolf is no easy read. "Mrs. Dalloway," arguably her finest novel, is an existential, internal character study filled with revelations and epiphanies so subtle, so transcendent, so small (and yet so internally large), the book can be read several times to grasp its complexity. Yet I can't imagine the pleasure I got out of "The Hours" without having read Woolf first.

This is truly Cunningham's finest piece of work to date, and frankly, one of the best modern novels I've read. This is a must for Woolf fans, of course. And Cunningham (obviously influenced by Woolf) firmly establishes himself as of the top authors in the modern literary canon. An absolute gem.

Michael Cunningham did a great job researching and writing about Virginia Woolf and of course, some imagination went in there as to how Woolf was feeling at the time of writing her great novel, Mrs. Dalloway, and dying.

Here, we get three different stories of true emotions, each heartfelt in its own way, combined into a cohesive novel that will have you in tears a couple of times before the end.
The link here is Viginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway". Virginia Woolf, an author troubled by by own insanity in Richmond (early 1920s) is in the midst of writing her book, Mrs Dalloway. Choosing between living in Richmond and death, Virginia Woolf will finally succumb to the voices in her head by drowning herself. As she questioned her existence, life and love for her husband, Virginia put part of herself in the book she was writing.
Almost 30 years later, a lonely housewife, Laura Brown in Los Angeles (195o's) picks up the book for a read and questions her own life and feelings. It looked as if her life was perfect, a loving husband, a son and an unborn coming their way. It was her husband's birthday and she wa going to make a cake. She made one and another. Her best friend, Kathy, came for a visit with bad news and both parted with a kiss, a kiss that transcended time, gender and emotions. Laura chose to leave her family while the impact on her son, Richard, was so devastating in years to come.
In modern day 90's New York City, a gay woman, Clarissa Vaughn being nicknamed "Mrs. Dalloway" by her dying AIDS friend, Richard (Laura's grown-up son), questioned her own existence and priorities when Richard re-ascertained his love for her before leaping to his death.
In this well-executed novel, feeling is operative here. In a complex web of life, love and relationships, one day in the life of three women in different times was to be so life-altering.
Absolutely smashing.

A stunning book, beautifully written, absolutely marvelous. I'd give it more stars if I could. Cunningham, who has written some stellar books ("A Home at the End of the World" especially), makes this one his masterpiece.

Of crucial importance for this book is reading Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway," preferably as soon as possible before reading "The Hours." Cunningham's brilliance here is his homage to Woolf's great book, entwining modern characters and situations into his book, all of which have root-- no matter how subtle-- in the Woolf book. These surprises-- this connections of time, continuity, emotional desperation, the siren's song of death, the search for meaning in the smallest actions-- all of it is rooted in "Mrs. Dalloway." How Cunningham transposes it to "The Hours" is sheer bliss, a one-of-a-kind experience like no other book I've ever read.

I don't know what he reader would take without having read "Mrs. Dalloway" first. I intentionally read the Woolf right before reading the Cunningham, knowing that he wrote "The Hours" as both an homage and a sort of continuity-- not a sequel, or follow-up, but a careful rethinking that leads one great novel into another. I assume the reader would enjoy "The Hours" without having read a lick of Woolf. But don't-- the pleasures of the second derive from its astonishing intimacy with the first.

Granted, Virginia Woolf is no easy read. "Mrs. Dalloway," arguably her finest novel, is an existential, internal character study filled with revelations and epiphanies so subtle, so transcendent, so small (and yet so internally large), the book can be read several times to grasp its complexity. Yet I can't imagine the pleasure I got out of "The Hours" without having read Woolf first.

This is truly Cunningham's finest piece of work to date, and frankly, one of the best modern novels I've read. This is a must for Woolf fans, of course. And Cunningham (obviously influenced by Woolf) firmly establishes himself as of the top authors in the modern literary canon. An absolute gem.

I picked this up after seeing the film and loving it - a habit I generally try to avoid because the larger-than-life allure of the cinema tends to flood the perceptions and overwhelm anything that can be constructed on the page. This proved to be the case when I sat down with the "The Hours" - in my mind, Meryl Streep was inevitably Clarissa, Nicole and Her Nose were inevitably Virginia - but the novel has its own charms which can't be entirely translated into a film - or at least not in quite the same way.
I
approached this novel afraid it was going to be "literary" in the worst sense - earnest, self-conscious, in love with its own linguistic virtuosity, and sprinkled with exquisite faux profundities throughout. Actually, "The Hours" is almost guilty of all these charges - while reading it, I was thinking, "Oooh, you're treading a tightrope there, buddy, don't stumble, don't embarrass yourself, don't get sentimental...Hey, that's it! That's beautiful! Phew" - but somehow it redeems itself.
I had these prejudices because of the film, which, like the book, teeters precariously on the brink of being maudlin and pretentious, a weepy for middle-aged women with vague literary notions - but, again, somehow redeems itself through the sheer beauty of the cinematography and the subtlety and earthiness of the three starring actresses.
The Hours" is only occasionally weighed down with the kind of affectations and self-consciousness that occasionally renders Woolf's work difficult; mostly, it's a generous, readable, quietly witty and genuinely insightful book that actually deserves the hyperbolic praise so liberally tossed around by critics. (The prose IS actually kind of "luminous" and "exquisite" and "multi-layered", from time to time, believe it or not.) Don't be intimidated; you can read this one in a lovely, reflective afternoon.

I loved this book. Thoroughly and completely, I loved this book. I am shocked that there are 48 people who gave this book a rating of 1 star. I have never read Virginia Woolf's, Mrs. Dalloway, and I probably won't. But this fact did not take away any enjoyment or appreciation I felt for this book. To each their own, I suppose. From the first paragraph I was hooked. The words are beautiful and profound. I was amazed how Michael Cunningham could create such real and vivid characters, with such insightful, intuitive thoughts and observations. In reading over the thoughts of each character there were times I thought, "I've felt this way." or "I have thought that myself," and often I was amazed that such thoughts were so well articulated and richly described. The words flow beautifully from page to page and I love the way the storylines come together. When I was down to the final 10 or so pages, I was both excited to keep going and sad that the pages flew by so quickly and the story would soon end. Nevertheless, I appreciate how the author tied up loose ends instead of dropping the reader off at the curb. I completely understand why this book won a Pulitzer prize. If you are looking for a though provoking, honest account of life, it's beauty and blunders, then this is a book worth reading.

"The Hours" is aptly named, as one would expect from a Pulitzer Prize winning author. Like an hour, it can be singularly beautiful, a momentary flash and very long indeed. Like the hours of our lives, it can feel fragmented, full, and intact--in increments or all at once.

Michael Cunningham has written a literary novel firmly revisiting the 1920s, Virginia Woolf and her novel, "Mrs. Dalloway." I thought I would remember enough about Woolf's work to do justice to "The Hours." I was wrong. You, too, may want to reread the book to which "The Hours" pays tribute, if you are determined to get the most from it, hear the lingering whispers, find the subtle innuendoes, recognize the implications.

The story is told primarily from the viewpoint of three women whose lives we find are inexplicably intertwined. A reader must be prepared that Cunningham-who has paid his dues-randomly breaks the rules that we, as new millennium readers, have come to expect. Most of us are not accustomed to a story told in first person, present tense. Many of us have not read a work that uses stream of consciousness since we read Faulkner in college. Cunningham jumps-effectively but unfamiliarly-from point of view to point of view.

Perhaps it is time that those of us who have gotten rusty extend ourselves a bit, both to improve our skills and our understanding. This is a story about death and resurrection. It seems an affirmation of lives that we may find trifling, insignificant. Somehow, gently-very gently-Cunningham makes us see that existence is, after all, promising. Even if you plan to wait for the movie, you may wish you had "read the book first" and "Mrs. Dalloway" before that.
Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of "This is the Place"

The film version of Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize-winning book "The Hours" has just garnered nine Academy Award nominations. I have yet to see the movie, but if it has stayed true to this book, I think it has more than a chance to take home Best Picture honors.
I'm sure the movie trailers have already mapped out that this is a story of three women from different time periods who are connected somehow. This connection is the heart of the story, and the promise of discovering it is what keeps you reading.
The storytelling is descriptive, which is not everybody's cup of tea. But Cunningham uses subtlety to build the plot, sneaking in points here and there just to make sure you are paying attention. It all comes together brilliantly, but uniquely. Some authors tend to throw a twist at readers, shocking them. Cunningham folds in the connection in such a way that you should have known it all along. And I'm NOT talking about the fact that all of the ladies link to Virginia Woolf.
This book is wonderful, touching prose. It is also very methodically put-together. For example, Cunningham's story alternates between time periods. For Virginia Woolf's time period, his writing takes a classical turn (in other words, illustrative and fancy). For Laura Brown's part of the story, his writing is more conservative and simple, much like the era of post-World War II itself. Finally, for Clarissa's tale, he chooses a more modern style reflected in many of today's novels, resembling everyday speech.
"The Hours" is a refreshing addition to modern literature and truly deserving of its praise. If the Hollywood version sells more copies of the novel, then that's great. More people will discover why this one is destined to become a classic.

"The Hours," a tribute to Virginia Woolf's novel 'Mrs. Dalloway,' depicts one day in the life of three different women from three different eras. Virginia Woolf is the first woman from the 1920's; the second is a post World War II housewife in LA; the third is a woman nicknamed "Clarissa," (Mrs. Dalloway's first name), a modern day New Yorker who lives with her female lover.
I respected this book and the author's efforts to pull these three disparate stories together. The author manages to portray accurately so many of the darker shades of the emotional palette: grief, despair, anguish, suicidal longings, and so on. A plot twist near the end knitted together two of the stories.
I would recommend reading "Mrs. Dalloway" first to increase your understanding of this book. Small yet telling nuances leave you thinking throughout the night. For example, in Mrs. Dalloway, the heroine is a prosperous London housewife preparing for a party who looks back on a brief kiss with a woman in her youth; in "The Hours," the modern day Clarissa is a lesbian hostess preparing for a party who looks back longingly on a heterosexual relationship from her youth. However, you can appreciate this book without reading Woolf first.
I would recommend this book to those individuals who gravitate towards serious, thoughtful contemporary literature. English Lit junkies-particularly Woolf fans-should also try it. (Even if Woolf followers don't like the book, they still can discuss it.)
I would not recommend this book to individuals who needs some levity in their reading. This book does not leave you "feeling good" but it does make you think a lot.

I'm a conservative, straight, ususally vote republican kind of guy, so let's get that out of the way. But I do make attempts at wrting poetry from time to time, and some of my work has actually been appreciated by friends and family, and I've become less inhibited about this, and here's where I'm going with this reivew. If you've ever loved poems for the beauty that can be conveyed in capturing a moment, buy this book. I enjoyed the movie, immediately purchased the book and it is completely deserving of the Pulitzer Prize and all of the rave reviews due to the fact that this is some of the most lovely prose that has been written in a very long time, in my humble opinion. The plot is easy to follow, the characters are interesting, but the strength of this book is in the poetic images that are presented for the reader to contemplate. It is easy to read, completely accessible - the reader will find that this short novel is well worth the few hours that will leave the reader wanting to know more about Virginia Woolf, if nothing else (I went to library and found that there are multiple volumes of her journals that have been published). I guess the reason I identified with the characters in the book is that as an aspiring poet and painter I related to the desire and the process of creating. And I think Stephen King was correct in his Memoirs (on Writing) that many, if not most of us could be/should be writers/poets or painters or whatever you are inspired to be. Life is short and precious - don't be afraid to be creative, and this book could be an inspiration for just about anyone who wants to "capture a moment."

In The Hours, we join the search for that illusive third tiger of the mind that Borges mentions in The Other Tiger, as we also piece together the hours of the lives of three women in three separate decades whose lives come into collision by the end of the novel. First of all, Cunningham's tribute to Virginia Woolf brings her life and genius into tragic focus, while her influence is a guiding principle for Laura, a woman in search of meaning in what she considers a vacuous world. In 1980's Los Angeles, Clarissa is affectionately called "Mrs. Dalloway" by her lifelong friend and sometime lover for her similarity to Woolf's character. Clarissa plans a party for her oldest friend's literary triumph only to be put on hold by circumstances beyond her control. She plans her party with energy and pleasure as Laura plans the birthday party for her husband with less than enthusiasm. Virginia is recovering in a London suburb while she longs for the city and the stimulus it would bring to her new novel. Her sister's life, with children and everyday pursuits is what Laura needs to give her life balance, but even though she does have that life, she tends more to Virginia's tragic longings. The three stories come together as we recognize the slim thread between sanity and insanity and what a narrow space lies between the courage to go on and the ability to let go when there is no longer hope. That Laura does not give up is unexpected as is her relationship to Clarissa in the end. This is a brilliant study of character as well as a tribute to Woolf who in her own brilliance conceived her place in the world.

...A Cynical Feat of Plagiarism That Panders to the NY Literati? No, I plainly adore this short, carefully wrought, multiple-prize winning jewel of a novel. Cunningham inhabits Virginia Woolf, brings her back to us, dives deeply, languorously into character via Woolf's trademark reverie and reflection, gives us in the span of 227 brief pages a clutch of believable women and men, each teetering on the brink of a personal abyss. And yet, and yet. Not many chuckles here save an occasional wryly mordant observation, no hustle-bustle, no wasted energy--only a supremely wise, stately, moving, perfectly balanced and sequenced tableaux of setpieces that might have been subtitled "The Dalloway Variations." Many have pointed out, with surprise, that this...this MAN...writes female characters that thoroughly convince. Well, so do, of course, Henry James, Wallace Stegner, Brian Moore, Robertson Davies (when he wants), a long list of others--but Cunningham's economy and diamond-hard precision astonishes on every page, free of fluff, shorn of any trace of excess, laserlike and true. Yes, he carefully observes and captures his women, but, you must forgive me for observing, with a left-handed, mathematical elegance that is unmistakably male. All this, and a killer punch line to boot. Yes, heartbreaking. Yes, in the end, staggering. Genius? You judge. Devour this in a sitting, buy copies for friends.
(I had originally wanted to dock Cunningham a star for his utter ransacking of Woolf--for plot material, character names and situations, everything but mise en scene. Alas, I could not: unlike his cut and polished prose, I am insufficiently hard.)

Tick, Mrs. Dalloway. Tock, Mrs. Woolf. Tick, Mrs. Brown. Tock, Mrs. Dalloway…again.

Reviewing The Hours I find myself stuck somewhere in between tick and tock. Reading a novel, poem, play, screenplay, it’s often easy for me to lose touch with reality and completely absorb myself into the world of a story. I lose touch with myself. The sounds around me. The smells hovering under my nose. The world happening around me. Time elapses into nothingness.
The Hours, however, made me fully aware of my position in reality, the noises of the outside world, the stuffiness of the air, and the slowness of time. In brief, The Hours leaves me feeling strangely hollow and irked.
The book alternates between the stories of three women Tick: Mrs. Dalloway; Tock: Mrs. Woolf; and Tick: Mrs. Brown – all whom appear vaguely dissatisfied with their lives. It remains rather obscure and somewhat misleading, until the very end, as to how their narratives converge, apart from their longing and entertaining of the possibility of a life different and perhaps more meaningful than that which they find themselves trapped within.

Tick: Mrs. Dalloway.
Also known as Clarissa Vaughn, heroine of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. An exquisitely loyal friend, caretaker and avidly nostalgic observer of the writer and AIDS sufferer, Richard Brown.

Tock: Mrs. Woolf.
Despairing, yet romantically hopeful, Mrs. Woolf spends her ticks and tocks dreaming up stories and possible plot turns for the writing of her new novel. Residing in Richmond with her protective husband, Leonard, Mrs. Woolf longs for the fog, business and sweet transparency of London.

Tick: Mrs. Brown.
Dear Mrs. Brown. Beseeched in suburban Los Angeles with a loving husband, Dan and curiously observant son, Richie, Laura Brown hopes without knowing what she hopes for. She lives without knowing what she lives for. She escapes without knowing what she is escaping from.

Tick tock, tick tock go the hours.
One day; one utterly transformative and inescapable 24 hours of each of the women’s lives is slowly narrated, beginning with life, and ending with the possibility of death as means of escape from a banal, yet disheartening existence. Mrs. Dalloway, Mrs. Woolf and Mrs. Brown all seem to lead banal, ordinary lives dealing with the daily hardships typical of the era in which they live, but are curiously described in a way that renders them different, yet also relatable. They have a home, health, and « happiness » yet find themselves unhappy and nostalgic for a feeling or situation that perhaps may not even exist.

Time, the passing of time, the inevitability of time lies at the heart of the novel, as it is time, it’s passing, and its prevalence that causes each of the narratives to ultimately converge in the book’s final pages.

Although the plots and events of the stories prove to be difficult to piece together and disallow for a completely pleasurable « readerly » experience one CANNOT deny the beauty and artistic way in which each character, event, place is illustrated. Cunningham’s language is brilliantly seductive and offers an evocative portrayal of life and how we, as readers, lovers, feelers – humans – experience time, the passing of time, and the inevitability of time.

In terms of plot, I would not recommend The Hours (who cares if it won the Pulitzer Prize or that it’s Oprah’s favorite book or that Meryl Streep doesn’t shut up about it), but in terms of language, it’s impossible not to utterly fall in love with Michael Cunningham’s words:

We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep – it’s as simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out of windows or drown themselves or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us, the vast majority, are slowly devoured by some disease or, if we’re very fortunate, by time itself. There’s just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we’ve ever imagined…

– and I’ll leave you to ponder on that dear, dear babblers.

This is an A+. Virginia Woolf is a writer living in London in 1923. Laura Brown is a housewife who is married to a war hero, living in Los Angeles in 1949 and is entrhalled with reading all of Virginia Woolfs' books. Clarissa Vaughn is a wealthy independent woman living in Manhattan NYC in 1999 who is nicknamed Mrs. Dalloway (the main character in Virginia Woolfs' bestselling book). Each story leads to a connection that is deeply moving and passionate. The writer is so descriptive. It's no wonder it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998. There were so many lines in this book that were of such significance to me in many, many ways. For example: "----is proud of his ability to discern the history of a face; to understand that those who are now old were once young."------- "I swoon over the beauties of the world but am reluctant, simply as a matter of reflex to kiss a friend on the mouth."-------- It is better, really to find the elevator frankly inoperable, and to walk up five flights. It is better to be free.------- One always has a better book in one's mind than one can manage to get on paper.------- It is like the first disinterested sigh a lover sends over the telephone wires, the sigh that signals the earliest beginning of the end.------- Yes, she thinks, this is probably how it must feel to be a ghost. It's a little like reading, isn't it--that same sensation of knowing people, settings, situations, without playing any particular part beyond that of the willing observer.

This is the perfect book for lovers of Contemporary fiction.
A very deep and moving book with complex characters and situations, all of which the reader will be able to relate to in some form.
Mr. Cunningham introduces us to the main characters in the book who are three women living in three different centuries. Virginia Woolfe, Karen Brown and Clarissa Dolloway's stories intertwine in such a smart unbelievable pattern that by the time you reach the end of the novel you will be opened-mouthed in wonderment and surprise.
Virginia is a writer in the 1920's, suffering from a mental imbalance and putting together a book entitled:- Ms. Dolloway. Laura Brown is a Los Angeles housewife in the 1950's....a post World War 2 bride suffocating in her role as the good housewife and mother as she attempts to bake a cake for her husband's birthday that day. Clarissa Dolloway in the year 2002 is acting as hostess by planning a party for her ex lover who is dying with Aids and is about to receive one of the biggest Literary prizes for his latest work.
Michael Cunningham latest accomplishment is laced with emotion. Rooted in these pages are emotions of despair, anguish, low self esteem, and suicidal thoughts amongst others. But little by little the reader will come to love all of those characters, and empathise with them for after all they are very much everyday people like you and me.
A wonderful piece! A kaleidoscopic tale! A five star rating!

Michael Cunningham, The Hours (FSG, 1998)

The Pulitzer? Cunningham was ignored for Flesh and Blood, and got the Pulitzer for this? There's only one explanation, and that's that the Pulitzer committe (which, it was recently pointed out, is made up of journalists) completely forgot the opening hundred seventy-five pages in the process of being stunned by the last fifty.

Publisher's Weekly, in its review of The Hours, castigates Cunningham in a minor way for the scope of Flesh and Blood, and compares The Hours favoriably to that novel because The Hours is a little less than half as long. I can't argue with PW's assertion that The Hours shows that Cunningham can write a shorter novel that has the same power as Flesh and Blood did, but I can, and do, take issue with the inference that Flesh and Blood is a lesser book because of it. Where Flesh and Blood stayed in one general time frame and focused on one excellently-drawn extended family, The Hours cuts back and forth, paralleling the lives of Virginia Woolf in England, a fan of Virginia Woolf's who's in the process of reading Mrs. Dalloway, and the fan's son, who grows up to be an award-winning poet suffering from complications resulting from AIDS.

When Cunningham focuses on his fictional creations, things are all well and good. The Hours contains many of the things that made Flesh and Blood a great novel-- Cunningham's powerful style of narrative, his willingness to go more deeply into the emotions of characters than most writers, an ability to pace his book that's unmatched in modern literature. Ironically, it's when Cunningham focuses on Virginia Woolf and her family that the characters stop being realistic. There's just not enough of them, and Cunningham's hero-worship of Woolf is too obvious. The end result is a novel inconsistent at best.

When it's on its game, though, The Hours is a rollercoaster of a novel. The last fifty pages, especially, will be read at one clip, as Cunningham ties in the stories of the mother and son, and the grandiose prose used in the last few sections of the novel is more than deserved. This is a novel capable of bringing tears in its last pages. If the rest of the book had been firing on that many cylinders, it would have been a Pulitzer no-brainer, but as it stands, in the bulky shadow of its superior predecessor, one wonders if the committee weren't trying to right the mistake it had made in ignoring
Flesh and Blood three years previous. ** 1/2

This is the ultimate homage one writer can give to another. It is the story of three women united across time and space by one powerful novel: Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf. The characters, who are all profoundly touched in some way by the novel, are rendered in such exquisite, loving detail that the reader's life in turn becomes entwined with theirs.

Woolf herself is one of the main characters, just beginning to write Mrs. D while dealing with the repercussions of what today would probably be diagnosed as bipolar disorder. Mrs. Brown is reading the novel in post-World War II Los Angeles, a where where she feels completely out of place, unfulfilled and trapped. And in the present day, "Mrs. Dalloway"-as she is nicknamed by her oldest friend-bustles through the day preparing for a party she is giving in her dying friend's honor (another author).

Following the same structure as Mrs. D, the novel spans only one pivotal day in the life of each woman, a day that seems like a microcosm of their entire lives. And as their stories unfold, we gradually learn that all three women are more closely linked than it seemed at first--indeed, their lives are inextricable entwined with one another's.

The Hours is quite possibly the best written novel I have read in years. It fully deserved its Pulitzer.
What's great about The Hours is that what's great about The Hours is something different for everyone. Writers and avid readers will appreciate its shockingly unique style. Michael Cunningham sort of trusts us to know what he's talking about. We hear a lot less "Virginia carefully approached the child so as not to alarm her..." and more "She approached the child with caution..." (note: not a direct quote) It's nice to her a lot more pronouns that names and a lot less "she said." He seems to grasp that we know who he's referring to, allowing the complex story to get on with itself and unfold.
People with problems in their lives and people looking for life-assurance will find the provocative power of the book to be of some comfort. If you don't leap from your seat, your heart doesn't stop, or you aren't left to think for (no pun intended) hours after you set the book down, you may want to consider yourself legally dead.
Those who feel they are connected to others in the world will find the strings of three women's lives, brilliantly woven and unwoven throughout the book, to be incredible. All the stories are richly intertwined. It's as if Michael Cunningham took a handful of each woman and blew it gently across his pages, writing more of a collage than a novel. Details are sprinkled throughout each woman's life that also appear in another woman's life, showing us that we are not alone in this universe.
Brilliant, beautiful, and deep; you must read The Hours!

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.