The Hours [Paperback]

Michael Cunningham (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2002

*** This is a gently used book. The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel becomes a motion picture starring Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman, directed by Stephen Daldry from a screenplay by David HareThe Hours tells the story of three women: Virginia Woolf, beginning to write Mrs. Dalloway as she recuperates in a London suburb with her husband in 1923; Clarissa Vaughan, beloved friend of an acclaimed poet dying from AIDS, who in modern-day New York is planning a party in his honor; and Laura Brown, in a 1949 Los Angeles suburb, who slowly begins to feel the constraints of a perfect family and home. By the end of the novel, these three stories intertwine in remarkable ways, and finally come together in an act of subtle and haunting grace.The Hours is the winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Hours is both an homage to Virginia Woolf and very much its own creature. Even as Michael Cunningham brings his literary idol back to life, he intertwines her story with those of two more contemporary women. One gray suburban London morning in 1923, Woolf awakens from a dream that will soon lead to Mrs. Dalloway. In the present, on a beautiful June day in Greenwich Village, 52-year-old Clarissa Vaughan is planning a party for her oldest love, a poet dying of AIDS. And in Los Angeles in 1949, Laura Brown, pregnant and unsettled, does her best to prepare for her husband's birthday, but can't seem to stop reading Woolf. These women's lives are linked both by the 1925 novel and by the few precious moments of possibility each keeps returning to. Clarissa is to eventually realize:

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.... Still, we cherish the city, the morning; we hope, more than anything, for more.

As Cunningham moves between the three women, his transitions are seamless. One early chapter ends with Woolf picking up her pen and composing her first sentence, "Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself." The next begins with Laura rejoicing over that line and the fictional universe she is about to enter. Clarissa's day, on the other hand, is a mirror of Mrs. Dalloway's--with, however, an appropriate degree of modern beveling as Cunningham updates and elaborates his source of inspiration. Clarissa knows that her desire to give her friend the perfect party may seem trivial to many. Yet it seems better to her than shutting down in the face of disaster and despair. Like its literary inspiration, The Hours is a hymn to consciousness and the beauties and losses it perceives. It is also a reminder that, as Cunningham again and again makes us realize, art belongs to far more than just "the world of objects." --Kerry Fried --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

At first blush, the structural and thematic conceits of this novel--three interwoven novellas in varying degrees connected to Virginia Woolf--seem like the stuff of a graduate student's pipe dream: a great idea in the dorm room that betrays a lack of originality. But as soon as one dips into Cunningham's prologue, in which Woolf's suicide is rendered with a precise yet harrowing matter-of-factness ("She hurries from the house, wearing a coat too heavy for the weather. It is 1941. She has left a note for Leonard, and another for Vanessa."), the reader becomes completely entranced. This book more than fulfills the promise of Cunningham's 1990 debut, A Home at the End of the World, while showing that sweep does not necessarily require the sprawl of his second book, Flesh and Blood. In alternating chapters, the three stories unfold: "Mrs. Woolf," about Virginia's own struggle to find an opening for Mrs. Dalloway in 1923; "Mrs. Brown," about one Laura Brown's efforts to escape, somehow, an airless marriage in California in 1949 while, coincidentally, reading Mrs. Dalloway; and "Mrs. Dalloway," which is set in 1990s Greenwich Village and concerns Clarissa Vaughan's preparations for a party for her gay--and dying--friend, Richard, who has nicknamed her Mrs. Dalloway. Cunningham's insightful use of the historical record concerning Woolf in her household outside London in the 1920s is matched by his audacious imagining of her inner lifeand his equally impressive plunges into the lives of Laura and Clarissa. The book would have been altogether absorbing had it been linked only thematically. However, Cunningham cleverly manages to pull the stories even more intimately togther in the closing pages. Along the way, rich and beautifully nuanced scenes follow one upon the other: Virginia, tired and weak, irked by the early arrival of headstrong sister Vanessa, her three children and the dead bird they bury in the backyard; Laura's afternoon escape to an L.A. hotel to read for a few hours; Clarissa's anguished witnessing of her friend's suicidal jump down an airshaft, rendered with unforgettable detail. The overall effect of this book is twofold. First, it makes a reader hunger to know all about Woolf, again; readers may be spooked at times, as Woolf's spirit emerges in unexpected ways, but hers is an abiding presence, more about living than dying. Second, and this is the gargantuan accomplishment of this small book, it makes a reader believe in the possibility and depth of a communality based on great literature, literature that has shown people how to live and what to ask of life. (Nov.) FYI: The Hours was a working title that Woolf for a time gave to Mrs. Dalloway.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Picador (November 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312305060
• ISBN-13: 978-0312305062
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (581 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #571,831 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Michael Cunningham is the author of the novels A Home at the End of the World, Flesh and Blood, The Hours (winner of the Pen/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize), and Specimen Days. He lives in New York.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

85 of 91 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars It Takes Your Breath Away January 9, 2003

By G. Millican

Format:Paperback

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...

50 of 52 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth All the Time You Spend With It October 24, 2000

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

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. Read more ›

84 of 92 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars true to the spirit of Woolf July 1, 2000

By M. H. Bayliss

Format:Paperback

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. Read more ›

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A beautifully tragic search for comfort in life. October 1, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

A few sentences into Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Hours, one is aware that the reading of this book will be an altogether different experience. It will be trance-like, a dreamed interlude with a beautifully tragic story. A relatively short novel at 226 pages, it is somewhat astonishing what the author achieves. Intricately woven story lines, together with an impressive lyrical and poetic language, Cunningham has written a novel that transcends itself.

Named after Virginia Woolf's temporary title for her acclaimed novel, Mrs. Dalloway, this novel treads on rather cautious ground. Woolf is not only a major character in the book, but is an ever-present voive almost reading the words to us. Cunningham has talked of the enormous amount of research that went into the writing of the book--the reading of Woolf's entire literary canon, as well as letters, biographies, critical essays on the eccentric author. He also made a trip to London to Woolf's old residence and to the river where she took her own life. (See Poets & Writers, July/August 1999 issue for an interview with Cunningham) I say "cautious ground" in that Cunningham takes great literary freedom with Woolf's persona and psychological being. The prologue begins the novel with Woolf's last moments alive, of her chilling walk down to the river. It is a tragically moving opening, tense and intimate--a walk toward what we know will be an end of life. Here, in the first paragraphs of The Hours, we become aware that Woolf is guiding Cunningham who is guiding us: "She herself has failed. She is not a writer at all, really, she is merely a gifted eccentric[......] She has failed, and now the voices are back, muttering indistinctly just beyond the range of her vision, behind her, here, no turn and they've gone somewhere else."

Many voices are heard in the novel, which follow one day in the life of three women at three different eras of the twentieth century. We find Virginia Woolf in Richmond, a suburb of London, in 1923, as she begins to write and formulate what would become her novel, Mrs. Dalloway. We also follow Laura Brown, a disenchanted housewife in 1950s California, on the day of her war hero husband's birthday. And thirdly, we discover Clarissa Vaughn in modern day Greenwich Village, as she prepares a party for her good friend, an AIDS-stricken poet who has just won a major literary award.

The chapters weave in and out of each other, paralleled in many ways. In the end, Cunningham brings the stories together in a well-crafted manner that the reader can almost sense before the final chapters. These are the stories of dissatisfied women, human beings finding themselves at the center questions of life. There is, in each character, a pulling away from what they think is real, the identity, the living. They undergo the act of finding a new perspective of things, of the understanding of not understanding, the momentariness of things, feelings, and perceptions. The reader gets a sense that he or she is at the heart of it all. Woolf is caught at the center of mortality and creativity--she must endure the droll suburbs of Richmond for her health's sake, though she is spiritually pulled toward her London sanctuary of art and culture. Laura Brown is imprisoned in the ideology of family and womanly duty--her only escape is in the reading of Woolf's, Mrs. Dalloway, in a hotel room she rents for the afternoon. And for Clarissa Vaughn, we find a stuggle to reconcile the past, present, and future of a life's ongoing experience. Each character wants one thing: freedom. Freedom from the hours of restraint, when one is held by the responsibilty to oneself or to others. Freedom from decision, from anything that interrupts the will, the dream, the soul's breath. Whether or not any of these characters achieve this freedom is no doubt the reader's own decision to make.

The Hours marks the fourth novel of Cunningham's career. And it is clear that this is a novel just as much about him as it is by him. One can sense that the work is about creation, about the labor of making. For the characters in the novel, they seek to create comfort--comfort in a life that clearly does not offer it, and sometimes might even deny it. The author seeks to find himself in the writing process, and thus to find his own comfort as a writer. One cannot help but to see the relationship between Woolf and Cunningham as they begin to become voices for each other. A scene of Woolf at her desk is also a scene of Cunningham at his desk, of his ideas of the process. It is not a surprise that this novel garnered such high praise as the Pulitzer. The Hours is what a novel should be: an exploration into the heart of life, and of what we create for ourselves while we live it. Read more ›