The
Hours by Michael Cunningham
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The Hours is both an hommage 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
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The New York Times Book Review, Michael Wood
...the overall impression is that of a delicate, triumphant glance, an
acknowledgment of Woolf that takes her into Cunningham's own
territory, a place of late-century danger but also of treasurable hours.
The Washington Post Book World, Jameson Currier
[Cunningham] has deftly created something original, a trio of richly
interwoven tales that alternate with one another chapter by chapter, each
of them entering the thoughts of a character as she moves through the
small details of a day.... Cunningham's emulation of such a revered writer
as Woolf is courageous, and this is his most mature and masterful work.
The Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review, Richard Eder
[Cunningham] has fashioned a fictional instrument of intricacy and
remarkable beauty. It is a kaleidoscope whose four shining and utterly
unlike pieces--the lives of two fictional characters, of a real writer,
and
her novel--combine, separate and tumble in continually shifting and
startlingly suggestive patterns.
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From Booklist , September 15, 1998
It takes courage to emulate a revered and brilliant writer, not to mention
transforming her into a character. Cunningham has done this and more in
his third novel, a graceful and passionate homage to Virginia Woolf, his
goddess and his muse. The Hours was her working title for what became
Mrs. Dalloway, the template for this evocative tale, and Cunningham
makes beautiful, improvisational use of every facet of Woolf's novel and
life story. He neatly cuts back and forth in time among three women:
Woolf, whom he portrays in the throes of writing Mrs. Dalloway and
contemplating suicide; Laura, a young wife and mother suffocating in the
confines of her tidy little life in L.A. in 1949; and Clarissa, who is
giving a
party in the present in New York City for her closest friend, Richard,
a
writer dying of AIDS. Clarissa is Mrs. Dalloway once removed--a
distinguished book editor and mother of a teenage daughter, she has lived
with her female lover for 18 years. These particulars match surprising
well
with the intellectual, sexual, and artistic complexities of Bloomsbury,
Woolf's hothouse world, thus revealing the full extent of Cunningham's
identification with his mentor. And his prose! He is almost eerily fluent
in
Woolf's exquisitely orchestrated elucidation of the torrent of thoughts,
memories, longings, and regrets that surges ceaselessly through the mind.
Even if Cunningham's moving tribute served only to steer readers to
Woolf's incomparable books, he would deserve praise, but he has
accomplished much more than that. He has reaffirmed that Woolf is of
lasting significance, that the questions she asked about life remain urgent,
and that, in spite of sorrow, pain, and the promise of death, the simplest
gestures--walking out the door on a lovely morning, setting a vase of
roses on a table--can be, for one shining moment, enough. Donna
Seaman
Copyright© 1998, American Library Association. All rights reserved
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From Kirkus Reviews , September 1, 1998
Steeped in the work and life of Virginia Woolf, Cunningham (Flesh and
Blood, 1995, etc.) offers up a sequel to the work of the great author,
complete with her own pathos and brilliance. Cunningham tells three
tales, interweaving them in cunning ways and, after the model of Mrs.
Dalloway itself, allowing each only a day in the life of its central character.
First comes Woolf herself, in June of 1923 (after a prologue describing
her 1941 suicide). In Woolf's day (as in her writings), little ``happens,''
though the profundities are great: Virginia works (on Mrs. Dalloway); her
sister Vanessa visits; Virginia holds her madness at bay (just barely);
and,
over dinner, she convinces husband Leonard to move back to London
from suburban Richmond. In the ``Mrs. Brown'' sections, a young
woman named Sally Brown reads the novel Mrs. Dalloway, this in
suburban L.A. (in 1949), where Sally has a three-year-old son, is
pregnant again, and, preparing her husband's birthday celebration, fights
off her own powerful despair. Finally, and at greatest length, is the
present-time day in June of ``Mrs. Dalloway,'' this being one Clarissa
Vaughan of West 10th Street, NYC, years ago nicknamed Mrs.
Dalloway by her then-lover and now-AIDS-victim Richard Brown -
who, on this day in June, is to receive a major prize for poetry. Like
the
original Mrs. Dalloway, this Clarissa is planning a party (for Richard),
goes out for flowers, observes the day, sees someone famous, thinks
about life, time, the past, and love (``Now she knows: That was the
moment, right then. There has been no other''). Much in fact does
happen; much is lost, hoped for, feared, sometimes recovered (``It will
serve as this afternoon's manifestation of the central mystery itself''),
all in
gorgeous, Woolfian, shimmering, perfectly-observed prose. Hardly a
false note in an extraordinary carrying on of a true greatness that doubted
itself. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Charles Gandee, Vogue, on Flesh and Blood
Call in sick, unplug the telephone, and pray that Hollywood doesn't botch
the movie.
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Book Description
A daring, deeply affecting third novel by the author of A Home at the End
of the World and Flesh and Blood.
In The Hours, Michael Cunningham, widely praised as one of the most
gifted writers of his generation, draws inventively on the life and work
of
Virginia Woolf to tell the story of a group of contemporary characters
struggling with the conflicting claims of love and inheritance, hope and
despair. The narrative of Woolf's last days before her suicide early in
World War II counterpoints the fictional stories of Samuel, a famous poet
whose life has been shadowed by his talented and troubled mother, and
his lifelong friend Clarissa, who strives to forge a balanced and rewarding
life in spite of the demands of friends, lovers, and family.
Passionate, profound, and deeply moving, this is Cunningham's most
remarkable achievement to date.
Synopsis
The author of "At Home at the End of the World" and "Flesh and Blood"
draws inventively on the life and work of Virginia Woolf to tell the story
of a group of contemporary characters struggling with the conflicting
claims of love and inheritance, hope and despair.
About the Author
Michael Cunningham is "one of our very best writers" (Richard Eder, Los
Angeles Times). FSG published his novels A Home at the End of the
World (1990) and Flesh and Blood (1995). He was raised in Los
Angeles and now lives in Manhattan.
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The publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux , April 13, 1999
Awards and more praise for THE HOURS
1999 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction
1999 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
Ann Pritchard in USA TODAY:
"Michael Cunningham's THE HOURS is that rare combination: a
smashing literary tour de force and an utterly invigorating reading
experience. If this book does not make you jump up from the sofa,
looking at life and literature in different ways, check to see if you have
a
pulse... The three plot lines work brilliantly and are far more exciting
and
less confusing than any mere reviewer can make them sound. Familiarity
with Woolf is not a prerequisite. The key to the book, beyond exquisite
prose, is its reflection on the concept of 'ordinary.' As in Woolf's fiction,
no one is ordinary; no hour or day exists without significance, without
ramification, without meaning and without epiphany. And while many
great writers and poets have explored the notion that experiences add up
to meaning and to being, Cunningham's novel is more accessible than,
say, the prelude to a Wordsworth poem... Cunningham's cast of
characters sweeps readers along across space and time and parallel
worlds. The novel deals with aging and dying, all-consuming creative
energy, and the depth of love and the limits of sexuality. But it is never
melancholy. Rather, it is a hopeful and moving journey, illuminated like
a
Book of Hours prayer book..."
The
Hours by Michael Cunningham
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