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The Hours: A Novel
The Hours: A Novel
The Hours: A Novel
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The Hours: A Novel

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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About this audiobook

Winner of the Pulitzer prize, the Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and nominated for 9 Academy Awards, The Hours is now available on Unabridged CD.

Passionate, profound, and deeply moving, The Hours tells the story of three women: Clarissa Vaughan, who one New York morning goes about planning a party in honor of a beloved friend; Laura Brown, who in a 1950s Los Angeles suburb slowly begins to feel the constraints of a perfect family and home; and Virginia Woolf, recuperating with her husband in a London suburb and beginning to write Mrs. Dalloway. By the end of the novel, the stories have intertwined, and finally come together in an act of subtle and haunting grace, demonstrating Michael Cunningham's deep empathy for his characters as well as the extraordinary resonance of his language.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateOct 1, 2003
ISBN9781593973483
The Hours: A Novel
Author

Michael Cunningham

Michael Cunningham is the author of six novels including A Home at the End of the World, Flesh and Blood, The Hours, Specimen Days, and non-fiction book, Land’s End: A Walk Through Provincetown. The Hours was awarded both the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the 1999 PEN/Faulkner Award and made into an internationally acclaimed, Oscar-winning film. His new novel, The Snow Queen, will be published in May of 2014. He lives in New York.

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Reviews for The Hours

Rating: 3.9296590331912298 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Surprising to me - I really enjoyed this book. It didn't seem like the type of book that would interest me, but the character insights and development really hit home for me. The book alternates between three separate stories (that are connected in interesting ways) and while there is no great plot development, it is more of a character study of how we view ourselves and how we are almost like characters in a novel. A great deal has been written about this book and the use of Virginia Woolf and her stories, so I won't get into that. Needless to say, I am now very interested in reading Woolf and will look into her books in the near future.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I did not like this book very much. It is very well written but it focused on the sick part of Virginia Wolf's life and is written from 3 points of view, in 3 different timelines!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Cunningham's novel pays tribute to Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway by providing a connection in the stories of a single day in each of the lives of three women - Virginia Woolf in England 1941, Clarissa Vaughan, nicknamed Mrs Dalloway, in contemporary New York, and Laura Brown in 1949 California. Their lives are so diverse yet Cunningham adeptly describes how they are linked and brings them all together in a brilliant ending.I have seen the movie and to be honest, remember little about it. The book, so beautifully written, is much more memorable. This is especially recommended for fans of Virginia Woolf.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    N interesting interweaving of the story of mrs dalloway between 3 people in 3 different times First Virginia Woolf as she write the novel battling her own Daemons. Then a housewife just after the war who is reading the novel and struggling with her role as wife and mother. Finally Clarissa, in late 1990s who like Mrs Dalloway is planning a party.... each outworks their own destiny ...
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is a wonderful book. In an ambitious tour-de-force, Cunningham uses Virginia Woolf's life, and her most famous novel, Mrs. Dalloway, to write a completely different book which is, in some ghostly fun-house-mirror image, the same book. Evocative, deeply sympathetic writing combines with an extremely construction scheme to make an unforgettable book. Amazing insights into women's minds. Highly recommended for all.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Empathy in three parts, this novel did not quite hold together. Though it seemed a bit too contrived structurally, its poetic moments redeemed it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I just enjoy every minute of it! It is a amazing story.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Een heel klein beetje teleurstelling, hier, maar dan ook slechts een heel klein beetje. En dat is gewoon omdat ik de film eerst zag en ook die steengoed is. Het boek is niet slechter, gewoon anders. De vondst van Cunningham om eer te betonen aan Viriginia Woolf door in drie tijdsperiodes te werken en met drie opgesplitste personages (waarvan 1 Woolf zelf) is gewoon geniaal, want daarmee komt die bijzondere complexiteit van Woolf echt wel tot zijn recht. Voor mij duurde het iets langer (vergeleken met de film) om er ?in? te komen, maar zeker het laatste derde van het boek bevat passages die van zulk een subtiliteit zijn dat het pijn doet. Dat is trouwens h?t kenmerkende van Woolf: die hypersensitiviteit, dat 7de zintuig dat zij had, en dat haar wellicht ook noodlottig is geworden. In dit boek komt dit prachtig tot zijn recht (en dus ook in de film). Ik kan hier niet veel aan toevoegen, tenzij misschien onderstaand citaat, op ??n van de laatste bladzijden, dat meteen de titel van het boek verklaart: ?Yes, Clarissa thinks, it?s time for the day to be over. We throw our parties; we abandon our families to live alone in Canada; we struggle to write books that do not change the world, despite our gifts and our unstinting efforts, our most extravagant hopes. 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, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) knows these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning; we hope, more than anything, for more. Heaven only knows why we love it so.?
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    With all its subtle instances of overlooked details in terms of lacking variety of voices to distinguish characters, the novelist cum reader still does enough, and much more, to move your heart.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A beautifully written complex book which intertwines around the lives of three women living in three different decades.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    “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, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) knows these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning; we hope, more than anything, for more.” -- Michael Cunningham, The Hours

    Michael Cunningham’s The Hours is an inspired creative work of art that uses Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway as a starting point. The author braids together three different stories of three different days in the lives of three female protagonists: Mrs. Woolf, Mrs. Brown, and “Mrs. Dalloway.” Mrs. Woolf is an imagined version of Virginia Woolf herself, in June 1923, as she is in the process of creating her book and envisioning how it will unfold. Mrs. Brown is Laura Brown, a wife and mother in 1949, who is suffering from depression and suicidal thoughts. “Mrs. Dalloway” is Clarissa Vaughan, nicknamed by her gay friend and noted poet, Richard, due to her first name and personality. She buys flowers for a party she is hosting later that evening for Richard, who is about to receive a literary award. The exact date is not given, but implied to be in the 1990’s. It is hard to do justice to this novel through a plot summary. Suffice it to say it is character-driven and plot is secondary.

    Poignant and sad, though not without a thread of hope, this novel explores the difficulties of living with depression, surviving day-to-day in the face of mortality, and fighting against perfectionistic tendencies. The reader will notice many parallels to Woolf’s work in style, themes, and scenes. Cunningham’s prose is lyrical, and he successfully simulates Woolf’s stream-of-consciousness writing style, replete with parentheses, semi-colons, detailed descriptions, and asides. Themes include time, mortality, gender, creativity, and finding meaning in life. The perspective is omniscient third person, so the reader is privy to the thoughts of both the main and secondary characters. This work evokes questions in the mind of the reader and invites meaningful introspection. Be aware going in that the content includes suicide.

    The Hours is a brilliant and moving tribute to the hopes and fears of everyday life. Cunningham turns the seemingly mundane into the sublime. Recommended to anyone that has read and had a positive reaction to Mrs. Dalloway.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I read this book years ago and remember it completely. Extraordinary writing that has stayed with me. The Metropolitan Opera is mounting a new production of this classic which begins performances this month (November). Looking forward to seeing it in December I reread the book and am anxious to see how the Opera transforms the story into a contemporary opera with 3 amazing performers.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is a book I seriously could not put down. Once I opened the book I was gone. It's a good page turner because of the language. I read Mrs. Dalloway first and then saw this the movie and then read this book. Really thought it was clever how he tried to use the language of Woolf in modern-day terms. Of course he adds modern language and situations in the book as well. The part I like the best was the fact it was about the writer, the reader, and the character of Mrs. Dalloway. You don't have to read Woolf before this book, but it would help you understand it better. My only complaint is Philip Glass's wonderful soundtrack isn't in the book. Maybe try reading it with Glass playing?

    UPDATE: Been thinking about Woolf and this book and movie a lot lately. One thing I really appreciate this book has done is make me more aware of AIDS. Before, I didn't know too much about it. I didn't now how bad it was if someone got it. We've come a little way since this book was written, but still people probably don't know too much about AIDS. Yes it's an STD, but there were so many myths and rumors about it, people were scared to go near someone who had it, and the people who had it (like the guy in this book) rather be dead then suffer. That part of the book and movie really touched me for some reason.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Although I don't usually like stream-of-consciousness or the use of historical figures as characters, I really enjoyed this book. Surprisingly, the author was able to make three ordinary days in the lives of the three women very compelling. I would have liked more insight from Leonard Woolf or Richard, whom I found the most interesting - besides Virginia, of course - but I suppose Michael Cunningham wanted to keep the focus on the women.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is one of my all time favorite books. For once, it was deserving of the Pulitzer Prize [so many PP winners don't live up to the hype and expectations]. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Wolf is the inspiration for the book, and that didn't really appeal to me. BUT IT WORKS! Along with Cunningham's prose, descriptions and feelings he portrays. This book is like a favorite painting- how does one describe exactly what makes it all work?
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    For such a short book it took me forever to read.
    At the beginning of the book , I kept picturing the author leaning back and giggling at how clever he was. And yet I was still bored. I have never seen the movie and would be interested to see what I missed in the book, because it just didn't do it for me.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    She will do all that’s required, and more.So many women, doing what other people need/want them to do. There’s Virginia Woolf in 1923, obliging to her husband’s request that she recover her mental health in the suburbs, when the only place she wants to be is London. There’s Laura Brown, performing the duties of wife and mother in conformity-laden 1949 Los Angeles. And there’s Clarissa Vaughan in late-20th-century New York City, organizing a party to honor her longtime friend/former lover who’s been ravaged by AIDS. Each of them enduring the hours of a single day, and then the hours after those.I first read this in 2014 -- a fascinating riff on [Mrs. Dalloway], where the original novel’s author (Virginia), its main character (Clarissa), and a reader (Laura) are imagined in their own storylines. I watched the film again yesterday after I’d finished my re-read. The novel is a beautiful and melancholic tragedy; the film is devastating.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The novel moves between three narrators:• Virginia Woolf at Richmond outside London in 1923 as she writes Mrs Dalloway, helps her husband in their Hogarth Press and meets her sister, Vanessa Bell, for afternoon tea.• Laura Brown in California in 1949 reading Mrs Dalloway and preparing for her husband’s birthday with her four year old son.• Clarissa Vaughan in New York in 1998-ish, nicknamed Mrs Dalloway by her friend Richard, who is being awarded a prize for his poetry, but is now debilitated by AIDS.Beautiful, elegant, elegiac and clear prose provides a glimpse into the life of these three, quite different, women. Although I was disappointed that the style for each narrator appeared undifferentiated, I really enjoyed each story and how they were brought together.The three narrative strands reminded me of three books that I have read recently:• A Boy at the Hogarth Press by Richard Kennedy• Where I was from by Joan Didion• A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    One of the best novels I've ever read. At first, I was convinced Cunningham was giving us a feminist commentary. Then, I assumed this was merely an attempt to invoke the spirit of Virginia Woolf. Oh, but it is all of those things and so much more. That is the mark of a truly great work. It seems to me that Cunningham is working through all the same neurosis associated with death that Heller does in Catch-22, with the exception that Cunningham's denouement ("the hours") suggests that the paradox of human life (and death) is its beauty and its horror.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is the story of three women, each a generation apart, told over one day in their lives. One of the threads tells the story of Clarissa Vaughn who is hosting a party for her award-winning poet-friend Richard who is suffering from the ravages of AIDS. Around fifty years earlier, Laura Brown is an American housewife and young mother who over the course of her day spends some of it reading Mrs Dalloway hoping to escape domestic drudgery in the pages of the book. The third main character of the book is the troubled author, Virginia Woolf and it is set on the day that she begins to write Mrs Dalloway.

    It is a clever idea linking the three stories all intertwined together with the common link of the book Mrs Dalloway. Picking up on details of their lives, Clarissa shopping for flowers for Richard, Laura wanting to stay in bed rather than face the stark realities of that day and Virginia avoid eating to spend time alone and writing. He picks up on their fears and insecurities as well as the small victories they pass through the day.

    I have read one of his other books previously, Land’s End: A Walk in Provincetown, and really liked it. This had been recommended to me via a friend on Twitter and managed to get hold of a copy, so I’d thought I’d give it a go. However, even though the writing is quite special, especially one particular moment that is one of the key points of the book, it really didn’t work for me. Not sure why, possibly because the link between the three characters is gossamer thin, but I think it might have been because of the Woolf connection. The only book of hers that I have read before, To The Lighthouse, I could not get along with and so it seems with this one.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Reads like imitation Virginia Woolf... Virginia Woolf lite, if you will. Not so hard to read, not so stream of consciousness, but also, not nearly so dense, rewarding and original- no longer surprising.

    Various places seemed to be summarizing the ideas from Woolf's life and work, reproducing them in a modernized, simplified, sensationalized way- and I don't mean the parts with her in them. The similarity between the thoughts of the three women began to bore heartily after a while- life is beautiful, life is bleak, we get it already. Endless repetition, self-consciously modernist, almost cutesy in places, trying to avoid seeming to imitate the cheap tricks of the genre novel.

    The movie, in a way, is better- Cunningham may have hoped to imitate Woolf in conveying the deep and shifting truths of a series of characters in a minimalist number of pages, but his prose style isn't dense enough, and resorts to infodump in the last chapter in a surprising 'plot twist' which did not seem relevant enough to excite the reader. The movie at least has real people, and you can read in their expressions the thoughts that aren't quite adequately conveyed in the book. If The Hours is meant to be a novel about how these three women are similar, it has failed- if it means to be about how they are the SAME, well, that's all right then, but boring for the reader. In addition, the Mrs. Dalloway conceit was not fully enough explored, and splices from the actual Woolf text merely serve to highlight the inadequacy of Cunningham's loose prose.

    I will admit, that aside, that some aspects of the novel, particularly in Clarissa Vaughan's case, were beautiful, and I enjoyed that particular set of characters and Clarissa in particular very much.The death was exceedingly well written and well conveyed- I just wished I could have gotten to know the characters better before that. Perhaps the section from Sally's point of view could have been omitted in favor of more time with Richard.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Damn this was well written. I saw the movie multiple times, and loved it, but now I can say the book was better. The writing style is distinctive and lush, and I had to reread many sentences multiple times to fully appreciate the language. I have to go read more Michael Cunningham now, and watch the movie again.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Maybe I should have read Mrs. Dalloway first. Maybe I should have read more of Mrs. Woolf first. More than a single essay, "The Death of the Moth," which is all I can recall having read of her. Regardless, the prologue, read in the library stacks, was so absorbing I took the book home. The story didn't require foreknowledge, but would likely be even more captivating with it. I wonder if that bumblebee harkened back to the moth.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    "At times, I didn't care about the characters, but the ending was brilliant. Felt pretentious at times."
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I read Mrs. Dalloway and The Hours in succession, then watched the movie {The} Hours. I enjoyed Mrs. Dalloway, but struggled with The Hours. I detested the prose and could never tell whether the narrator was omnisciently telling me the story from each readers perspective or describing the characters is his own voice. Two sentences to illustrate: 1. “She could have had a life as potent and dangerous as literature itself.” If this is Clarissa describing herself, good grief; if it's an omniscient narrator, good grief. This reads more like a novel from two centuries ago when a narrator telling the reader what to feel was acceptable. 2. “She has never lied like that before, not to someone she doesn’t know or love.” The word "that" made me stop and reread the sentence, substituting "this" (to stay in the present tense writing style). But then the subordinate clause at the end made me think there was a narrator telling me this story rather than listening in to the characters. I also expected some anecdote on who she had lied to.After finishing reading it, I swore off reading any more Pulitzer Prize winners from this timeframe (Olive Kitteridge was my first foray and I really detested that book; see my review for just how much).Then a funny thing happened: the movie {The} Hours (what do those braces signify?) completely ruined a book I didn't like. Watching the book converted into a vehicle for Meryl Streep (and to a lesser degree Juliette Moore and Nicole Kidman) made me appreciate the way Cunningham was true to Mrs. Dalloway's structure and characters. In the book, it is Louis (as an imitation of Peter) unexpectedly visiting Clarissa (as an imitation of Mrs. Dalloway) and crying. In the movie, the visit is planned and it is Clarissa who cries, who is the focal point of the drama. It is the impact on Clarissa, rather than Louis and Richard, that is significant. So I thought more about the book and, while I still detest the writing style (flamboyant with all that word connotes comes to mind) and don't think the point-of-view was clear or consistent, I am closer to neutral than when I finished reading it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    perfection
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    So, I found this novel mildly less painful to read than actually reading Virginia Woolf - at least I got more out of it than when I read one of her novels, although I hardly suppose that's a compliment. It was an interesting novel following three women (one of whom is Virginia Woolf) across different eras. At times, I could recognize myself in the characters, especially Laura Brown. When Laura feels that everything she does as a housewife is inadequate and checks herself into a hotel room just so that she can read a book for a few hours, I wondered if this would be my own fate if I ever became a housewife. Overall, an interesting novel, but not one I can rave about.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    So happy to have read this after reading Mrs. Dalloway last month. This Pulitzer Prize winner is very creative. Cunningham tells the story of 3 different generations of women all impacted by the book Mrs Dalloway. Virginia Woolf being the first and it gives us a look at Mrs Woolf as she rights the book Mrs Dalloway. The next is Laura Brown, a wife and mother in the period following WWII. She is a women reading Mrs. Dalloway and who is terribly unhappy in her marriage and motherhood. The final generation is Clarissa Vaughan from the nineties and AIDS. Clarissa’s life mirrors the life of Mrs Dalloway and her friend Richard who is dying of AIDS calls her Mrs. Dalloway. Themes include mental illness, sexuality, and groups of threes.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I was excited to read this book, having seen the film a few years ago (although not remembering it entirely) and having been recommended it by a friend. I wasn't disappointed. This story is crafted very well, and although it really is three stories running side by side it doesn't seem disjointed at all. The author has a nice way with words, even though at times I became aware of one flowery word being used a few times over before being discarded for another. Cunningham really knows how to develop a character's inner thoughts into a story though, to the point where I wanted to get to know the characters even more. Though that was purely because they felt so real, as I didn't really feel I could relate to any of them, possibly with the exception of Laura. My least favourite of the three threads was that of Clarissa, I just didn't feel any empathy with the life she lived or the circles she moved in. But that didn't detract from my enjoyment, as it sometimes has in other books. Without wanting to spoil the ending, it was a very honest description of an event like that. Moving as well, the tears were streaming down my face.

    I have read Mrs Dalloway (the book that binds this novel), and I can't say I got from it what the characters seem to here. I am glad I had read it beforehand, but I don't think its essential in enjoying this book. I think even just a knowledge of what Mrs Dalloway is about would be enough to set this book in context.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I read Mrs. Dalloway back in 2010 as my first exposure to Woolf's literary works, and dare I say that its sheer brilliance managed to overshadow any appreciation I may have had for In the Lighthouse, had that been my first Woolf read. It took a reading challenge for me to finally take down my copy of The Hours and give it a read. Did I have some trepidation that my love for Woolf's original story would make me unduly critical of Cunningham's story? You bet I did. Thankfully, I did not need to worry. If anything, The Hours has made me want to re-read Mrs. Dalloway and savor the original story all over again. Cunningham's connected stories were able to draw a strong level of connection and emotion from me. Is The Hours as good as Mrs. Dalloway? Not to this reader but I believe The Hours was meant to compliment, not compete, with Woolf's wonderful story, and compliment it does, in spades, even down to what one reviewer has noted as certain parts where "Cunningham follows Woolf's cadences too closely". Some readers may view that as a problem. I don't. If anything, Cunningham's efforts to imbue the stories with these direct ties to Mrs. Dalloway enrich the stories with extra meaning, as do some of the little jokes included that readers of the original will appreciate. Overall, a wonderful cascading of three story-lines (and time periods) that makes for a sublimely delightful read. Not Mrs. Dalloway, but still a darn good read.