The Hours
ByPublisher Description
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 Hare.
The 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.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesThe Hours Reviews
Julia
Created about 8 hours agoAllix
Created 4 days agobreezybrie🌻
Created 9 days ago
“I read a quarter of The Hours, stopped, grabbed my sticky tabs, and started over with five colors. My categories were yuck, no, Virginia’s brilliance, misunderstanding of women, misogyny and ageism, and okay. Those tabs alone tell you how I felt.
People say this book is beautifully written. It won the Pulitzer. But how much of that is actually Michael Cunningham? His prose is almost identical to Virginia Woolf’s, and the whole structure mirrors Mrs. Dalloway. Without Woolf there would be no The Hours, and I do not think that is dramatic to say. There is a clear line between being inspired and copying, and this feels like the latter.
The fictionalized portrayal of Virginia Woolf, her husband, and her sister is uncomfortable. They were real people, and Cunningham puts thoughts in their heads we cannot possibly know. One of the first things he has Leonard think is that Virginia is no longer beautiful and is old and decrepit. It is nasty, misogynistic, and ageist. We do not actually know what she felt at the end of her life, and Cunningham’s obsession with her suicide feels exploitative, not artistic.
As for the modern characters, Clarissa is basically Mrs. Dalloway with a different haircut. Laura Brown is the one original idea, and she is underdeveloped. The rest is almost a one to one rewrite of Woolf’s novel.
I did not enjoy this book. I have never seen the movie and after reading this I do not care to. If you want to experience Virginia Woolf, just read Virginia Woolf. Read Mrs. Dalloway, The Waves, To the Lighthouse, A Room of One’s Own. You will get more out of them and probably understand my irritation.
For queer books that actually do something worthwhile, read Tin Man by Sarah Winman. Even Sunburn, which I did not love, does more than this. The queer storylines in The Hours did nothing for me and often felt like Cunningham stroking his own ego.
I am genuinely shocked this won the Pulitzer. I find it distasteful, derivative, and disrespectful. It is not for me.”cailinb
Created 10 days agohayls
Created 11 days agoAbout Michael Cunningham
Other books by Michael Cunningham
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