Rating: 
Summary: A world without humor...
Review: In The Hours, Michael Cunningham accomplishes a great feat by interweaving the true story of an author, Virginia Woolf, her book, and the people it influences. Mrs. Dalloway (as yet unread by me) depicts a day in the life of one woman. This book echoes that formula by showing one day in the lives of three different women living at three different times. Perhaps ironically, the book is written in the present tense. Cunningham's prose is wonderful and the book is a very addicting read.And yet... There is a great deal of negativity in the novel. These are the most judgmental characters in literature. They are impossible to like because they have unkind thoughts for everyone and everything they encounter. Cunningham is almost Seinfeld-like, the way he agonizes over the minutia of daily life. A character is condemned because he wears a baseball cap past the age of forty - who is he trying to kid? I kissed him on the cheek and not the lip - what kind of impression did I give? Is it immoral to buy flowers - were people exploited in picking them? However, unlike Seinfeld, none of these characters have a trace of humor. I can't help but wonder, at times, if these characters are not insightful but merely neurotic? They are ready to rebuke their fellow human beings for peccadilloes so trivial that a healthy person wouldn't even care. Virginia Woolf can't even smile at her husband's assistants because she's traumatized by the thought that she will seem to be taking sides. These character's can't even say "I love you" because it is a literary cliché. In reality, these people are probably incapable of love. No wonder the pall of suicide hangs over so many characters. They cannot understand, even for a moment, that their cynical, post-modern observations may be...wrong. I don't care what they say, I won't live in a world without humor.
Rating:
Summary: Creative, contrived and uneventful
Review: Not a clue do I know about this book until I see the movie trailer with Meryl Streep playing Mrs. Dalloway. Oh yes, she can be such a driving force to me-to actually swing by the bookstore out of the way home and pick up a copy of The Hours. In fact Meryl Streep is mentioned in passing at the beginning of the book. The Hours is a novel about three women at different times of the twentieth century whose lives share a common thread: the novel Mrs. Dalloway. Virginia Woolf is fictionized here as she and her husband Leonard are recuperating at the Hogarth House in 1923. Woolf just commences writing Mrs. Dalloway. Toward the end of the 20th century, in New York City, Clarissa Vaughan is a 52-year-old lesbian mother and poetry editor who is preparing a party for a poet dying from AIDS. She has been Richard's lifelong friend and caregiver and whom the poet addresses her as Mrs. D (for Dalloway). Finally during the 1950s, Laura Brown, mother of a 3-year-old son, finds herself pregnant again and feels tired of her perfect marriage life. She harbors lesbian inclination toward her neighbor and only wants to read in bed all day. Like Clarissa, Laura is preparing a birthday dinner for her husband Dan. As the events of each of these women unfold, you will find that the book culminates to a single surrealistic event that you will ask yourself, 'why didn't I think of that?' This is where all three women's lives converge. The book is relatively uneventful (if you discount the final convergence of all three women) and especially so for Clarissa's part, which spans less than 24 hours. I find the book very creative and interesting. I only recall a recent release that uses the Tiananmen massacre as a backdrop to link together the threads of two brothers. The way Cunningham works these stories and intertwines them simply enthralls me. One interesting thing about the book is I don't feel emotionally stirred by it after I put it down. I'm somewhat shocked by the ending which pieces all three lives together but I'm not moved. (I wonder why?) I feel like I don't know these people though I have read their stories. Cunningham doesn't invest much in developing his characters' humane but simply telling the story. The book is filled with contrived overtones--even in Cunningham's own words--that "our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined" and hours will be followed by hours, far darker and difficult. The Hours is a page-turner: it will so much quicker than you want it to. Cunningham's prose is crisp and tart, but can be overwhelming in length: "It seems that she can survive, she can prosper, if she has London around her; if she disappears for a while into the enormity of it, brash and brazen now under a sky empty of threat, all the uncurtained windows (here a woman's grave profile, there the crown of a carved chair), the traffic, men and women going lightly by in evening clothes; the smells of wax and gasoline, of perfume, as someone, somewhere (on one of these broad avenues, in one of these white, porticoed houses), plays a piano; as horns bleat and dogs bay, as the whole raucous carnival turns and turns, blazing, shimmering; as Big Ben strikes the hours, which fall in leaden circles over the partygoers and the omnibuses, over stone Queen Victoria seated before the Palace on her shelves of germaniums, over the parks that lie sunken in their shadowed solemnity behind black iron fences." A whopping 150-word sentence! The prose is so rich in dazzling details that I have to backtrek from time to time and figure out what Cunningham is trying to say. I guess this is what I enjoy the most in this reading experience. Finally Cunningham's empathy for Virginia Woolf leave a thirst in me for more of her work. 4.0 stars.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful in its Simplicity, Striking in its Intricacy
Review: This is the reason people should read more often. Michael Cunningham's words are like poetry, simple yet beautiful...and his story is a wonderfully intricate portrait of a day in the lives of three extraordinary women. The moment I read Virginia Woolf's legendary first line from Mrs. Dalloway, in the first line of The Hours, I knew I was in for an emotional roller coaster. And that it was. One can only see this book as a great piece of art; the words seep into your brain and paint a picture of life's simple wonders and heart-wrenching tragedies. Life, love, mistakes and failure...things every man and woman can relate to...are in this book. There are no words complimentary enough to describe the depth to which this novel will astound you, you simply have to read it for yourself. I know I will; again and again.
Rating:
Summary: A rewarding meditation on life, death, time, art and more
Review: The Hours is one of the best novels I've read in years. I heard someone else describe it as a "meditation on the gifts the dying leave to the living." That's a a profound and rich theme that isn't often explored in popular literature. I suspect that's why some of the negative reviews here seem so angry; mortality isn't a topic we like to think about particularly. I feel bad for those who can only see it as a "story about weepy women." And I feel worse for those who think it's boring. I was intrigued to follow Cunningham's rich themes through connections made among these three times and their related characters. These relations through time, the parallel attempts to connect, to create lives worth living, for me, temper the existential despair at the root of the book by revealing the universality of it all--with art's ability to help us through. This is one of those books that I have a hard time articulating its full meaning and impact on me. That happens rarely, and I usually see it as a sign that the work is tapping something deep, primal and profound. Some reviewers denounce the book, as if they expected it to be a biography of Woolf or a sequel to Mrs. Dalloway. I'm male and I hadn't yet read Mrs. Dalloway, and my experience with Woolf is scant, which may be a blessing in appreciating The Hours. I've seen Woolf scholars get their panties in a twist because they think The Hours is an inaccurate portrait of Woolf and her work. Maybe it is, but THAT'S NOT THE POINT, people. Others here dismiss the book, wanting "more plot" and character development. Some are confused by the time shifts. If you're one who wants your reading predictable, simple and always the same, The Hours is probably not for you. If, instead, you like a challenge and are willing to let yourself be carried along on this internal journey, you might be be richly rewarded.
Rating:
Summary: cloning Virginia
Review: At first, when I read the book, I thought to myself, "nothing is happening" until I realized that a lot was going on. For one, the author was mimicking Virginia Woolf's style wonderfully. Not much action was going on, but lots was still going on. I felt the book was about choices one makes when one feels trapped. Virginia opted for death, rather than what she felt was mental (and physical) imprisonment. Clarissa chose joy and relationship, Laura chose life instead of societal approval and Richard chose escape from living death. It's not action packed, or especially easy to read, but once I got into it, I found I couldn't put it down.
Rating:
Summary: Highly reccomended - liked the movie, loved the book
Review: 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."
Rating:
Summary: Better than life...
Review: This is a marvelous book! Cunningham's writing is amazing. You begin it with Virginia Woolf's death, coming off very strong. It shows the real meaning of life, and you start to question everything about your life. I may not be able to say much, there are way too many words TO say. Just wow. One of the books you need to buy.
Rating: 
Summary: lacking
Review: The idea was a good one, and it was extremely brave and ambitious of M Cunningham to try to weave the 3 lives together. But ultimately he failed, in my opinion. Just as I began settling down with one character and thinking of her perspective, there would be an immediate and abrupt jump back to another character. As a result, I felt a lack of connection and also a lack of sympathy, for any of the 3 women. Each was interesting in her own way, but there just wasn't the time to mentally bond with any single one of them. While it was an interesting literary technique, I found myself losing interest in the book half way through and had to force myself to finish it, which is unusual for me. All the hype didn't help as it heightens ones expectations.
Rating:
Summary: A poignant glimpse into every-day life
Review: Such fine lines between dedication and flight, competence and madness, are rarely addressed so well. For a man to portray with such insight the many facets of womanhood and gender is truly impressive. None of us - male or female - are completely comfortable in our skins, or completely sure of who we are trying to be. I read this book straight through in a morning, and considered it a gift.
Rating: 
Summary: Two versions?
Review: Reading the positive reviews makes me think there must be two totally different versions of this book released with the same cover as some sort of bizarre performance art stunt. The polar dichotomy of the reviews is another clue. I'd hate to live in a world with people who could praise the piece of garbage I read. My only hope for humanity is that they read some other book that looked the same on the cover as the tripe I read. I know that sounds mean, but it really was that mind numbingly awful and painful to read. I cannot fathom what would compel anyone to believe this book is anything more than the product of a self-indulgent creative writing instructor gone wild. Formulaic, contrived, painfully pretentious. It should be disposed of like toxic waste. Normally films loose the heart of a book. Let's hope that's the case with this thing, since the pompous writing style will be striped away, cleansing the thin storyline of the vile prose, it might make for a good movie after a good sanitization.
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