Rating: 
Summary: like viewing life underwater
Review: I was surprised that I did not tire of the writing style, which is immediate rather than linear. I expected to tire of the characters, each of whom struggles in her own way with being conscious and aware of each hour she lives.I was, instead, fascinated, as though I were watching a kalideoscope composed of each character's experience of each small segment of her daily life. I believe such immediate and ongoing conscious awareness and focus is the stuff of art. In ordinary reality, such perceptions are subconscious most of the time, with our awareness only coming on line occasionally. Although each of their lives is poignant, I didn't feel sorry for any of the characters; I admired their perception and their courage in responding to the circumstances of their lives. The ending surprised me (the last chapter). I haven't decided yet if I like the relationships of the characters being literally tied together as they were. It jolted me out of the atmosphere of the rest of the book. Regardless of the ending, I highly recommend this novel.
Rating:
Summary: Work of Extreme Pathos
Review: The Hours by Michael Cunningham is a work of lyrical beauty. The text is comprised of three parts which take place in the month of June: 1923, Virginia Woolf is writing a book (Mrs. Dalloway); 1949, Mrs. Brown is reading Woolf; and present day, Mrs. Vaughan is experiencing a Woolfian period in her life. Cunningham, aside from creating a work of extreme pathos, displays a more than masterful use of intertextual referencing which allows the reader to easily assimilate the correlation between the three storylines. A great book for Woolf fans as well as bibliophiles interested in a good story, Cunningham's Pulitzer-winning novel is a memorable collection of three tales that will remain the in the reader's psyche long after he or she has finished the text.
Rating: 
Summary: women are complex
Review: I like the author's style of writing, but the theme is redundent and although I like to see more written about the crossing of paths by women, I found this rather depressing. Read Nuns and Priests, the Great Divide by O'Mara for more about women crossing paths.
Rating:
Summary: loved it
Review: I loved the book and the movie, a great job in linking these three lives together even though what they shared was depressing (suicide) the dialog is rich and enjoyable.
Rating:
Summary: Pulitzer Prize Winner???
Review: Like other reviews, I read this book because of the Pulitzer Prize and because I wanted to read it before I saw the much acclamed movie. It's a very quick read and there is a great deal of beautiful prose. But I concluded it wondering what's the big deal. I also wondered what qualifies a book for a prize like the Pulitzer. As a life long resident of the mid-west and a person that most people would consider "normal" I contemptated the characters in the book and wondered if there were really people like this. Are there people who live there lives with such pain, such bizarre relationships, so many painful memories of the past? In many respects this is a book about aging. It's about people moving toward the ends of their lives. Frankly, it's depressing. It's about people whose children don't turn out exactly the way they want and mothers who screw up children's lives. It's about long term relationships that are not always as beautiful as they start out. Perhaps that's just life. Would I recommend this book? Probably, but it's not exactly what I thought it was going to be.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant!
Review: The book jacket says it all: passionate, profound and deeply moving. Cunningham weaves together three unique stories in an intrcate lattice that culminates in an ending that will move you to the edge of your seat. The Hours is quite simply brilliant writing. I sincerly hope that the film adaptation of this novel will play as wonderfully on screen as the book does on paper.
Rating: 
Summary: A disappointment
Review: I would agree with the reviewer who found the writing style contrived. Worse than that, I found the book to be misogynistic. I realize it is supposed to be a feminist book, of sorts, but it was far from that. Despite a common thread of bizarre and annoying self-importance, all of the female characters in the book were sexually ambiguous, all were hopelessly tied to a lover of some sort, and seemed to feel little if any control over their own lives. I understand this is a book about three women of separate times, "connected" by their similarities, but the (perhaps unintended) effect was to show women in general as unhappy, hand-wringing, self-involved, and unstable creatures. Virginia Woolf must be turning over in her grave.
Rating:
Summary: A Love Song for Virginia
Review: I don't know how well this books stands alone--I hadn't read Mrs. Dalloway but in a class I had to see the movie, so I had working knowledge of the plot. That being said, this novel was a beautiful continuation and extension of Mrs. Dalloway and Virginia Woolf's life. For all its mystique as a Pulitzer Prize Winner and its erudite content, this work is not inaccessible and terribly high-minded. The characters are heart-wrenchingly true to life and Cunningham does not take liberty with Woolf's life. Instead, the true love he has for her work shows through; yet, this story is very much his own. I haven't read a book like this before, where the love of the subject matter shines through so vibrantly, where the prose is natural and takes on a different life for each character, where the hours in a day are treated as though they are more valuable than gold, where a man inhabits a woman's mind without prentension or falsification. Don't be scared of the subject matter. This novel is a treasure, an amazing examination of how we live our lives.
Rating:
Summary: Chunks
Review: "Special" is not the word to use for readers who might enjoy this novel, "specialized" is better, for we must never embrace elitism--snobs being bad, humility good. Thus I think a person must be a "specialized" reader who enjoys writing itself, even if it sits alone, to delight in "The Hours." This novel is best enjoyed in small chunks independently devoured. Certain readers--and that's fine with me--do not like that sort of meal. I think the same premise is what makes Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway" such a great novel for some, including me, and disliked by others. But I have never been excited the same way about Joyce's "Ulysses," a novel written more or less with a similar style. Chunks, chunks, chunks. In fact, I have never been able to complete "Ulysses." This demonstrates that art is communication and a connection may or not be made at any given moment. But "The Hours" connected with me. As for complaints that the novel's ending is implausible, I say thank God for that. It is art, a story, a fiction, a creation, a matter of Cunningham's imagination, and then of the reader's reimagination. What should Cunningham have done, woven his tale into a mundane set of matter-of-fact conclusions just so his critics might call it realistic and plausible? A writer of fiction chooses such "implausible" connections on purpose, for that's what makes a story. Because of its many wonderful chunks I give "The Hours" five stars. Further, thank God for my powers of reimagination, for I can change certain orientations within the plot of "The Hours" to suit my own orientation. -----Joseph A. Psarto,
Rating: 
Summary: Beautifully told, if flawed
Review: "The Hours" by Michael Cunningham is an elegantly written, artful book. But the artistry is pleasant and doesn't often feel strained. I read this book because I've been hearing wonderful things about the movie (and the previews look so goood!), but that movie is not likely to ever come to Aberdeen. The book focuses on a single day in the lives of three women living at different times, Virginia Woolf, in a fictionalized account of a day in the 1920s when she is writing "Mrs. Dalloway;" Laura Brown, a depressive suburban housewife in Los Angeles in the 1950s who is reading "Mrs. Dalloway;" and Clarissa Vaughn, nicknamed "Mrs. Dalloway" by her longtime friend for whom she is giving a party that night. This last takes place in the 1990s in Greenwich Village. Cunningham moves very smoothly among the women's lives, and the similarities in their thoughts and reactions that he writes of here are beautifully subtle and somewhat rhythmic. (I understand, too, that there are small allusions to the original "Mrs. Dalloway" novel in some plot points, particularly for Clarissa, but I haven't read that book yet.) The day progresses through the 224-page book with the three women in tandem. Other characters play important parts, Virginia Woolf's husband and her sister's family, Clarissa's friend Richard, for whom she is giving the party and who is dying of AIDS, Clarissa's partner, Sally, and Laura Brown's son and neighbor, Kitty. The women are linked in a somewhat surprising way at the end, which helps drive the novel; you rather sense that there's something making them be involved with each other, even "through time." But the plot isn't really what kept me reading. (And a major plot point at the end disappointed me-it seemed to me to divert the focus from the characters the novel has been focusing on throughout the book. It just rang false against what Cunningham had already set up.) The way that the author describes the mental lives of these women, particularly Laura Brown, was fascinating to me. Often the women think to themselves, "this is enough. Sometimes it is just enough" and seem wonderfully satiated with the small beauties of life. But for Laura, there is an oppressiveness about the contentment that drains you as a reader, but is very rich. This oppressiveness seems odd on the surface for women who are very fortunate by most typical measures. Laura's friend Kitty could be dying of cancer. Clarissa's friend IS dying of AIDS. Virginia has enough money to focus on her writing. "I am alone, Virginia thinks, as the man and woman continue up the hill and she continues down. She is, of course, not alone, not in a way anyone else would recognize, and yet at this moment, walking through the wind toward the lights of the Quadrant, she can feel the old devil... and she knows she will be utterly alone if and when the devil chooses to appear again." I found Cunningham's portrayal of the emotional lives of these women to be incredibly perceptive, and, though dark, compelling. He describes well the ways that they are overwhelmed by too many emotional responses and the processing and sorting of those feelings. Even though I had some quibbles with the end, I loved the novel and recommend it.
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