Rating: 
Summary: Like a Venus Fly-Trap...
Review: At one point in his novel THE HOURS Michael Cunningham uses the image of the Venus Flytrap to illustrate the dilemma of one of his characters, a poet named Richard who is dying of AIDS. First the flower lures you in and then its sharp "teeth" close over you and suck out your life's juices. At the end of THE HOURS I felt as if I had been lured into the book and drained of emotion, if not life juices.I often read books that win prestigious prizes because I believe literary experts who know a good deal more about literature than I do serve on the panels that award prizes and I might be better informed if I try to read some of their choices. Often the experience of reading a prize-winning book is a delight (THE SHIPPING NEWS). Sometimes it is powerful (A THOUSAND ACRES, COLD MOUNTAIN). And sometimes the prize winning book isn't as good as the runner-up. THE HOURS is extremely well written, and for that reason alone you may want to read it. Cunningham certainly shares some of his insights about the frustrating business of creative writing. However, THE HOURS is not a 5-star book from my perspective. Cunningham combines three short stories into the one novel. He cleverly links not only the lives of his protagonists, but as another reveiwer has indicated, he links various illusions and aspects such as color. As a gardener, I noted the placement of roses in each of the tales--roses surround the dead thrush; roses missalinged and destroyed on the birthday cake; roses in the apartment of the poet dying of AIDS. This linking is seamless and at times beautiful. However I want character development when I read a novel and I found Cunningham's characters a bit one-dimensional. One would expect more emphasis on plot in a short story--and this book consists of three short stories with three cleverly interwovan plots. Although I appreciate the innovation of her work very much and feel she was overlooked by critics who latched onto James Joyce and ignored her because she was a woman writer, I have never particularly liked Woolfe's books. I read MRS DALLOWAY during a course I took on women writers (and afterward I read the remainder of her books). I've also read several biographies about Woolfe, including Quentin Bell's VIRGINIA WOOLFE:A BIOGRAPHY. (Bell appears briefly in THE HOURS). The evidence from Bell's biography and another biography by Louise de Salvo, is that Virginia Woolfe was a victim of familial incest. The residual stress from her childhood encounters with older abusive brothers, the stress of losing several loved ones in quick succession in her early adult years, the destruction of the young men of her generation during WWI, and the disasters of WWII appear to played a major role in driving her mad. When Virginia Woolfe walked into the Ouse, she had been bombed out of her London home and faced a bleak uncertain future in war-torn England. Leonard Woolfe was Jewish, and they both feared an invasion since their "country" home lay not far from the South coast of England and they knew what the NAZIs were doing to Jews. Many things affected her already fragile mind the day she packed her coat pockets with stones and waded into the river. None of this information is revealed in THE HOURS. I can imagine someone reading THE HOURS, not knowing Woolfe's background, and thinking her a vain, shallow, and unstable aristocrat who had little serious regard for anyone. In reality, she was a deeply passionate and caring individual who knew too much sorrow. Knowing this, one must wonder about the other women in Cunningham's novel.
Rating: 
Summary: A stunningly craft work of art
Review: "The Hours" is possibly the finest novel I've read in the past decade. I've read it more than once, and have wept each time.
Cunningham's prose is gorgeous. The econmy he uses in telling these stories is simply stunning, as is his affection for his characters. This is a rare and lovely work. As I wite this I am filled with a desire to read it yet again.
Rating: 
Summary: Exploring the caves of the psyche
Review: I wanted to write, "Drop this book and go read Virginia Woolf at once," but I became so engaged in it that I couldn't take my own advice. Cunningham has borrowed heavily and successfully from Woolf's style and plots, using them to explore the fluidity of emotions and thoughts and how they affect our perceptions of life. Woolf remains inimitable of course, but The Hours manages to find a ground of its own on which to stand. Cunningham practically paints his words onto the page, liberally using the names of colors to punctuate a mood - red, blue, green, white and, more than forty times, shades of yellow. In the apartment of Richard (the writer who "tried to split the atom with words"), yellow colored walls call for recognition of Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper, an earlier story of mental decline. There is a near Joycean moment, a "plump and stately man", in a night scene outside London, and no doubt other literary allusions of which I was not aware as the author creates his multiple worlds of psychological and visual imagery. He gets so much of it exactly right (a child's relationship with his mother, Woolf's attitude towards writing, Richard's apartment), that I didn't mind the bits that were less satisfying. Through his characters (four of them really: an editor, a mother, a prize winning novelist and Woolf herself), Cunningham examines the process of creativity and writing well, calling it "an inner faculty that recognizes the animating mysteries of the world . . . the most profound satisfaction." Some readers may be put off by the intense psychological focus, but when he states that we are all "both afflicted and blessed, full of shared secrets, striving every moment," always hoping to produce something of beauty, who would disagree? While authors may be criticized for writing novels catering to literary subjects and interests, I don't see that as a fault; in this case it's wonderful. I also applaud this novel winning the Pulitzer if doing so leads to greater understanding of the prevalence of mental illness, which still exists despite modern pharmacological advances.
Rating:
Summary: Nothing Special
Review: The Hours is an okay novel, but not quite what I expected. It's the story of three women, living at different times. Each lives a somewhat melancholy life. Each feels somewhat disconnected from their lives -- for each there is something missing. Throughout most of the novel the reader is left to wonder what, if any, connection exists for these three women. And at the end, their worlds and connections come together. The novel is okay. It's well written. But it's really not much to get excited about though.
Rating:
Summary: A lyrical, beautifully imagined work
Review: I hesitated to read The Hours for two reasons: the excerpt that appeared earlier in The New Yorker left me cold, and the overall concept sounded too much like a gimmick. If either of these thoughts has been holding you back, cast them away, rush out, and buy this book! Cunningham accomplishes the rare feat of quoting Virginia Woolf without making his own prose appear irredeemably flat by comparison, and he applies the same delicate, surefooted touch to the threading together of the three stories that make up this book.
Rating:
Summary: The Hours flies by in seconds
Review: Easily one of the best novels I've read in the last few years. Michael Cunningham's brilliant prose (and keen gift for observation)is truly haunting. I read it on a long domestic flight and was nearly in tears by the end (odd, since I'm not a very emotional person). I didn't want it to end (and it was supremely annoying that other passengers were riotously laughing while watching a film comedy). I intend to read "Mrs. Dalloway" and then reread "The Hours" immediately afterwards (for I'm certain Cunningham has littered his novel with nuances I didn't get without reading the other novel). I can't recommend this novel strongly enough.
Rating:
Summary: Non-woolfe fans beware
Review: Maybe it's because I'm unfamiliar with Virginia Woolfe, but this book didn't do much for me. There were a lot of literary allusions to Woolfe's writing which I did not get. I think that if you didn't read Woolfe and or if you don't like her style, then you won't like this book much. I would save it for the future after you've come to appreciate Virginia Woolfe. I myself am not a Woolfe fan, I've tried to read Orlando twice now, and each time I'm bogged down by the language, and Orlando is supposed to be Woolfe's most accessible book. You could still follow The Hours because it does have a plot of its own. The three women in the book eventually all tie together in the end. Clever people will figure out the ending 1/2 way or 3/4 of the way through the book though.
Rating:
Summary: It's all a Question of Sensibility
Review: Having read this glorious feast of a book and then looking over the oddly variable reviews, I can only conclude that its enjoyment must hinge upon having a poetic sensibility. Whatever else may be said pro or con about "The Hours" it's difficult not to acknowledge the book's extraordinary poetry. If one is sensitive to poetic language and imagination, the book is a treat-- simply so, unarguably so, appreciatively so. But if you don't give a hang about poetry, or are deaf to its appeals, why then of course you are frustrated and you are resentful that someone has come along and wasted your precious time. Without the willingness to savor and the willingness to reflect, it's all, as they say, in one ear and out the other...
Rating:
Summary: A pure, beautiful book
Review: Cunnigham prose is simple and that's what gives this novel its impact. For anyone that has ever tried to name or hold on to feelings and thoughts that fly away as quick as they appear, a moment of power, a moment of pity, a moment of revelation, or of opportunity, please read The Hours. So many writers can use 1000 words to explore or to describe one thought. Cunnigham delivers the truth with few flourishes in his tales of a day in the life of three women, one of whom is a fictionalized Virginia Woolf. He keeps the stories simple but leaves the reader stunned with his insight on our humanness. This ranks right up there with Woolf's "The Lighthouse" as well as Jhumpa Lahiri's "The Interpreter of Maladies."
Rating:
Summary: An Ending That Rocks....
Review: I thought the first few chapters were a bit difficult (think plowing through) but once I started to know the characters, the pages flew. It's a great story. The ending makes it all worth while. It'll be a great movie.
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