Rating: 
Summary: Ode to Ms. Woolf
Review: I LOVED this novel, not only for its beautifully interwoven stories, but for the depth of its writing. The title is subtle and curious, yet so specific to the book. Michael Cunningham truly has captured "moments in time"-those instantaneous thoughts which often pass through the mind too quickly to acknowledge, that minute world between the semi-conscious and recognition. As with Ms. Woolf's writing, life is fully realized, and the reader is left with eyes open and senses acute. Unique and thought-provoking!
Rating: 
Summary: Dull, flat, shallow, pretentious.
Review: No, I didn't like this book at _all_. I read it back to back with Mrs. Dalloway, so that the original would be fresh in my mind, and the contrast shows just how wanting this new take is. Plenty of reviewers have summarized the plot, so I'm going to cut to the chase: this book should either have been a lot longer, or a lot shorter. Dalloway got away with its wisp of a plot because plot wasn't the point, and its couple hundred pages were plenty to explore the richness of the quotidian in fascinating, quiet fashion, a feminine counterpart to Ulysses. The Hours, on the other hand, interweaves 3 stories in the same space, giving so little time to each that none of the characters acquire real personality or gather even a scrap of sympathy. Instead we get an intricately plotted (yes, I admit that Cunningham knows how to diagram a plot, but this book is like a soulless machine, and there are more suprises in most rereadings of novels than in the first read here) series of whining and sighing women and men. Furthermore, there is ZERO variation in writing style, pace, or tone, no humor, and simply nothing to keep one interested: people whine, and then they die and turn out to be related. To add to the insult, the present-day thread of the story is a pedantic game of "spot the transposition", as lacking in cleverness as the butchering of Austen's Emma into the movie "Clueless".Now don't get me wrong, I like daring fictional experiments, as well as more traditional narratives, and if one places great weight in one element of writing--plot, characterization, style, philosophy, a message, even just plain fun--to the detriment of the others, that can be fine, even brilliant, but even the plot, the best element of this, is lukewarm at best. Dull, faintly depressing, _and_ stupid. An utter travesty he got the Pulitzer for this tripe.
Rating:
Summary: A riveting read - I really didn't expect that!
Review: I borrowed this from my wife after running out of vacation reading of my own. I didn't really expect to get much out of it and was delighted to find that it was truly beautiful and a very easy read. The concept for the hours comes from Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway, a book I haven't read. I can't comment on whether you would get more from this novel if you had read Mrs Dalloway first but it's certainly not essential. The basic idea behind Mrs Dalloway are clearly brought out in the chapters that act as a kind of one-day biography for Virginia Woolf. I also haven't seen the movie; my wife, who has, felt that the film had done such a good job that she didn't get much out of the book. The novel intertwines the semi-biographical aspects of a day in Virginia Woolf's life with that of two American women. One is a homemaker in the late 40s who is reading Mrs Dalloway and wondering if her condition can shed light on what is wrong in her life; the other is a woman in New York in the nineties planning a party for her dying friend Richard. Both stories are neatly intertwined with Mrs Dalloway in a number of ways both plotwise and thematically. And it is this intertwining that pulls the book along so well. It would have been so easy to spoil the flow or make things to obvious but Michael Cunningham succeeds beautifully in making the independent lives so connected for the brief day.
Rating: 
Summary: wasted hours
Review: When you strip this novel of its artistic pretensions, what it boils down to is an extremely nihilistic view of the world, especially the world of weak minded women. Virginia Woolf, of the Bloomsbury group sets the tone, with her suicidal, depressed peronality. Then Clarissa Vaughn, in modern times, is renamed Clarissa Dalloway as an allusion to Mrs. Dalloway by VW, by a young man who will later commit suicide rather than take any more of her solicitous "help", in giving him a party to celebrate his winning a literary prize. Another modern woman is "so modern" that she leaves her loving husband and two children after the birth of her second child (which she did not want). All of the women are either lesbian or bisexual in deference to Virginia Woolf and her "lifestyle" and in deference to one of the prevalent notions of our times. The only realistic statement in the book was when Richard (the son of the woman who abandoned him), tells Clarissa that the only reason he won the literary award is that he has aids. This book is about living deaths, and suicide of the soul. If that is your cup of tea; better you than me! I personally think it appeals to weak minded people, who fall for hype.
Rating:
Summary: stunning.
Review: This is nothing short of a masterpiece. As one drifts into its pages, one cannot help get lost in the beautiful stream-of-consciousness prose written by michael cunningham, in a marvelous tribute to virginia woolf, one of the novel's central characters.
The novel covers one day in the lives of three women, two fictional, one real: Laura Brown, a troubled 50s suburban housewife in debt to her loving husband, son, and unborn child, but struggling with the fact that she is stuck in a one-sided marriage; as much as she tries, she does not love her husband as much as she wishes she did. The second fictional character is Clarissa Vaughan, a bisexual present-day resident of Manhattan, who is caring for friend and former lover Richard, a recognized and award winning poet, who is dying of AIDS. The third character, a real historical figure, is Viriginia Woolf, also in a marriage that restrains her; although she loves her husband she longs for city life in London, which would free her but also free her deadly mental illness.
These three women are all connected through Woolf, as Laura reads Woolf's novels in an attempt to block out the real world, Clarissa lives a modern version of Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway," and the third character Woolf herself.
In his Pulitzer-Prize winning masterpiece, author Michael Cunningham manages to create a tribute to a master writer as well as a stunning original work rolled into one beautifully-written prose composition.
Rating:
Summary: Masterful!
Review: It is difficult to decide which characteristic of Michael Cunningham's THE HOURS is most impressive. The artistic crafting of three distinct storylines succeeds by keeping each individually poignant and self-contained. Cunningham gives his reader three beautifully developed protagonists to follow: a partially fictionalized Virginia Woolf, a post-WWII housewife and a modern day version of Mrs. Dalloway in the form of a New York literary agent. Yet as the novel progresses, the lives of each of these different characters slowly and subtly become interconnected and this connection becomes stunningly clear in the novel's powerful final pages. Another recent Amazon purchase also recommended: THE LOSERS' CLUB by Richard Perez
Rating: 
Summary: A Tribute
Review: Three Characters - Three Lives and there lies the imprints of an author Virginia Woolf in 'Mrs.Dalloway. The Hours pays ironic tribute to Virginia Woolf, the acclaimed author of many pathbreaking novels, who committed suicide in 1941. Michael Cunningham became the winner of the Pulitzer prize and no wonder its been a contemporary bestseller book. Virginia Woolf, as described by the author is a gifted eccentric and not a writer at all. The central characters are Woolf herself and two other fictional women who are connected with her work in some way. We follow the three women with fascination, concern, watching as Woolf struggles with the novel that will name of the Cunnigham's characters and shape the life of another. As their life unfolds, it is irresistible read and urge to stop Virginia from taking the final step into the river even though Cunnigham has told in the first chapter, that she will and she does. The novel is a turnover pages into the world of three very different women celebrating and mourning their lives. The movie The Hours has three women reaching wider audience with performances given by Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore and Nicole Kidman. Though I've yet to see the movie, the Book is par emotional read in an easy chair in the corner of a room and effortlessly plunge into the world of three lives shaping the life of another. A nice Read.
Rating:
Summary: Very good, short read
Review: I read this book a few months after the movie, which I haven't seen, came out. It has one quality which I appreciate above all others (apart from a certain humor) in a novel: conciseness. These days, with so many ambitious American writers trying to write the 'Great American Novel', following in the footsteps of Tolstoy by writing boring, prolix and heavy handed books, it was refreshing to find an ambitious literary work that was both meaningful and short.
Cunningham's sentences remind me of an article by John Updike about the South African writer J.M. Coetzee, which appeared on The New Yorker some months ago. In it he compared Coetzee's writing to the obsessively pruned trees that line some Parisian avenues.
In fact, sometimes you wish Cunningham had expanded a little on some of his character's thoughts and ideas. But that happens only a few times.
The one thing I found lacking in this book is humor. Had it not been short, I would have given it 4 stars: you need a few laughs to keep the ride interesting; if art is a reflection of life, a novel without funny moments would feel artificial. The great exception is the surreal dialogue on the first meeting between Mrs. Dalloway 2.0 and her friend Richard, the poet, whose mind has been ravaged by AIDS:
" "Good morning my dear," Clarissa says again.
He opens his eyes. "Look at all those flowers."
"They're for you."
"Have I died?" "
In the end, on the last chapter, as Clarissa and Laura, two characters from two different stories, come together, the main point of the book is driven down, with neither sad despair or happy delusion: that life is a few hours of seemingly infinite joy surrounded by "others, far darker and more difficult."
Rating:
Summary: Now My Favorite Book
Review: I first saw the movie. It was a powerful movie that achieved my personal title of favorite movie. I pulled this book off of the shelf at my local Borders and sat down and started to read it. I ended up buying the copy (despite the fact that I had one at home) just so I could read it on the way home. I ended up reading the entire book that day. That was the first time I've ever done that. Although a shorter book than others, it doesn't need to be longer. This book starts out with a suicide. It pulls you in. The very first thing I noticed was spectacular characterization and the best writing I've read in a long time. The descriptions were masterfully written. The rest of the book follows three different women in three different times (Virginia Woolf, Laura Brown and Clarissa Vaughn) and how they are dying inside and how they escape it. The novel, "Mrs. Dalloway," is what connects them all. A good way to some up the connection is that the book is about the writer, the reader and the character respectively (refering to the list of characters). It is a very moving novel. The message I received from this book was that we should never believe happiness is all the time. Happiness comes in moments. If we expect too much, we'll never be happy. It is really a masterpiece. Everyone should read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Astounding and Beautiful!
Review: This book amazed me from the very beginning and I could NOT put it down.Every word in this book makes you look at your every day life in a new light.You will see not just sunlight shining in your face in the morning,but lovely,angelic,golden arms reaching out to touch your face and carress you into starting the day.I mean every little thing you do,you will do differently because of this book.It changed my life and outlook on things.If you dont get this book and love it,you need help.It was excellent!
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