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Summary: This is a truly brilliant novel; a tapestry of events.
Review: Cunningham's novel uses Virginia Woolf as an author as well as a character. His interweaving of the characters of Mrs Dalloway, Clarissa and Woolf is both lyric and literary. The three stories are compelling and beautifully written.
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Summary: Cunningham has written a lush, richly satisfying book.
Review: The Hours entranced me like no other book has done in quite some time. The subtle interplay of characters across time, linked by feeling, had me reading while in the metro, walking down the street, climbing stairs. In my book "Project Girl" I discover Virginia Woolf, only now to have her revealed to me in The Hours in a way she herself did not. I'm certain she is pleased with what Cunningham has given us.
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Summary: A juvenile exercise.
Review: I found this book to be pretentious, boring, sophomoric and most of all, contrived. Not one sympathetic character in it- and oh! all that purple prose. Too bad the PEN/Faulkner and Pulitzer judges were taken in.
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Summary: Beautiful
Review: My husband couldn't get through it, and I loved it. I think that would pretty much sum up most reactions to this novel. If you like to find out what a book is about, THE HOURS will frustrate you. It is not linear, it does not explain itself, there are no "aha" moments. Michael Cunningham writes astonishly well, and with great passion about time, love, and longing in this short, bittersweet book. Yes, it would be great if everyone read Mrs. Dalloway before tackling this book. But, I have not, and still found THE HOURS completely satisfying and devastating on many levels. It is beautifully written, and deserved to win the Pulitzer Prize.
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Summary: Totally deserving
Review: I suppose if I somehow thought of myself as being in the running for the Pulitzer, I might have found myself posting something as bitter and resentful as the previous reviewer. Thankfully, I am not that person. And The Hours is not the book that person describes. Never intended as a substitute for Woolf, The Hours is an incredibly complex narrative disguised as a simple one. It communicates volumes on the nature of our existance, of human longing, and of the role literature plays in our lives.
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Summary: Beyond Category
Review: One could never ask the question, "What is *The Hours* about?" The question limits this far-sighted lyrical novel, for this book goes beyond any description or categorization that one attempts to thrust upon it. Thank You Michael Cunningham.
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Summary: Awards and more praise for THE HOURS
Review: 1999 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction 1999 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction Ann Pritchard in USA TODAY: "Michael Cunningham's THE HOURS is that rare combination: a smashing literary tour de force and an utterly invigorating reading experience. If this book does not make you jump up from the sofa, looking at life and literature in different ways, check to see if you have a pulse... The three plot lines work brilliantly and are far more exciting and less confusing than any mere reviewer can make them sound. Familiarity with Woolf is not a prerequisite. The key to the book, beyond exquisite prose, is its reflection on the concept of 'ordinary.' As in Woolf's fiction, no one is ordinary; no hour or day exists without significance, without ramification, without meaning and without epiphany. And while many great writers and poets have explored the notion that experiences add up to meaning and to being, Cunningham's novel is more accessible than, say, the prelude to a Wordsworth poem... Cunningham's cast of characters sweeps readers along across space and time and parallel worlds. The novel deals with aging and dying, all-consuming creative energy, and the depth of love and the limits of sexuality. But it is never melancholy. Rather, it is a hopeful and moving journey, illuminated like a Book of Hours prayer book..."
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Summary: Skip The Hours; read Mrs. Dalloway again
Review: Having thoroughly read and re-read The Hours in search of an original novel, I am beside myself with awe that the Pulitzer committee has seen fit to endorse a self-indulgent exercise in literary ventriloquism. Since he has been such an faithful imitator of her style, Mr. Cunningham might do well to remember that Woolf would not accept awards or honorary degrees for her fiction.
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Summary: Truly beautiful
Review: I've read the first chapter several times now, both aloud and to myself. I've rarely been as moved by the beauty of such poetic fiction. The rest of the novel, and its interwoven stories, is equally magnificent.
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Summary: Thank goodness!--a prize at last for this deserving book.
Review: I'd been offering this title whenever a list called for nominations for 'best book of the year.' And then watched--not with horror, because one can't go on being horrified year after year--but at least with a kind of grumpiness as flashier, and stupider, books got picked and won awards and in general triumphed (I do not refer here to Alice Munro's =For the Love of a Good Woman=, which is terrific). =The Hours= is beautifully written--truly; not fakily-beautifully-written as is so much that is perversely praised for style. That is to say, it is clear, precise, concise, sinewy, and free of the self-reflexive. The characters are involving and themselves, not carefully diffracted views of the author, and I loved reading about them. The resolution is novelistic, ingenious but no mere trick, so that the book is formally as well as emotionally satisfying. Kelly Cherry
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