The Hours

Rating:
Summary: original, evocative, exceptional
Review: Like other reviewers, I was so absorbed in this book that I finished it in one day and continue to reflect on the story. Cunningham intertwines the tales of three individual women seamlessly, and concludes his book with a startling denoument. He is a beautiful writer who understands the inner workings of women. Bravo!

Rating:
Summary: Author's self-love kills book
Review: This is a sophomoric literary exercise posing as a novel, a gimmick passing as art. Poor Cunningham appears to have lost touch with reality, in favor of preciousness and elitist posturing. What happened to the man who had his empathetic pulse on our times, and our lives? A real disappointment.

Rating:
Summary: A brilliant interwoven treasure of a story.
Review: I loved this book. It made me think on so many levels. It was like putting the pieces of a puzzle together in terms of the time-line of the story and the characters, and what an ending. You will have a surprise in store. This makes an excellent book group selection. It makes for great discussion! I highly recommend it. It's like an exercise for the mind. Cunningham is a brilliant writer.

Rating:
Summary: Mrs. Dalloway Lives on in "The Hours"
Review: "The Hours" is a bold work that re-creates Virginia Woolf's writing of "Mrs. Dalloway" and reimagines the story of Mrs. Dalloway as embodied by two American women, each of whom is also preparing for a party at the end of the day. The novel brings out the themes of suicide and lesbian desire front and center. In doing so it becomes a far more focused--but also less complex--work than "Mrs. Dalloway." Still, Cunningham's calculated risk-taking pays off beautifully.

Rating:
Summary: This moving book touches the everyday difficulties of life
Review: I LOVED this book. Cunningham's sinuous, evocative descriptions (I'll never forget his retelling of Woolf's suicide in the prologue) and his masterful construction of complex characters will leave you breathless. But the best thing about the book is how Cunningham touches on the deeper emotions of our everyday lives. The difficulties of being a mother, a wife, a daughter, a son, the regrets and hopes and comprises--they're all there in a way that dignifies and ennobles us all.

Rating:
Summary: Seemed like days.
Review: This book has all the cliches of a senior-year English final. Although the author has a mastery of the language, he does not use it to illuminate my perspective on these characters with sensitivity to the precious few HOURS I have to read for entertainment and relaxation. Try poetry next time.

Rating:
Summary: First read "Mrs. Dalloway" then read "The Hours"
Review: "The Hours" is a glittering, multi-layered homage to Virginia Woolf and "Mrs. Dalloway." Cunningham's three stories reverberate off each other and off "Mrs. Dalloway" in a dazzling commentary on life, love and death. In a single day each of three women, readying herself for a party grand or ordinary, grapples with many of life's more profound issues. Kisses are exchanged, spurned lovers regretted. Some are caregivers, others their prisoners. Anyone who has recently read "Mrs. Dalloway" will recognize the brilliance with which Cunningham manipulates its themes and plot while incorporating very modern feminist and gay issues.

Rating:
Summary: I'll never get back "The Hours" that I wasted!
Review: I adored "A Home at the End of the World," except for its ending that betrayed me. And I was so impressed with the way Cunningham wrote from a woman's point of view in "Flesh and Blood" (one of the best contemporary male writers to do this, in my opinion). So when I saw a new book by MC, all three main characters women, and paralleling Woolf's novel Mrs. Dalloway, how could I not jump for joy? The plot(s) is/are simple: Clarissa, nicknamed Mrs. Dalloway, is having a party for one of her dearest friends, who won a prestigious poetry prize (and is also suffering from AIDS). Meanwhile, Virginia Woolf is currently in the middle of Mrs. Dalloway, plotting how it will end. Seemingly unrelated is the story of Laura Brown, a housewife in the '40s (I guess I didn't read that part carefully enough, or else it's a testament to MC's talent that I didn't realize she wasn't living in the 90s), and her struggle to make peace with her life. Alas, I found the Clarissa character irritating, self-centered, and generally a bore. The Virginia Woolf character was at first more interesting, but after awhile I realized all she ever did was plot to kill Mrs. Dalloway and pine for the great London. The most fascinating (and well-written) of the three was Laura Brown, but the end of her story just smacked of tying loose ends together. I did enjoy trying to put together how the book paralleled Mrs. Dalloway (down to Mrs. D's/Clarissa's former lover Peter/Louis visiting her on the day of the party, announcing he was in love, and bursting into tears), but all in all, it was a grand disappointment. If only Michael Cunningham would return to the promise of his earliest (well, the earliest in-print) book!

Rating:
Summary: A beautiful, haunting book.
Review: Prior to reading The Hours, I had read only To the Lighthouse by Woolf. My book group chose this book because they all love Woolf. I bought it and it sat for weeks unread until I HAD to read it for the meeting. I did not put it down and for weeks afterward, I am still haunted by the 3 stories and how they intertwine. The author's writing style is lyrical and his ability to undertand what may be in the heart of a woman is amazing. After reading this, I immediately read Mrs. Dalloway and then watched the movie. I am now re-reading The Hours and plan to buy the author's other novel(s).

Rating:
Summary: Reading Cunningham's novel . . . What a lark! What a plunge!
Review: I have not enjoyed a book this much since I read Lolita -- an undisputed triumph by another master stylist. Mr. Cunningham's prose is spectacular - a sublime mix of Woolfian stylistics with an individual voice that harkens back to his heatbreakingly beautiful, Home At the End of the World. I am also astonished by the magnificent sweep shown in a slim book that presents only three June days, one in 1923, another in 1949, and the third in the mid 1990s. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a good read!