Rating: 
Summary: Movie is much better
Review: This is a first -- a movie that was much, much better than the book. The characters in the movie were more nuanced, more ambiguous and ultimately more believable. By contrast, the book beats the reader over the head with its overwrought emotion. I felt condescended to by the book, somehow. Go see the movie -- it is a masterpiece.
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Summary: Haven't seen the movie yet.
Review: I'm not sure how well this will work as a movie, but as a book, it's excellent. The streams of conciousness are very well done, and it's exquisitely written. Cunningham's a genius, folks.
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Summary: I Like the Book and the Movie!
Review: I won't give a synopsis, as that has been done by several others and will just tell you what I thought. I saw the movie first, really liked it, then read the book. I don't know, honestly, which I feel is the best. As the reviews will tell you, this is the sort of book you either love or don't like much. I found it a wonderful read. I loved the way Cunninghan did as Woolf did, confined the storyline to one day. The women characters are beautifully presented. I feel the book pays homage to Woolf and will bring about much interest in her writing.
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Summary: Great Writing
Review: It is the most beautiful written book I have read for my book club this season. The story line and characterization, however, left something to be desire.
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Summary: deft use of multiple generations in plot
Review: a touching, moving tribute to the mind of Virginia Woolf, which actually elevates her story to something that probably would have made her proud. While the "Educate everyone about AIDS" theme sometimes feels like it's being force fed to us (and if I see one more novel-turned-into-movie book with the cheesy actor shot on the cover, I may scream), this is an inventive, highly creative story worthy of the praise it is getting.The characters are rich in development and a true insight is gained into the inner workings of their diverse hopes, dreams and failures. What a mind to come up with such a crafty, ingenious plotline!
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Summary: Benign and overly crafted
Review: I have never struggled less reading a modern literary novel. It was virtually a page-turner. Although I didn't identify with any of the main characters--the ficitionalized Virginia Woolf who we meet at the point in her career when she is writing MRS. DALLOWAY; Laura Brown, a young mother living in post-WWII America who makes lousy birthday cakes, harbors lesbian tendencies, and wishes only to stay in bed and read MRS. DALLOWAY all day; and Clarissa Vaughn, a present-day lesbian mother and editor who is the primary caregiver to a male poet dying from AIDS and whom the poets refers to as MRS. DALLOWAY--I didn't despise them either. The patient reader will discover that it is more than the fictional Mrs. Dalloway that connects the book's three protagonists whose lives span three generations, but to say more about this would undermine one of the book's few surprises. Cunningham's prose is flawless and narcotizing. Mercifully, he does not attempt to give us stream of consciousness writing. Observations and descriptions (even about things like flowers) are never decorative and gratuitous. Shifts in points of view are subtle, but always well signalled. The reader should never doubt that Cunningham is in control of his story. (If Cunningham is embodied in any one of his characters, I suspect it is the outward-oriented, ever-busy, and always in control Clarissa Vaughn.) What I find puzzling after finishing the book is how such a well-made book can be so emotionally unimpressive. Although the book culminates around a single dramatic event and the three separate strands of the narrative are drawn together, there doesn't seem to be much of a point. (The movie made from this novel seems to have stuggled with the same issue and responded by adding an improbable closing speech for an elderly Laura Brown.) Perhaps there is no point and Cunningham is making a coy play at being postmodern; or perhaps the point is that all of us--famous authors, disenchanted 50s housewives, or modern activist types--struggle with the same banal unraveling of the hours that make up our alotted time on earth. Karma is a big cosmic joke and our own pathetic lives are the punch line. Amusing detail: Meryl Streep who plays Clarissa Vaughn in the movie is mentioned in passing in an early chapter of the novel.
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Summary: Glorious
Review: Reading this book again after over three years, I am still astonished at its beauty, grace, and scope. Blending the stories of a day in each of the lives of three women, "The Hours" evokes how intertwined human lives are and how much impact each moment can have. The novel opens with Virginia Woolf's suicide in 1941, but then backtracks to the day she begins writing "Mrs Dalloway", which is the first of her great works. Another story is post-World War II where a woman is reading "Mrs Dalloway" and is discovering her crisp life to be utterly constricting. The third story is a modern retelling of "Mrs Dalloway". By contrasting the deaths in the story with the minutiae of daily existence, Cunningham inspires the reader with the often-overlooked beauty that surrounds us. One cannot help but fall in love, as Cunningham has, with Virginia Woolf and her brilliant mind.
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Summary: These are the hours
Review: I wanted to read this book for a few years now since it's publication, but I never did. But when the movie came out and has so far been highly awarded as well I thought I should give the book a read. I have not seen the movie and I'm not sure about the movie after I read the amazing Novel. I'm so glad I started with Cunningham's novel because it is in one word: beautiful. I am a Woolf fan as well and I was amazed by how Cunningham was able to take the true essense of Woolf and create a truly different and complex novel. What is amazing about Woolf and Cunningham is the depth they place behind the characters. There is little talking in the book and little plot, but what is behind what is being said and done is the true message. Woolf's whole idea in writing was to explore the silence between people, all things left unsaid, all our inner thoughts and emotions, and in the end the big question is: do we ever truly know another human being? Cunningham has the very same ability in this novel as Woolf does in hers. I read this novel so quickly all in one day and I just felt tired afterward, I was drained of feeling. At first, as with Woolf's novels, I was depressed by the book, but I think going back and looking at it again I see the hint of hope that lies in the end of the novel, which is how many of Woolf's novels work as well. I highly recommend this amazing story of three women who all seem to be lacking something in their lives. Follow them through one day and explore the hours that help create them as complex and truly amazingly written characters.
My advice would be to read the novel before viewing the film. I plan to see the movie but I fear it will go against everything that Woolf and Cunningham are aiming at, I hope I'm surprised by the movie, but regardless this book is worth your Hours.
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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.
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