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Amazon.co.uk Review
The Hours is both a homage to Virginia Woolf and very much its own creature. Even as Michael Cunningham brings his literary idol back to life, he intertwines her story with those of two more contemporary women. One grey suburban London morning in 1923, Woolf awakens from a dream that will soon lead to Mrs.Dalloway. In the present, on a beautiful June day in Greenwich Village, 52-year-old Clarissa Vaughan is planning a party for her oldest love, a poet dying of an AIDS-related illness. And in Los Angeles in 1949, Laura Brown, pregnant and unsettled, does her best to prepare for her husband's birthday, but can't seem to stop reading Woolf. These women's lives are linked both by the 1925 novel and by the few precious moments of possibility each keeps returning to. Clarissa is to eventually realise:
There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined ... Still, we cherish the city, the morning; we hope, more than anything, for more.
As Cunningham moves between the three women, his transitions are seamless. One early chapter ends with Woolf picking up her pen and composing her first sentence: "Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself." The next begins with Laura rejoicing over that line and the fictional universe she is about to enter. Clarissa's day, on the other hand, is a mirror of Mrs. Dalloway's--with, however, an appropriate degree of modern bevelling as Cunningham updates and elaborates his source of inspiration. Clarissa knows that her desire to give her friend the perfect party may seem trivial to many. Yet it seems better to her than shutting down in the face of disaster and despair.
Like its literary inspiration, The Hours is a hymn to consciousness and the beauties and losses it perceives. It is also a reminder that, as Cunningham again and again makes us realise, art belongs to far more than just "the world of objects." --Kerry Fried
Review
'The Hours is a book which heightens the perception of the reader. Cunningham's craftmanship is overwheming.' Robert Farren, Sunday Independent * 'An extremely moving, original and memorable novel' Hermione Lee, TLS * 'Engrossing, imaginative and humane.' Richard Francis, Observer
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
25 of 25 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I am compelled to write an impromptu review, seeing that the only other reviewer saw fit to allow a paltry 2 stars to this elegant gem of a book. I first read The Hours over a year ago, after reading several glowing newspaper and magazine reviews. I was not disappointed. This little novel has really stuck in my mind-- I'm sure I will read it again and again in my lifetime.
The great accomplishment of this novel is the way that Cunningham has absolutely captured Virginia Woolf-- her life, her spirit, and her writing style. Had I not known otherwise, I would never have believed that this was written by a man. Her wit, the off-center brilliance of her observations, her malaise and isolation, are all perfectly captured here. But the GENIUS of the story is the way in which her life, and most especially her death, are not made to seem sad, but beautiful and poetic in a way that touches us all. He shows this by linking Woolf in unexpected ways to the lives of two very different women living in different eras. Great literature is transcendant in ways that we rarely appreciate in our day-to-day lives; Cunningham has shown that there can be great poetry and meaning even in shopping, baking, and death.
31 of 32 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I was getting sick of harry potter, I couldn’t handle the hype anymore, so for my next book I wanted a more mature angle to it with no broomsticks in sight!
I needed a book for a school project, a book with enough detail and inspiration to have a basis for an essay. I looked no further than ‘the hours’.
At first I was a bit unsure if it was the right choice but once I started reading I just refused to put it down. This book was by far one of the most inspirational, moving and emotional that I have ever read.
As I read many of the reviews I can see many adults reviewing their best parts of ‘the hours’ and practically writing a whole essay in doing so. But for a book that would blow away a seventeen year old boy, leave him questioning life, leave him out of breath, leave him with a tear on his cheek has to get more than a patronizing “Well done” it deserves more so much more.
I needed a book for a school project, a book with enough detail and inspiration to have a basis for an essay. I looked no further than ‘the hours’.
At first I was a bit unsure if it was the right choice but once I started reading I just refused to put it down. This book was by far one of the most inspirational, moving and emotional that I have ever read.
As I read many of the reviews I can see many adults reviewing their best parts of ‘the hours’ and practically writing a whole essay in doing so. But for a book that would blow away a seventeen year old boy, leave him questioning life, leave him out of breath, leave him with a tear on his cheek has to get more than a patronizing “Well done” it deserves more so much more.
31 of 32 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I felt compelled to write a review of this book since two of the previous reviewers only gave it two stars. Don't believe it!!
This is a truly inspiring and deeply thought-provoking book, based on a profound appreciation of Woolf's novel. It is written with marvellous economy and scholarship, tightly structured around a single day in the lives of three women. The meeting of two of the characters in the final chapter is the least important of the linkages between the three strands and after all that has gone before seems partly irrelevant.
The themes of 'Mrs Dalloway' which the book picks up and develops are among the most simple and entrancing - love, loss, consciousness, how and why we go on living. And I'm sure there's plenty that I missed.
I'm looking forward to re-reading this book and I do encourage those readers who didn't appreciate it first time round to do the same. This powerful little book may not reveal all it's depths to you without a little work but that should do nothing to diminish your enjoyment of it.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Favourite book of all time
This book is just amazing. No review will ever do it justice, and neither will the film. It is a literary masterpiece where the reader is just completely sucked into the lives of... Read more
Published 9 days ago by R Elliott
Well written but generally rather boring
This was a fine novel in terms of being innovative (e.g. the portrayal of different consciousnesses as they are met) and in its erudition relating to Virginia Woolf and different... Read more
Published 26 days ago by Cole Davis
Hated it
this was the only book I have ever binned, it didn't work for me at all. Didn't like the characters or the plot, but at least it had got me to read Mrs Dalloway in "preparation"... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Jay P
seductive
Virginia Woolf is starting a new novel, Mrs Brown is trying to escape her family so she can read a Virginia Woolf novel, Mrs Dalloway is arranging a party for a dying friend who... Read more
Published 1 month ago by murmuration
Clever, Elegant and Moving
A very clever adaptation of the story of Mrs Dalloway. Cunningham weaves together three stories in interlinking chapters. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Kate Hopkins
The Hours: Michael Cunningham
Replete with references to the work of Virginia Woolf, The Hours is a beautifully written novel. The narrative is split into numerous chapters from differing epochs during the 20th... Read more
Published 3 months ago by N. A. Spencer
Good but the film was much better
The Hours follows the day in the life of three women, Virginia Woolf in 1920s London, Laura Brown in 1940s Los Angeles and Clarissa Dalloway in 1990s New York. Read more
Published 6 months ago by J. Willis
The hours of good reading
SAFE READING - NO SPOILERS
"Ollie" of Renfrewshire writes so well of this book, it is a review worth reading as it captures many of my own feelings. Read more
"Ollie" of Renfrewshire writes so well of this book, it is a review worth reading as it captures many of my own feelings. Read more
Published 9 months ago by RR Waller
like sampling many fine liqueurs, but much more as well
These stories intertwine in a wonderful and very moving way. The writing is simply beautiful, the tone perfectly expresses the tug between inspiration and the bleakness of everyday... Read more
Published 12 months ago by rob crawford
Promises more than it delivers
I usually find the Pulitzer Prize to be a much better indication of quality than the Booker, and this winner from 1999 doesn't alter my opinion. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Phil O'Sofa
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