Book Review: The Hours

Reviewed By: Woodstock - RAM

The Hours     Amazon US PB Amazon Canada PB
Michael Cunningham
Class/Genre:   Fiction
...

Virginia Woolf is one of those authors I tell myself every so often that I really SHOULD read. I never have. According to notes by the author himself, and dozens of comments from various reviewers, this book is Cunningham's homage to Woolf, based on themes from her book "Mrs Dalloway" and incorporating an imaginary day from Woolf's life as some of the events in the book.

However, I don't think you need to have prior knowledge of Woolf to enjoy this book quite a bit. It's short - less than 250 pages, yet deals with intriguing themes, and told in an intriguing style.

A single day in the lives of three women - Woolf herself in 1923, a resident of New York's Greenwich Village in the late 1990's, and a suburban wife in 1950's Los Angeles. The three lives are distinctly related to each other, yet Cunningham doesn't tie them together directly until quite near the end of the book.

But before that, the alternating trio complement and amplify each other quite beautifully. What does it mean to be alive at one single moment? How do events in the past, vividly remembered, impact who we are right now? Would it ever be possible simply to turn aside from responsibility and the dailiness of life? Would that mean dying, or would another type of escape present itself?

Woolf, needless to say, is an historical character, and she did take her own life in the early 1940's. One of the other two women is satisfied to live each moment as it comes, the other toys with another identity, the sublimated pull of another sexual orientation, and the intrigue of suicide.

The edition I read displays a big gold logo - proclaiming it the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Not familiar with all the nominees in 1998 (?) I would neverthless agree that this particular book is worthy of an award.

Woodstock - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Woodstock - RAM