The Hours by Michael Cunningham
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Book Reviews of The Hours
Book Review: A Kaleidoscopic Tale
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the perfect book for lovers of Contemporary fiction.A very deep and moving book with complex characters and situations, all of which the reader will be able to relate to in some form.
Mr. Cunningham introduces us to the main characters in the book who are three women living in three different centuries. Virginia Woolfe, Karen Brown and Clarissa Dolloway's stories intertwine in such a smart unbelievable pattern that by the time you reach the end of the novel you will be opened-mouthed in wonderment and surprise.
Virginia is a writer in the 1920's, suffering from a mental imbalance and putting together a book entitled:- Ms. Dolloway. Laura Brown is a Los Angeles housewife in the 1950's....a post World War 2 bride suffocating in her role as the good housewife and mother as she attempts to bake a cake for her husband's birthday that day. Clarissa Dolloway in the year 2002 is acting as hostess by planning a party for her ex lover who is dying with Aids and is about to receive one of the biggest Literary prizes for his latest work.
Michael Cunningham latest accomplishment is laced with emotion. Rooted in these pages are emotions of despair, anguish, low self esteem, and suicidal thoughts amongst others. But little by little the reader will come to love all of those characters, and empathise with them for after all they are very much everyday people like you and me.
A wonderful piece! A kaleidoscopic tale! A five star rating!
Book Review: A riveting read - I really didn't expect that!
Summary: 5 Stars
I borrowed this from my wife after running out of vacation reading of my own. I didn't really expect to get much out of it and was delighted to find that it was truly beautiful and a very easy read.The concept for the hours comes from Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway, a book I haven't read. I can't comment on whether you would get more from this novel if you had read Mrs Dalloway first but it's certainly not essential. The basic idea behind Mrs Dalloway are clearly brought out in the chapters that act as a kind of one-day biography for Virginia Woolf.
I also haven't seen the movie; my wife, who has, felt that the film had done such a good job that she didn't get much out of the book.
The novel intertwines the semi-biographical aspects of a day in Virginia Woolf's life with that of two American women. One is a homemaker in the late 40s who is reading Mrs Dalloway and wondering if her condition can shed light on what is wrong in her life; the other is a woman in New York in the nineties planning a party for her dying friend Richard. Both stories are neatly intertwined with Mrs Dalloway in a number of ways both plotwise and thematically.
And it is this intertwining that pulls the book along so well. It would have been so easy to spoil the flow or make things to obvious but Michael Cunningham succeeds beautifully in making the independent lives so connected for the brief day.
Book Review: A beautifully written book...
Summary: 5 Stars
I had to choose a book to read for a book report for my high school english class. I went to Borders and started to look around. The Hours soon caught my eye, and I decided that it seemed like a good choice. I first heard about this story the first time anything was said about the upcoming movie in Entertainment Weekly, me being an entertainment fan and all. I was familiar with the story, so I had a slight idea of what it was about. At first it was just something to get through, to finish for my book report. A few pages into it, I realized what an outstanding book it was and actually wanted to read it. It is an amazingly descriptive book filled with beautiful writing, and I soon found it impossible to put down. I kept imagining Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman as the main characters, being that they play them in the movie. They connect so well with these characters that you can't really help but admire their characters in a way. When I did my book report for the class, people seemed interested in what I had to say, and I got a lot of questions afterwards. The movie just opened, and I plan to go see it. It looks just as amazing as the book was. I can honestly say that this was probably the best book I have ever read. If anybody asked me what a good book to read was, I would immediately tell them to read The Hours.Book Review: Transcends being just a good book. It's a work of art!
Summary: 5 Stars
Woven together with a master's hand, this is the story of three women in three different time periods. One of them is the legendary Virginia Woolf, whose writing style and introspection sets the mood. We learn at the beginning that she takes her own life it 1941, but her story takes place in 1923 as she begins to write "Mrs. Dalloway". The second story is set in the present and features the very modern middle-aged Clarissa Vaughn, who lives in my own familiar neighborhood in New York City. And then there is Laura Brown, living in a California suburb with her husband and young son in 1949. These women have both nothing and everything in common, and, as they go about their lives on one particular June day with the hours stretching in front of them, a mood is created that sets the stage for the very satisfactory surprise ending.The book is a mere 228 pages, and yet I had to read it slowly, putting it down every now and then and letting the images wash over me. The author's words became the echoing chime of a bell, stirring my own memories and introducing a new perspective. When a book can do all that it transcends being just a good story. It is a work of art. It's a troubling book, and not pleasant to read. It deals with life and death and the hours of our lives. And it sheds light upon it all. Highly recommended.
Book Review: Beautifully Written and a Joy to Read
Summary: 5 Stars
I loved this book. Thoroughly and completely, I loved this book. I am shocked that there are 48 people who gave this book a rating of 1 star. I have never read Virginia Woolf's, Mrs. Dalloway, and I probably won't. But this fact did not take away any enjoyment or appreciation I felt for this book. To each their own, I suppose. From the first paragraph I was hooked. The words are beautiful and profound. I was amazed how Michael Cunningham could create such real and vivid characters, with such insightful, intuitive thoughts and observations. In reading over the thoughts of each character there were times I thought, "I've felt this way." or "I have thought that myself," and often I was amazed that such thoughts were so well articulated and richly described. The words flow beautifully from page to page and I love the way the storylines come together. When I was down to the final 10 or so pages, I was both excited to keep going and sad that the pages flew by so quickly and the story would soon end. Nevertheless, I appreciate how the author tied up loose ends instead of dropping the reader off at the curb. I completely understand why this book won a Pulitzer prize. If you are looking for a though provoking, honest account of life, it's beauty and blunders, then this is a book worth reading.