The Hours

Cunningham, Michael

ISBN 10: 0007166311 ISBN 13: 9780007166312

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2003

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review:

‘“The Hours” is a book which heightens the perception of the reader. Cunningham’s craftsmanship is overwhelming.’ Robert Farren, Independent on Sunday

‘An extremely moving, original and memorable novel.’ Hermione Lee, TLS

‘Engrossing, imaginative and humane.’ Richard Francis, Observer

‘“The Hours” refracts the lives of three women through the prism of a single day. Michael Cunningham evokes these three discrete characters with rare skill.’ Financial Times

‘The concept behind the novel is bold, the execution rich with feeling.’ Helen Dunmore, The Times

‘A sensitive marriage of intelligence, integrity and finely textured emotions.’ Sunday Times

‘Cunningham has found an American tone which is exhilaratingly modern – tense, tender and completely without strain.’ Guardian

From the Publisher:

An exquisite novel inspired by the life of Virginia Woolf.
Exiled to Richmond in the late 1920s, taken from her beloved Bloomsbury and lovingly watched over by her husband Leonard, Virginia Woolf struggles to tame her rebellious mind and make a start on her new novel. In the brooding heat of 1940s Los Angeles, a young wife and mother yearns to escape the claustrophobia of suburban domesticity and read her precious copy of Mrs Dalloway. And in New York City in the 1990s, Clarissa Vaughan steps out of her apartment and goes shopping for flowers for the party she is giving in honour of her life-long friend Richard, an award-winning poet whose mind and body are being ravaged by AIDS.

These are the characters in Michael Cunningham's exquisite and deeply moving new novel, which takes Woolf's life and work as the inspiration for a meditation on artistic endeavour, failure, love and madness.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0007166311
• ISBN 13: 9780007166312
• Binding: Audio CD