The Hours by Michael CunninghamPulitzer Winner 1999
Books-to-Movies Challenge
Three parallel lives are followed through a single day in each life: Mrs Brown, a 1950s housewife who is reading Mrs Dalloway; Clarissa, known as Mrs Dalloway who is living the life, in present day New York, from Mrs Dalloway, the novel; and Mrs Woolf, the author who is writing Mrs Dalloway in 1920s England. Hmm, perhaps I should have read Mrs Dalloway first? I'm pretty sure I missed a lot of the symbolism and parallels that connect this book to Mrs Dalloway. While I usually firmly believe in reading the book first, in this case I think the movie would stand alone better than the book. Now I need to see the movie and see if I am right.
Themes of suicide are throughout; the prologue details the author Virginia Woolf's drowning suicide, Mrs Brown is contemplating it as a means of escaping the life she feels trapped in, and Clarissa deals with the death of a friend. I read about other themes and important symbols at the Sparks notes site. This novel will be discussed at Bookawards Yahoo Group during the month of December and I expect to discover some interesting ideas and themes during that discussion.
However, any book of only 225 pages that takes me over a week to read must have some problems. I didn't connect enough with the story and the characters because it was so busy being important, with symbols and parallels. Not to say that I wasn't interested, because I did want to see how all three stories connected in the end and I would like to read Mrs Dalloway, I think, if only to see where this book came from. But overall, this book was just an okay read, nothing wrong, just not a book that I will rave about or remember too much from. I applaud the author's ambition, and with enough prior knowledge and background, I think I would have enjoyed it more. But there was no prerequisite listed on the cover, and I think there should be.
i picked up both The Hours and Mrs. Dalloway from the library recently, so i can read them for the Book Award and Classic Lit Yahoo Groups (respectively). i guess maybe i ought to start with Mrs. Dalloway ... thanks for the review.
ReplyDeletealison - Most reviews I've read have loved the book, so I hope I don't influence your opinion. It is supposed to stand alone from Mrs Dalloway, but if you have both, I'd read Mrs Dalloway first. It is an homage afterall.
ReplyDeleteI did it in reverse, read The Hours first, then Mrs. Dalloway. While I mildly enjoyed both, I did prefer The Hours. And while I was also a little lukewarm about the movie, I still feel it was one of the best adaptations I've ever seen. If that makes sense.
ReplyDeleteYou wrote such a good review. I just thought I'd write to say I love Mrs Dalloway beyond words. I've read it many times, and I think about it often. This is what I wrote in my journal one time:
ReplyDeleteThis book feels like real life - the way we notice things during a day, and how they remind us of something, and then we think about that for a while. I think Virginia Woolf was the first author to really do this. This is such a good book. Clarissa is about my age, which makes it interesting to me.The last time I read this book, I was in my twenties. I loved it then, but this time it has a greater dimension.