Reading The Hours

My 1998 edition.

It seems absurd that I was not drawn to Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway (1925) by previous readings of Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Hours (1998). Cunningham's work has been a favorite of mine since I first read it 25 years ago. I enjoyed it a couple of times before the excellent film adaptation came out in 2003. I recall going to see the film with Jennifer's mother, who was always an avid reader. That was the second time I watched the film. As far as I recall I saw it the first time alone, as I do many films.

But I knew her mom would enjoy both the book and the film. I had to hasten her to finish the novel before we saw the film. There is a wonderful full-circle kind of twist to the end of the novel that you can surprise you as a reader, though astute ones can probably see it coming. The film would ruin this for the reader, however, even astute ones. She managed to finish it and enjoyed both presentations of the story just as I did.

Back then I was in search of the ”Great American contemporary novel” (I still am) and thought Cunningham might have written that. The prose is wonderful, the narrative highly gripping, but though it is a great novel it isn't the great contemporary American novel. My search continued (and still does today). Nevertheless, reading it again after all these years is as entertaining as ever. Cunningham pulls off a terrific story of sophistication without getting lost in the details. Not every superb novel is the greatest thing ever written. The Hours doesn't have to be.

But I never connected it with the intimacy of Woolf's novel until now. And that does seem absurd. The Hours screams of Virginia Woolf and the writing of Mrs. Dalloway. There are plenty of other references between Cunningham and Woolf here. Both books are brief, almost the same length, about 240 pages. Woolf is featured prominently in The Hours as is her process of writing Mrs. Dalloway. But this is getting ahead of myself. I'll tell it along the way.

The Hours is primarily about three women, living in three different eras. Clarissa is Richard's best friend and former lover. She sets out to buy flowers (like Clarissa Dalloway) for a party she is hosting in Richard's honor that night. The celebration is because Richard is receiving a major literary award for his poetry. He also happens to be suffering from AIDS. He and Clarissa fell in love long ago when they were 19. At that time Richard was bi-sexual and had a separate relationship with a man, Louis. Being literary minded and an obvious admirer of Woolf, Richard nicknames Clarissa “Mrs. Dalloway” after the character of the same in the novel.

Laura Brown is a housewife in the 1950's raising her son, a young boy, and trying to make the day special for her husband when he gets home from work. It is his birthday and she bakes him a cake. Actually, two cakes, the first one is a flop in her mind. Failure is one of many themes in the novel, but I'll get to that. She is enraptured with reading Mrs. Dalloway, it brings great inspiration to her mundane life.

Then there is Virginia Woolf herself. She commits suicide in the prologue of the novel, death by drowning, as in real life (death). Throughout the novel, Cunningham rewards the reader by taking us into her mind as she is debating various aspects of writing Mrs. Dalloway. She is uncertain of some aspects as she undertakes the novel. She changes her mind about whether or not her Clarissa will die in the story (she won't). She desperately wants to move away from the country where she has gone for her flagging mental health and back to London where she feels more fulfilled though city life is not best for her fragile condition. She hears voices in her head, as does Richard, for that matter. Is Cunningham suggesting it comes with the writing process?

There are others, of course. Clarissa's life is filled with friends and her daughter who is romantically involved with a rather butch girl that Clarissa can't stand. Richard's former male lover, Louis, briefly visits with Clarissa that afternoon. She lives the most social life in the novel. Laura is more or less trapped in the suburban housewife trope of the 1950's. She has a friend, Kitty, who she shares a brief kiss during a visit, contemplating passion, similarly to the subtle, gay undertones suggested in Mrs. Dalloway. Woolf has her husband, Leonard, who is looking after her with some due concern. The thick affects of a mental disorder hang over her.

These characters, along with a few more, give the novel its breadth. Cunningham's writing style is obviously influenced by Woolf's, among others, though he does not render his characters with the same strong use of stream of consciousness as appears in Mrs. Dalloway. While this technique is used in The Hours it is not as pervasive and the narrative technique is more conventional, though the prose in some sections is often grand.

There are supposedly many themes to The Hours. I have experienced different ones at different times of my life, reading this work. The fine prose and the themes are what make this book so re-readable. One theme in the work concerns human failure. Virginia feels she has failed at life. She is inauthentic. She feels that isn't a writer at all but “merely a gifted eccentric.” She can't keep the voices in her head from coming back. For her, the mental condition is a sign of failure. The sense of failure pervades her life and involves the lives of those closest to her. They have all failed in Virginia's mind.

Richard is of the same mind. He feels like a failure with his career. Though his poetry is renowned, his novel failed to succeed. He felt he was a genius and the failure of the novel along with his hypercritical nature toward his poetry and himself as a writer makes him think otherwise now. He is somewhat embarrassed by considering himself so highly. And now, suffering with the anxiety and depression that can come from AIDS, he feels like a complete failure.

Clarissa failed at her attempts of have sex with Louis in what could have been an ménage à trois with he and Richard when she was in college. She fears her party will fail because Richard will be bored at it and everyone will have a terrible time. Laura fails in the first attempt at her husband's birthday cake. Like Richard, but in a different timeline and context, she wants to create something special for her husband. But she has failed. She internalizes this and thinks there is something wrong with her. Further, she feels that her child notices her failure and will always know what a failure she has become, in neurotic thoughts similar those that haunt Virginia.

Cunningham offers a complex take on failure, though it is often secondary and subtle in the novel. Some cannot escape the sense of failure. They are suffocated by it and ultimately kill themselves (Richard and Virginia) Some suffer through it and go on beyond the sense of failure, like Laura and Clarissa. He seems to say we all feel like failure in our own way. It is what we do with that feeling that is a matter of life and death.

Like many novels, The Hours is as much a celebration of the power of literature as anything else. It is a homage to great literature and becomes great in itself in this way. Woolf writes and struggles with it, Laura reads and it helps her with her struggles, Clarissa has read it and it has been incorporated to her life by Richard in the form of a nickname. Literature is shared and transferred from one person to another in the most intimate ways.

Virginia grapples with her own precarious mental health while crafting her novel. By placing Woolf in the narrative, Cunningham not only honors her genius but also delves into the intimate, often tumultuous process of literary creation. Woolf’s struggles and triumphs as she writes reveal the profound personal cost and immense satisfaction that come with producing a masterpiece. Her character embodies the notion that literature is not merely an art form but a lifeline, a way to make sense of the chaos within and around us.

Laura's story line puts flesh and bones into the power of literature. As a 1950s housewife feeling trapped in her domestic life, Laura finds solace and escape in reading Mrs. Dalloway. Her immersion in Woolf’s prose offers her a refuge from her own existential despair and highlights how reading can provide a means of connection and understanding, even across vast differences in time and circumstance. Through Laura, Cunningham illustrates the intimate relationship between a reader and a text, showing how a book can offer comfort, inspiration, and a sense of companionship.

Clarissa, the modern-day incarnation of Mrs. Dalloway, exemplifies how literature can shape and define our identities. Richard’s nickname for her, “Mrs. Dalloway,” is more than an affectionate moniker; it is a recognition of the profound influence Woolf’s character has had on Richard's and Clarissa’s lives. Pervading their intimacy. The themes and emotions explored in Mrs. Dalloway—love, loss, and the passage of time—resonate deeply with Clarissa, shaping her reflections on her past and her relationships. Clarissa allows Cunningham to show that literature is not static; it is a living, breathing entity that continues to speak to us, inform us, and shape our lives long after the reading.

Cunningham’s novel also pays homage to the interconnectedness of literary works. By drawing direct parallels between The Hours and Mrs. Dalloway, he creates a dialogue between the two texts that probably enriches the reader’s experience of both. The echoes of Woolf’s narrative structure, themes, and characters in The Hours serve to deepen our understanding of how literature can create a rich matrix of shared human experience, transcending the boundaries of time and place.

Furthermore, The Hours highlights the cyclical nature of literary inspiration. Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway inspires Cunningham’s The Hours, which in turn inspires readers to revisit Woolf’s work, creating a perpetual cycle of influence and inspiration. This cyclical process underscores the enduring relevance of great literature and its ability to continually inspire new generations of readers and writers. I know this all to well, for I discovered this rewarding cycle with this reading.

My initial extended quote I offered in my review of Mrs. Dalloway is an excellent example of Woolf's wonderful prose. Part of the reason I selected it is because that full quote is featured in The Hours as Laura reads it. Like all great literature, it resonates with the reader and frequently reenters their mind as they go through the rest of their day. So it is with the words “life; London; this moment in June.” Laura considers them throughout the day. She finds it strange that anyone who could have written those paragraphs could have gone on to commit suicide. Isn't there so much more to live for?

“...life; London; this moment in June” has resonated with me through the years because I read and reread in The Hours. Usually in June of a random year I will recall this part of Cunningham's novel where he quotes from Mrs. Dalloway. It is the culmination of a long stream of consciousness which takes us inside the character of Clarissa Dalloway as she walks through London to get flowers for her party. She is thinking mostly about the past but then these words come through and the reader suddenly realizes she is enraptured with the day itself.

This phrase is quoted five times in the novel. Four of these are Laura first reading the section of text and then reflecting upon it like a mantra throughout the course of her day of watching her child and making a birthday cake for her husband. But she shortens the fifth one to “...life; London...” the original idea/experience in Virginia's mind. It is Woolf's concept of these few words that inspire Laura. Cunningham explores this resonance of text and reader beautifully, with Virginia's resolve to continue writing and “remain sane.” It is a glorious London day in her mind and she puts the reader in the middle of it.

Unlike Woolf's novel, there is a future in The Hours. Of course, not for Virginia or Richard but for Laura the future is a dull, hour by hour (the hours) struggle punctuated by books like the glorious Mrs. Dalloway. It is that simple. Sometimes literature can change you or even save your life. Clarissa continues with her party in Richard's honor on the evening that he commits suicide (another close association with Mrs. Dalloway - Clarissa's party and Septimus's suicide), but she is also carrying on with her life. She realizes that it isn't about the party at all, it's about the hour after that and the hour after that, clearly there is a future scope unique to Clarissa compared with Virginia and Laura. Unlike them, Clarissa does not dread the coming hours, hence, the future.

The two Clarissa's are the true note of hope in both novels. Mrs, Dalloway decides to go back to her party and carry on after she learns of Septimus's suicide. A woman nicknamed “Mrs. Dalloway” is carrying on after the death of Richard, looking beyond the party. Cunningham's prose is extraordinary here, tying it all together in a way Woolf's fragmented world did not attempt, being trapped in malaise.

“Yes, Clarissa thinks, it’s time for the day to be over. We throw our parties; we abandon our families to live alone in Canada; we struggle to write books that do not change the world, despite our gifts and our unstinting efforts, our most extravagant hopes. We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep—it’s as simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out of windows or drown themselves or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us, the vast majority, are slowly devoured by some disease or, if we’re very fortunate, by time itself. 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, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) knows these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning; we hope, more than anything, for more.”

The Hours is more than a novel; it is a tribute to the enduring power of literature. Through the lives of its characters, Cunningham celebrates the creation and enjoyment of great literature, illustrating how the literary arts can offer solace, shape identities, and connect us across the ages. His novel stands as a testament to the transformative power of words and the profound impact that a single book can have on our lives. While The Hours may not make my Top Five books, it firmly holds a place in my heart, a testament to its enduring impact and literary excellence.

(Written with assistance from ChatGPT.)