Short & Sweet Treats discussion

The Hours by Michael Cunningham "tells the story of three women: Virginia Woolf, beginning to write Mrs. Dalloway as she recuperates in a London suburb with her husband in 1923; Clarissa Vaughan, beloved friend of an acclaimed poet dying from AIDS, who in modern-day New York is planning a party in his honor; and Laura Brown, in a 1949 Los Angeles suburb, who slowly begins to feel the constraints of a perfect family and home. By the end of the novel, these three stories intertwine in remarkable ways, and finally come together in an act of subtle and haunting grace."

The Hours is the winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Looking forward to it!

Me too Sandy! :)

I'm going to try and get to this before the end of January.

I started it as well; it immediately made me want to find my old copy of Mrs Dalloway & compare some of the phrasing etc. I'm 48 pages in, having been introduced to all three characters now, and am enjoying it too.

I was going to read this before starting The Count of Monte Cristo for another group, but I failed on my self control... But hopefully I'll start this before the end of the month!

I'm expecting my book to arrive in the mail tomorrow. I'm looking forward to getting started!

Sandy, I'm only 50 pages into the book and was thinking the same thing. It's been hard for me to get into it. I thought at first it was because I started it at night and was sleepy. I've been hoping that I'd get more into. We'll see!

I watched the film then read the book it helped me enjoy the book more as I felt it was abit flighty x

I'm about half way through the book and am enjoying it more than I did for the first 50 or so pages. I haven't seen the movie. Interested to see where it will lead!

I finished it! It turned out to be a much better book (to me) than I originally thought. It's definitely not one I'd consider a "must read". It will be interesting to see if my opinion changes any with time and more thought. I'm looking forward to hearing others' thoughts on the book.

My difficulty with this book is the author's writing style. His writing tends to be overly descriptive for me. I find that I lose track of what the character is actually thinking and in what time and place they actually are (is it present day? Are they remembering? Was it part of the story?) I'm not done yet, but appreciate the comment on watching the movie to perhaps help me along.

I found the characters pretty neurotic & unsympathetic, kind of like reading a Woody Allen script. I love a character (or preferably several characters) I can care about & enjoy. Coincidentally I'm now reading another book with 3 female characters who speak in alternating chapters. (Baggage)

This PBS interview with Cunningham, done after The Hours won the Pulitzer Prize in 1999, is worth reading. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entert...

In it, he says:
"I wanted to look at the highs and lows of the creative impulse and see how, in many ways, any creative act is essentially the same act. So I have on one hand Virginia Woolf beginning to write what will be a novel that will outlive us all. And another one of the three interwoven stories involves a housewife at the end of World War II in Los Angeles who’s baking a cake. And I found that I was able to write convincingly about that housewife, a woman named Laura Brown, by thinking of her as a serious artist, by thinking of somebody doing something every bit as serious in her kitchen, trying to bake a perfect cake, as Virginia Woolf was say the sitting down that day in 1923 trying to write the perfect novel."

The interweaving of the novel with Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf makes for challenging reading, but then Cunningham is always challenging imho (I'm reading The Bone Clocks now, and taking notes).

Thanks for the link Julia! I'm going to wait and watch it after I'm done reading though. I plan to start the book tomorrow.

I was fully planning on reading this book, but I mean to read Mrs. Dalloway first. I look forward to coming back and reading the discussion.

Holly wrote: "I was fully planning on reading this book, but I mean to read Mrs. Dalloway first. I look forward to coming back and reading the discussion."

Sandy, Let me know what you think. It seems that the book hit us in similar ways. It'll be interesting to see if you think of the movie.

So far I'm on page 50/226:

I for one am totally mesmerized by this one - something delicious about wading through these currents and waves of words, enchanting! I love how it appeals to all of my senses: in just the first couple sections, the tactile vibrations of trucks through the wood of the docks, the sounds of the old woman's song, the numerous images of photographic sharpness.

"Even if we're further gone than Richard; even if we're fleshless, blazing with lesions, shitting in the sheets; still we want desperately to live. It has to do with all this, she thinks. Wheels buzzing on concrete, the roil and shock of it; sheets of bright spray blowing from the fountain as young shirtless men toss a Frisbee and vendors (from Peru, from Guatemala) send pungent, meaty smoke up from their quilted silver carts...."

A bit crass but it rolls gorgeously off the tongue!

Such lush writing is not for everyone - as Holly says it can be disorienting, but it definitely suits my taste. Even if the book had nothing else going for it, this style would be enough to hold my attention.

But I also feel quite a lot of subtlety of characterization building already in the first 50 pages. Yes, Mrs. Brown in particular is neurotic, but I do feel for her. No doubt Woolf was neurotic also, though undoubtedly brilliant! I already begin to get the feel for what it's like in the heads of these three women. Thousands of pages can't always do that for me. I find it impressive at 50.

Perhaps Woolf would have considered this book dismayingly unserious with its slight concessions to traditional storytelling techniques; brilliance can after all be a bit imperious! But I like it very, very well so far.

A bit of a hybrid - some of the lush ecstasy of Woolf's enchantment with everyday thoughts & details in all their glory mixed with a more accessible (and slightly more traditional) development & unfolding of psychology/character.

The Mrs. Brown section did have quite a lot of quoting from Mrs. Dalloway. On the written page, it's easier to tell which is which (by the italics). The audio version has issues with clarity in the Mrs. Brown sections because there's no method to convey those breaks.

Sandy, it does strike me as a bit odd to quote entire pages of Mrs. Dalloway as Cunningham does. I agree with you on that. I'm not sure if it's proper, but I'm enjoying it so much that it's not bothering me just yet.

I think maybe this is more of a book for poetry lovers book due to the lushness of the language. I can totally understand why others might not like it - really a matter of personal taste.

I still have more than three-quarters of the book to read; so a lot could change. These are just my current thoughts. Goodness, this has gotten long - sorry for my long-windedness!

Greg, I really like your "long-windedness", which shows true attention Woolf's power of language. And you make an excellent point about her writing being "more of a book for poetry lovers." Thanks for sharing your thoughtful reactions.

Thanks Julia :)

I just finished today over my lunch hour. What a clever way to tie the stories together, (view spoiler)[to have Mrs Brown be Richard's mother. What a relief too! I was worried the end would be three suicides, which would've just been too depressing. Instead, the Mrs Brown sections end up providing a lot of insight into why Richard was the person he was. (hide spoiler)]

A few random thoughts:

1. I love Clarissa's frustration with Mary Krull. When Clarissa thinks "You want to scream at Mary Krull ... you want her to come inside your head for a few days and feel the worries and sorrows," I am right with her. How exhausting righteousness is when it's not tempered by empathy!

2. I love the perfection of word choice throughout. It is such a beautifully suggestive book. For instance, even in this seemingly simple description of Virginia and Leonard: "They look into the window of the butcher's shop, where they are reflected, brokenly, in the golden letters." Just gorgeous: "butcher," "broken," "golden," each word freighted with so many connotations. Cunningham has a bit of a poet's temperament, I think.

3. This scene strikes me as remarkably perceptive. No matter how loving a couple might be, who hasn't felt this way in at least one fleeting moment with their husband, wife, or partner?: (view spoiler)["...Sally can tell from her voice that something's wrong. Is she about to walk into one of those little ambushes.... Has she stepped, with her boquet and her nascent desire, into a scene of domestic peevishness, the world gone gray and morbid because she has once again revealed her selfishness and left something undone, failed to clean something, forgotten some important call? Her joy fades; her lust evaporates. She walks into her living room with the roses." (hide spoiler)]

Throughout, there's a lovely melancholy, an unflinching analysis of the human condition, but thankfully this "truth" is tempered by a clear-headed but ecstatic love for life as well as .. I guess the best word for it would be kindness. This kindness comes out again and again, especially in the Mrs Dolloway sections. It comes out in Clarissa's reactions to Mary Krull. It comes out again and again in ways more or less subtle. For instance, Clarissa's thoughts again: "These days, Clarissa believes, you measure people first by their kindness and capacity for devotion. You get tired, sometimes, of wit and intellect...." Without these softening influences, the story would be hard for me to take. With them, it elevates the story; it's sad yes, but not grindingly so.

I quite enjoyed the book, and I suspect I will keep thinking of it for quite a while. These characters are going to stick with me. I care for them. Overall, for me, a haunting, beautiful book!

Wonderful insights, Greg--you really "get" Woolf, especially in your appreciation of her "perfection of word choice". Thanks so much.

I think I'll have to hold off a bit on reading this...

I was going to go ahead and read it without reading Woolf first but since it looks like Mrs. Dalloway has a good chance of getting picked in another group for March and I've already got more than enough to keep me busy for the rest of this month, I may as well wait until I've read that one first just so I can get as much as possible out of The Hours.

Thanks Julia! :)

Melanti, while I don't think a prior knowledge of Mrs. Dalloway is a requirement to enjoy the book, I do think it enriched the experience for me. So I think that's not a bad plan.

My pleasure Sandy! It might just be that you don't care for the stream of consciousness style, and if so, there's nothing wrong with that! It's a matter of personal taste I think. Your reactions are valid and shared by many! I'd say though that The Hours is only lightly stream-of-consciousness in comparison to Mrs. Dalloway which is much more heavily stream-of-consciousness. So you might find that one even more frustrating. :) Or who knows, perhaps you'll love it!

The way I think of it, stream of consciousness writing is trying to approximate more of a person's raw thoughts and impressions; so it can be a little disorienting. It isn't predigested to help the reader enter the story. If you read enough works in that style, you might get more used to it, but you might still not like it. I generally do, but not always; a few extreme examples by Joyce do tax my patience.

I maintain my low rating of the book. But I really liked how the stories of Laura Brown and Clarissa finally merge at the end (or at least that's when I realized that they merged, after Richard had killed himself). It was very Dickens, which I love. I went back through the story trying to see how Virginia Woolf's story might have also been connected, outside of the fact that she wrote Mrs. Dalloway, but I couldn't find that one last connection that would have really pulled the story together for me.

It seems I am an outlier in this discussion, but I love this book; I love all of it. Every word and sentence is perfect to me. Cunningham writes with a sort of dreamy detachment and with a word choice that you do not encounter on a day to day basis.

I have not read Mrs. Dalloway, but it may have enriched the reading experience further if I had, as the story draws so heavily on it.

At first, I struggled to see the connections between the characters. It is pretty obvious that Clarissa is meant to be Virginia Woolf's character incarnate, but Mrs. Brown initially seems to be an awkward third wheel with no clear purpose to the book. However, in time I think all three stories come to interweave beautifully.

One thing I find remarkable is the sense of gender identity, or lack of, throughout. I wonder if this is because of Virginia Woolf's own views in her book, or just something interesting to add in this contemporary work. Either way, it is definitely unique.

This book is definitely not for everyone. There is not necessarily a concrete plot line; it is more mundane, more character driven rather than story driven. The pages jump from character to character, perhaps giving the reader a sense of vertigo. As Greg said, it is light stream of consciousness, and this style leaves some disoriented. Personally, I found it lyrical and captivating.

I totally agree Chella! :)

Interesting point too about the fluidity of gender - I think perhaps it is a fitting tribute to Woolf, a continuation of what she playfully began in books like Orlando.

I read Mrs. Dalloway before I read the hours and I think it made the story a lot better. I enjoyed both of the novels and like Cunningham's writing style. I really like the interweaving stories and the characters were so interesting (realistic and I wanted to know more).

I recently watched the movie with Nicole Kidman as Virginia Wolfe. The story line was still too slow for me, but I gained a better appreciation of the characters and some scenes had a far more dramatic effect when visually interpreted than they did for me as a reader.