The Hours (novel)

The Hours

Author	Michael Cunningham
Language	English
Publisher	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date	11 November, 1998
Media type	Print
Pages	230 (First Editon Hardcover)
ISBN	ISBN 0374172897

The Hours is a novel written by Michael Cunningham. It won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and was later made into an Oscar winning 2002 movie of the same name starring Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore.

Premise

The book concerns three generations of women affected by a Virginia Woolf novel.

The first is Woolf herself writing Mrs. Dalloway in 1923 and struggling with her own mental illness. The second is Mrs. Brown, wife of a World War II veteran, who is reading Mrs. Dalloway in 1949 as she plans her husband's birthday party. The third is Clarissa Vaughn, a lesbian, who plans a party in the 1990s to celebrate a major literary award received by her good friend and former lover, the poet Richard, who is dying of AIDS.

The situations of all three characters mirror situations experienced by Woolf's Clarissa Dalloway in 'Mrs.Dalloway', with Clarissa Vaughn being a very literal modern-day version of Woolf's character. Like Mrs.Dalloway, Clarissa Vaughn goes on a journey to buy flowers while reflecting on the minutae of the day around her and later prepares to throw a party. Clarissa Dalloway and Clarissa Vaughn both also reflect on their histories and past loves in relation to their current lives, which they both perceive as trivial. A number of other characters in Clarissa Vaughn's story also parallel characters in Woolf's 'Mrs.Dalloway.'

Cunningham's novel also mirrors 'Mrs.Dalloway's' stream-of-consciousness narrative style (a style pioneered by the likes of Woolf and James Joyce) in which the flowing thoughts and perceptions of protagonists are depicted as they would occur in real life, unfiltered, flitting from one thing to another, and often rather unpredictable. In terms of time, this means characters interact not only with the moment in the time in which they are living, but also shoot back to the past in their memories, and in so doing create a depth of history and backstory which weighs upon their present moments, which otherwise might appear quite trivial; buying flowers, baking a cake and such things.

Cunningham's novel also uses the device in Woolf's 'Mrs.Dalloway' of placing the action of the novel within the space of one day. In Woolf's 'Mrs.Dalloway' it is one day in the life of the central character Clarissa Dalloway. In Cunningham's book it is one day in the life of each of the three central characters; Clarissa Vaughn, Laura Brown and Virginia Woolf herself. Through this prism, Cunningham attempts, as did Woolf, to show the beauty and profundity of every day -even the most ordinary- in every person's life and conversely how a person's whole life can be examined through the prism of one single day.

Plot

Note: With the stream-of-consciousness style being so prominent in this work, a summary of the plot based on physical action does not give a thorough understanding of the content of the work. In the novel, action occuring in the physical world (ie: characters doing things, such as talking, walking etc.) is far outweighed by material existing in the thought and memory of the protagonists. Some discretion must be made in a plot summary as to which of these thoughts and memories warrant detailing.

Prologue

The novel begins with the suicide of Virginia Woolf in 1941 by drowning herself in the Ouse, a river in Sussex, England. Even as she is drowning Virginia marvels at everyday sights and sounds. Leonard Woolf, her husband, finds her suicide note and Virginia's dead body floats downstream where life, in the form of a mother and child going for a walk, goes on as if Virginia is still taking in all the sights and sounds.

• I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been.
  • quote from Virginia Woolf's suicide note to Leonard Woolf.
    • p7, 1999 Fourth Estate paperback edition.

Mrs.Dalloway

The novel jumps to New York City at the end of the twentieth century where Clarissa Vaughn (Cunningham's modern Mrs.Dalloway) is thinking about buying flowers. She leaves her partner Sally cleaning their apartment and heads outside into a June morning. Walking to the flower shop, Clarissa enjoys the everyday hustle and bustle of the city. The sights and sounds she encounters serve as jumping-off points for her thoughts about life, her loves and her past. The beautiful day reminds her of a happy memory, a holiday she had as a young woman with two friends, Richard and Louis. In fact, the flowers are for a party Clarissa is hosting at her apartment that night for Richard (now a reknowned poet dying of AIDS) as he has just won the Carrouthers, a esteemed poetry prize awarded for a life's work. Clarissa bumps into Walter, an acquaintance who writes pulp fiction gay romances. Clarissa invites him to the party although she knows Richard abhors Walter's shallow interests in "fame and fashions, the latest restauraunt". Clarissa herself appreciates Walter's "greedy innocence." Clarissa continues on her way reflecting on her past, sometimes difficult relationship with Richard which she compares to her more stable but unspectacular relationship with her partner of eighteen years, Sally. She finally arrives at the flower shop.

• What a thrill, what a shock, to be alive on a morning in June, prosperous, almost scandalously privileged, with a simple errand to run.
  • Clarissa reflecting on the day as she walks to the flower shop.
    • p10, 1999 Fourth Estate paperback edition.
• Why doesn't she feel more somber about Richard's perversely simultaneous good fortune ("an anguished, prophetic voice in American letters") and his decline ("You have no T-cells at all, none that we can detect")? What is wrong with her? She loves Richard, she thinks of him constantly, but she perhaps loves the day slightly more.
  • Clarissa thinking about Richard.
    • p11, 1999 Fourth Estate paperback edition.
• The woman's head quickly withdraws, the door to the trailer closes again, but she leaves behind her an unimstakable sense of watchful remonstrance, as if an angel had briefly touched the surface of the world with one sandaled foot, asked if there was any trouble and, being told all was well, had resumed her place in the ether with skeptical gravity, having reminded the children of earth that they are just barely trusted to manage their own business, and that further carelessness will not go unremarked.
  • Clarissa spotting a movie star sticking her head outside her trailer door in response to a film crew's noisiness.
    • p27, 1999 Fourth Estate paperback edition.

Mrs.Woolf

The novel then jumps to 1923 with Virginia Woolf waking one morning with the possible first line of a new novel. She carefully navigates her way through the morning, so as not to lose her inspiration. When she picks up her pen, she writes: Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.

Mrs.Brown

The novel jumps to 1949 Los Angeles with Laura Brown reading the first line of Virginia's Woolf's novel 'Mrs.Dalloway.' ("Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.") Laura Brown is pregnant with her second child and is reading in bed. She does not want to get up despite it being her husband, Dan's, birthday. She is finding it hard playing the role of wife to Dan, and mother to her son Richie, despite her appreciation for them. She would much rather read her book. She eventually forces herself to go downstairs where she decides to make a cake for Dan's birthday which Richie will help her make.

• He makes her think sometimes of a mouse singing amorous ballads under the window of a giantess.
  • Laura reflecting on her son's transparent love for her.
    • p44, 1999 Fourth Estate paperback edition.
• ...the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment of June.
  • Laura remembering a quote from Woolf's 'Mrs.Dalloway.'
    • p48, 1999 Fourth Estate paperback edition.

Mrs.Dalloway

The novel returns to Clarissa Vaughn who, having left the flower shop with an armload of flowers, decides to stop by Richard's apartment. On her way to Richard's she pauses at the site of a film shoot, hoping to catch a glimpse of a movie star. Eventually she leaves, having not seen the star, embarassed at her own trivial impulses. Clarissa enters the neighbourhood she and Richard frequented as young adults. It is revealed Richard and Clarissa once had a failed experimental romantic relationship together despite it being obvious Richard's "deepest longings" were for Louis with whom he was already in a relationship. Clarissa still wonders what her life might have been if they had tried to stay together. Clarissa enters Richard's apartment building, which she finds squalid. She seems to associate Richard's apartment building with sense of decay and death. She enters Richard's apartment. Richard welcomes Clarissa, calling her "Mrs.D" a reference to 'Mrs.Dalloway'. He calls her this because of the shared first name (Clarissa Vaughn, Clarissa Dalloway) but also because of a sense of shared destiny. As Richard's closest friend, Clarissa has taken on the role of a caregiver through Richard's illness. Richard is struggling with mental illness, brought about by his AIDS and discusses hearing voices with Clarissa. While Clarissa still enjoys everyday life, it seems Richard's illness has sapped his energy for life and the cleanliness of his apartment is subsequently suffering. As Clarissa fusses about, paying attention to the details of Richard's life that he has neglected, Richard seems resigned. He does not seem to be looking forward to the party Clarissa is organising for him nearly as much as Clarissa is. Finally, Clarissa leaves promising to return in the afternoon to help him prepare for the party.

LGBT Issues

'The Hours' concerns three generations of questionably lesbian or bisexual women. Virginia Woolf was known to have affairs with women; Laura Brown kisses Kitty in her kitchen, and Clarissa Vaughn is in a lesbian relationship with Sally. Peripheral characters also exhibit a variety of sexual orientations.

To some extent the novel examines the freedom with which successive generations have been able to express their sexuality freely, to the public, even to themselves. As such, a definable sexuality for the characters of Virginia Woolf and Laura Brown are hard ascertain. It could be argued, as does the author Michael Cunningham himself on the DVD commentary of the film version of 'The Hours', that were such characters born at later times in different circumstances they would come out as lesbians.

The book has widely been thought of as having more mainstream appeal than most gay fiction, perhaps because the central characters have been said to be 'characters that are gay', rather than 'gay characters'.

List of Main Characters

1923 Virginia Woolf; Leonard Woolf, Virginia's husband; Vanessa Bell, Virginia's sister.

1949 Laura Brown; Dan Brown, Laura's husband; Richie Brown, Laura's son; Kitty, her neighbour.

1999 Clarissa Vaughn; Sally, Clarissa's partner; Richard Brown, Clarissa's friend.

Quotes

• It had seemed like the beginning of happiness, and Clarissa is still sometimes shocked, more than thirty years later, to realize that it was happiness; that the entire experience lay in a kiss and a walk, the anticipation of dinner and a book...What lives undimmed in Clarissa's mind more than three decades later is a kiss at dusk on a patch of dead grass, and a walk around a pond as mosquitoes droned in the darkening air. There is still that singular perfection, and it's perfect in part because it seemed, at the time, so clearly to promise more. Now she knows: That was the moment, right then. There has been no other.
  • p98, 1999 Fourth Estate paperback edition.
• ...Virginia lingers another moment beside the dead bird in its circle of roses. It could be a kind of hat. It could be the missing link between millinery and death.
  • p121, 1999 Fourth Estate paperback edition.
• We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep. It's as simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out windows, or drown themselves, or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us 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 & expectations, to burst open & give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) know 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. Heaven only knows why we love it so...
  • p225-226, 1999 Fourth Estate paperback edition.

Trivia

• On her way to Richard's apartment, Clarissa Vaughn thinks she sees Meryl Streep. Meryl Streep ended up playing Clarissa Vaughn in Stephen Daldry's movie adaptation of 'The Hours.'