Review: The Hours by Michael Cunningham

While I was visiting my parents house the movie version of Michael Cunningham's The Hours came on and I watched the first half of it with my mother. I was thoroughly hooked on the movie, but I knew that I wanted to read the book before I finished the movie so I stopped watching and went off to read whatever book I was reading at the time.
Having been sick and confined to bed all week I was ready for a new read after finishing two in two days. I was in the mood for something serious and I knew that it was time for me to read The Hours. I should have consulted my 2013 TBR Pile list before diving into this book as it was my pick for May of this year, but I was so strongly feeling the urge to read it that I abandoned all thought and read the book in two days in February. Oh well, that frees up May some for me then I suppose.

Title: The Hours
Author: Michael Cunningham
Publication Date: 1999
Publisher: Macmillian/Picador
Pages: 240
Where I Got It: Ed MacKays Used Books, Winston-Salem, NC, July 2012
Dates I Read It: February 7 & 8, 2013
Number of Stars: 5/5
Read For: 2013 TBR Pile Challenge (May Selection, oops); 1001 Books to Read Challenge

The Hours is the story of three women in different eras living their life in one day. First we meet Virginia Woolf, yes, THE Virginia Woolf, on the morning that she begins writing Mrs. Dalloway. Next we meet Clarissa Vaughn living in the late 1990's New York City who is planning a party for her long-time friend, Richard, who is being honored with a distinguished literary award, and finally we meet Laura Brown who only wants to read Mrs. Dalloway and escape from her mundane housewife life in 1950's America. We journey on one day in the lives of each of these ladies much like we journey one day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway in the novel Mrs. Dalloway. In the end the three lives will interchange and all come together in an act of interconnectedness like no other. If you do not see the shocking connection before the association is revealed, plan to be in for a big surprise.
I got a lot out of this book. Having never read Mrs. Dalloway (though I certainly plan to do so very soon) I was not sure that I would follow along with this novel very well. However, I do know the synopsis of Mrs. Dalloway which did help to understand the mechanisms that Cunningham used to write this novel. The prose is deliciously great. The story as a whole flows like a river pulling the characters (and the reader) along a smooth flowing stream in a day. There is little to no action at all and we mostly get thoughts  descriptions of places and motives, and some dialogue. While this may sound quite prosaic, I assure that it is anything but. Each of the women are struggling with an inner unrest that leaves you wondering what she will choose to do about it.
The characters were astonishingly realistic. Though it's almost impossible to know the exact actions and thoughts that Woolf had during her time at Hogarth House (there is really only so much one can gather from letters), Cunningham does a splendid job of giving life and feeling and depth to Woolf as well as the other two women in the novel. Though there is little character development aside from Laura Brown I felt a sense of belief and trust in these three women. They behaved as women do in their individual dilemmas and they spoke the way I would expect them to and they thought in a manner that was true to their time and person. Even the minor characters like Vanessa (Woolf's sister) and Kitty (Laura's neighbor) and Julie (Clarissa's daughter) were fully formed and believable.
I found no fault with this novel which is very rare for me. I credit as being a great work of fiction and can easily understand how it won the PEN/Faulkner as well as the Pulitzer and the Stonewall.
The video version of the book is currently available on Netflix and I hope to be able to watch it this weekend sometime and do a review of it comparing it to the novel. The first half seemed to follow the book to a T. However, look for a review for that soon and check back for more information on my sister blog which is up and under construction, but not quite ready for me to say "go to this great new blog I've got, you won't be disappointed" yet.

Review: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

So, reader, I bet that you are wondering to yourself if I have already given up my resolution one month in and again fallen off the blogosphere, but actually, I just kinda fell off everything- literally! Since Sunday night I have had a severe case of Vertigo and it is just as scary as the Hitchcock movie! I woke up Sunday night/Monday morning at 1:00 AM feeling like I was being sucked into the ground, I sat up quick with a gasp and promptly fell over and felt a strong urge to vomit. Which I did for the next two days. Finally yesterday after having fallen down twice and feeling that I will never again be able to walk or drive without risk of a public drunkenness or DUI charge, I sucked it up and I went to the doctor where I was given two medications and strict instructions to not drive any more and to just stay flat on my back until the medication kicked in and the world stopped spinning madly on. Well, I can do the no driving thing, and I'm more than fine with missing some work, but I'm not one to just lay on my back all day. So, I sat up and I finished The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay which this post will be a review of and I read all of The Absolutely True Diary of A Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie which I will hopefully have a review of soon.

(This song represents my life this week)


Looking at a computer screen, believe it or not, is somewhat difficult for me as it brings on dizzy spells, so I will most likely be very brief in this review which will be difficult because this book is a beast!

Title: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Author: Michael Chabon
Publication Date: 2000
Publisher: Random House
Page: 640
Where I Got It: Used at The Last Word in Charlotte, NC
Dates I Read It: January 26, 2013 - February 7, 2013
Number of Stars: 4/5
Read For: 2013 TBR Pile Challenge (February Selection)


This is the story of Josef Kavalier who is living with his family in Prague in 1939. Oh, did I mention that he is very Jewish. Yeah, that means he needs to hit the road and get outta Dodge, and quick. Josef has been taking lessons with a master of the art of escape- Mr. Kornblum who agrees to assist him in escaping the country. Through a series of near-miss escapes from different countries Josef finally makes it to New York City where he finds his cousin Samuel Clayman. The two bond quickly and decide to begin making a new form of entertainment known as "comic books". The two have a real talent for this medium and soon their ace hero, The Escapist, is blowing up. The story follows the two young men over the span of almost three decades, through marriages, lost loves, World War II, children, wives, and much more.
This is a book that demands a lot from the reader. It demands an exorbitant amount of focus, time, attention and emotion. It is all at once the story of the burgeoning comic industry, romance, suspense, survivors guilt, LGBT issues, WWII, Holocaust, magic, and the immigrant experience. Let's start with the characters who drive this story. Josef (Joe in America) is at the heart of the novel. I would consider Joe to be the main character, but the character whose story I was the most interested in was Samuel (Sammy). Sam is a lonely boy when we first meet him and I had figured out his "secret" about 100 pages in, I just kept waiting for  him to reveal it like a sleight of hand. Rosa was the girl at the center of the boys worlds. She was an artist herself who eventually made comics for women readers. She is the love of Joe's life though in these redolent novels the hero doesn't always end up with the girl and for the majority of the book I was fascinated to see if Joe would ever fulfill his full destiny and end up with Rosa. Chabon includes many expanded (sometimes for pages on end) inner revealings of each of the three main characters which while at times these revelations could be somewhat dauntless they really revealed the inner consciousness of the characters and made them into some of the most authentic characters that I have ever experienced in all of literature. Also astonishing about the characters was that there was not a single one that I resented or found any dislike for which, Reader, is very rare for me. They were too real to hate and through those long interludes of thoughts Chabon makes his readers cherish his characters as if they were beloved friends or family members.
I kept hearing one of my favorite book podcasters, Michael Kindness from Books on the Nightstand rave about this book so I placed it on my TBR list years ago and never thought to really get around to it (it's 640 pages- I was scared!) until Roof Beam Reader hosted the 2013 TBR Pile Challenge and I knew I had to knock this one out in 2013 and added it to the list. I'm so glad that it's not still sitting in the pile and that I have experienced this amazing adventure.
The prose was spectacularly written and it is no wonder to me that this novel won the Pulitzer. The tone of this book ranges from exciting and sweeping to dark and it ends with a twinge of nostalgia that I would have expected from the poetic duo. The plot was engaging which surprised me as I do not care for comic books at all. I was a little hesitant about reading a book surrounding the genre, but this is a readable book even for those  of us who are comic book neophytes. The story drifted a little bit for me when one of our heroes enlists in the war. During this part I felt that the character development came to a screeching halt. The character that this selection of the book focused on made decisions and actions which were not believable to me based on the past 300 pages that I had journeyed with this character. Had it not been for this one section of the novel I would have given the book as a whole a full 5 out of 5 stars.
Like I said at the start of this review, this book does demand a great deal from its reader, so this is not a book that I would recommend to just anyone. However, everyone that I know that has read it has loved it. If you have the time and the energy to maneuver this book, I do not believe you will finish it feeling disappointed.