Literary Award Winners Fiction Book Club discussion

Please contribute your thoughts, views, opinions on Chapters 1 to 11 of The Hours here.

Ginger is leading the discussion this month - thank you!

In The Hours, Michael Cunningham gives us a single day in the lives of three women in three different eras, Virginia Woolf (the writer of Mrs. Dalloway) in 1923, Laura Brown (a housewife and an avid reader of Mrs. Dalloway) in 1949, and Clarissa Vaughn (a modern career woman giving a party for a poet, her once lover who is dying of AIDS in 1999. (Clarissa resonates as a modern day Mrs. Dalloway). The novel is written in present tense/ stream of consciousness that allows the characters (and, at least for me, the reader) to experience and contemplate the fluidness of time. How does the style work for you?

The novel has a focus on creativity in many manifestations (writing, baking a cake, giving a party), but the whole novel swirls around the book Mrs. Dalloway; it had me thinking about reading as a creative act. I’d love to hear others' thoughts.

Finally, the novel is full of themes and symbols that weave in and out of the narrative (flowers and kisses are two). How do flowers affect Virginia, Clarissa & Laura?

I read this one many years ago. I really enjoyed the writing. I was surprised how well a male author caught the feelings and experiences of women, especially the sense of being trapped by the limitations on gender. I really should read it again, but not sure that I will get to do that.

I read the Hours the year it was published and loved it then. (It inspired me to read Mrs. Dalloway.) I agree that Michael Cunningham does a remarkable job of capturing the female experience. As I was reading the Laura Brown sections, I often thought of Virginia Woolf's essay, A Room of One's Own. I've enjoyed reading The Hours through a second time.