Reading 1001 discussion

Review thread.
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

1. Clarissa Vaughan is described several times as an "ordinary" woman. Do you accept this valuation? If so, what does it imply about the ordinary, about being ordinary? What makes someone, by contrast, extraordinary?

2. Flowers and floral imagery play a significant part in The Hours. When and where are flowers described? What significance do they have, and with what events and moods are they associated? How do flowers affect Virginia? Clarissa?

3. Cunningham plays with the notions of sanity and insanity, recognizing that there might be only a very fine line between the two states. What does the novel imply about the nature of insanity?

4. Who kisses whom in The Hours, and what is the significance of each kiss?

5. How might Richard’s childhood experiences have made him the adult he eventually becomes? In what ways has he been wounded, disturbed?

6. Each of the novel’s characters sees himself or herself, most of the time, as a failure. Are the novel’s characters unusual, or are such feelings of failure an essential and inevitable part of the human condition?

7. The Hours could on one level be said to be a novel about middle age, the final relinquishment of youth and the youthful self. What does middle age mean to these characters? In what essential ways do these middle-aged people--Clarissa, Richard, Louis, Virginia --differ from their youthful selves? Which of them resists the change most strenuously?

8. What does the possibility of death represent to the various characters? Which of them loves the idea of death, as others love life? What makes some of the characters decide to die, others to live? What personality traits separate the "survivors" from the suicides?

9. If you have read Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, would you describe The Hours as a modern version of it? A commentary upon it? A dialogue with it? Which characters in The Hours correspond with those of Woolf’s novel? In what ways are they similar, and at what point do the similarities cease and the characters become freestanding individuals in their own right?

10. For the most part, the characters in The Hours have either a different gender or a different sexual orientation from their prototypes in Mrs. Dalloway. How much has all this gender-bending affected or changed the situations, the relationships, and the people?

11. Why has Cunningham chosen The Hours for the title of his novel (aside from the fact that it was Woolf’s working title for Mrs. Dalloway)? In what ways is the title appropriate, descriptive? What do hours mean to Richard? To Laura? To Clarissa?

I'm a little over halfway through my reading and enjoying it quite a bit. Will try to keep some of these questions in mind as I finish.
I have read Mrs. Dalloway and some other Woolf books.

1. Clarissa Vaughan is described several times as an "ordinary" woman. Do you accept this valuation? If so, what does it imply about the ordinary, about being ordinary? What makes someone, by contrast, extraordinary?

Clarissa has chosen a life of stability with her partner and a rather upper middle class existence that would make some think of her as ordinary. Further, Richard's novel about her was an effort to capture an ordinary moment in time. However, Clarissa's internal thinking process and her attachment and loyalty to Richard do not signal to the reader that she is at all ordinary. Her relationship with her daughter, Sally and Richard all strike me as extraordinary.

2. Flowers and floral imagery play a significant part in The Hours. When and where are flowers described? What significance do they have, and with what events and moods are they associated? How do flowers affect Virginia? Clarissa?
Flowers, their fragile beauty and their reflection of a life well lived, the essence of bounty, are part of each of the women's lives. They are also something shared...Clarissa for Richard, Sally for Clarissa, Laura for her husband. They signify something that can be shared, the moment.

3. Cunningham plays with the notions of sanity and insanity, recognizing that there might be only a very fine line between the two states. What does the novel imply about the nature of insanity? None of the women appears insane when we hear their internal thoughts. Even Virginia's fear of the headaches and the voices seems entirely practical when you hear it from her, so to speak. Laura's actions do reflect someone who is depressed but when she is telling us for her need to read, to sleep, to be alone and away from the child that wants to devour her you do not see it as insanity. The actions that come out of the thoughts is what allows the reader to understand how over the line they have slipped.

4. Who kisses whom in The Hours, and what is the significance of each kiss?
Virginia kisses her sister, Richard kisses Clarissa, Laura kisses Kitty. Each kiss is a moment of ever so slight transgression across an invisible line but also a moment of sealing an emotion.

5. How might Richard’s childhood experiences have made him the adult he eventually becomes? In what ways has he been wounded, disturbed?
One never knows, does one? However, clearly he was a very sensitive child who was aware that his mother was capable of slipping away, or not being entirely present in his life. This could have made him question all love and loyalty in his relationships.

6. Each of the novel’s characters sees himself or herself, most of the time, as a failure. Are the novel’s characters unusual, or are such feelings of failure an essential and inevitable part of the human condition?
Virginia feels that she has failed her enormous talent and that is not an inevitable part of the human condition but it may be part of being a great writer or artist. Richard also feels as if he has failed at what he set out to do creatively. Laura and Clarissa fail at being the human beings that they wish to be or that they feel that they are expected to be. Clarissa at times fears she has failed her daughter, her friends and herself but of them all, Clarissa seems to be the least of a failure to herself.


7. The Hours could on one level be said to be a novel about middle age, the final relinquishment of youth and the youthful self. What does middle age mean to these characters? In what essential ways do these middle-aged people--Clarissa, Richard, Louis, Virginia --differ from their youthful selves? Which of them resists the change most strenuously?
The characters understand that the unlimited potential of their youth is no longer something that they can contemplate. They are restricted by not only time, but who they have become, where they are in their lives and their very bodies in the case of Richard and Louis. Virginia has trained herself to not look at herself in the mirror she is so distressed by the change.

8. What does the possibility of death represent to the various characters? Which of them loves the idea of death, as others love life? What makes some of the characters decide to die, others to live? What personality traits separate the "survivors" from the suicides? To Mrs. Brown, the possibility of death is a wonderful relief. Her reading Mrs. Dalloway lightens her depression and allows her the freedom to be someone that is not caged in a world where she has no ability to live fully. She is only impersonating someone who is a mother and a housewife. She dodges suicide by electing to live her own life. This life seems terribly restricted but nevertheless it is the one she elects. To Richard, death is a relief, as life has become impossible. Virginia is full of fear at the dark headaches and voices chasing her, so she also is searching for escape but it does not feel like relief, it feels for her like a truly desperate act. Many of the characters feel as if they are often impersonating the person they are supposed to be. Some of the survivors have learned how to be ever so slightly more capable of being themselves.

9. If you have read Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, would you describe The Hours as a modern version of it? A commentary upon it? A dialogue with it? Which characters in The Hours correspond with those of Woolf’s novel? In what ways are they similar, and at what point do the similarities cease and the characters become freestanding individuals in their own right? I have not read Mrs. Dalloway but The Hours seem very much to me to be a dialogue with Woolf's work. An attempt to capture the small "ordinary" moments when everything changes.

10. For the most part, the characters in The Hours have either a different gender or a different sexual orientation from their prototypes in Mrs. Dalloway. How much has all this gender-bending affected or changed the situations, the relationships, and the people? I have not read Mrs. Dalloway, but I found the non-binary approach to some of the characters to be refreshing.

11. Why has Cunningham chosen The Hours for the title of his novel (aside from the fact that it was Woolf’s working title for Mrs. Dalloway)? In what ways is the title appropriate, descriptive? What do hours mean to Richard? To Laura? To Clarissa? I thought that it reflected both Virginia and Richard's need to make the ordinary, extraordinary. The writer's need to capture the essence of something even if it is not dramatic or momentous. Also, The Hours, definitely brings to mind time slipping away as each of the characters move through their lives and look back at moments that have been defining or crucial to their lives.

I've finished today and posted to the review thread (see link in message 1).
My review includes "The Hours isn't the type of inspirational, cheer-you-up book many readers prefer, but it is a very good novel, not only deserving of the Pulitzer prize it won but better than most Pulitzer-winners in my opinion (and I have read 28 other fiction Pulitzer-winners) ".

I'll just respond to the last couple of questions here.
For the most part, the characters in The Hours have either a different gender or a different sexual orientation from their prototypes in Mrs. Dalloway. How much has all this gender-bending affected or changed the situations, the relationships, and the people?
I didn't see this effect. To me Septimus of Mrs. Dalloway resembled the adult Richard, and Septimus' wife resembled Clarissa Vaughan who both did their best to look after him, although Clarissa V is lesbian or bisexual.

Why has Cunningham chosen The Hours for the title of his novel (aside from the fact that it was Woolf’s working title for Mrs. Dalloway)? In what ways is the title appropriate, descriptive? What do hours mean to Richard? To Laura? To Clarissa?
Richard, Clarrisa V. and Laura all find their lives so difficult to keep living- Richard in particular obsesses on on the difficulty of getting through the next hour, and the one after that, etc.

Yes, George, that was a powerful moment when Richard talks about the hours, and the one after that....

Well said George and Gail.

I made the (not entirely sensible) decision to read both books at the same time and to say I am now a little confused as to characters is an understatement. I will say that I believe I enjoyed Mrs Dalloway more having read The Hours.

1. No I would not class her as ordinary she is but then again I don't see anyone as ordinary we are all unique in our own ways. Perhaps the comment should be taken to show that things which in Virginia Woolfs day would have been extraordinary are now an accepted part of life and rightly so.

2. The most significant for me was the roses on the cake not being perfect for Mrs Brown. The roses that are laid around the dead bird in the Virginia section.

3.Loved Gail's answer there is no insanity when read from the characters points of view.

4. Everyone kisses everyone LOL. Each significant kiss is something that in general would be hidden from others. Mrs Brown & Kitty. Virginia & Vanessa and to a certain extent Virginia and Richard although the significance there is on the refusal of the kiss.

5. He fears not being good enough which is probably due to a suicidal mother who abandons him. He wants Virginia's love even though he is at heart gay and perhaps his final act is a way of bringing things full circle.

6. I would say it is human nature if we didn't believe we could do better we wouldn't strive to improve ourselves.

7. Tough question I guess Mrs Brown resists best because she goes away and lives her own life on her own terms which is a youthful thing to do. Clarissa has settled down & Richard is dying so they are kind of stuck with who they are. Louis is more transient he is still fooling himself that he is in love with youth and beauty while what is really happening is he is trying to hold onto his youth.

8. Suicides Virginia & Richard both artistic, both prize winning writers so perhaps the artistic temperament is more given to the idea of suicide as escape while the others are more realistic and decide that living is what counts?

9. I would definitely say this was a modern retelling the situations the characters find themselves in are almost identical and reading both books together you can easily follow the threads. The Hours mixing up the sexes and sexuality from the original novel but in a way that compliments the source. Virginia Woolf provides a commentary on the treatment of PTSD while Cunningham moves this to the modern day with a commentary about the treatment of AIDS. Both feature parties, flowers, suicides, depression and a backward and forward movement through time. The idea of gifts is also significant in both as is the idea of celebrity in Woolf's novel the celebrity is the Queen in Cunningham's a movie star.

10. See above the changes compliment the original.

11. Because we are again looking at a single day that can be broken down into hours. For Mrs Brown an hour to read, for Virginia Woolf an hour to be alone to escape and for Clarissa the time is running away for her to organise her party.

I am not sure how much I can add to Gail's answers, so I will limit myself to a few comments:

1. I am not sure that Clarissa is so ordinary; in fact, everybody is a little bit extraordinary. In comparison with Laura Brown's life as an "ordinary" housewife, Clarissa's seems to have been a bit extraordinary or, at least, less conventional. She probably thinks she is ordinary because she feels in control of her life or, at least, the aspects of her life which she can effectively control.

3. The flowers also seem to induce some stress and anxiety: Clarissa "worries" about bringing them to Richard and putting them in a vase, etc.; Laura wants to ensure that they look good on the cake; for Virginia, they feature, with the thrushes and the Greek songs, in her hallucinations.

4. Yes, transgressions, but also they open the door to imagination: for Virginia and Laura, about a (better) life they don't have; for Clarissa, about the past, her youth and Richard.

9. I read it three years ago, but I can't recall much about it (and I rated it 3 stars). Just like the movie, I remember seeing it a long time ago, but can't remember much of it. In both cases, it didn't strike me as compelling.

1. Clarissa is an ordinary woman in that she is trying to fulfill the minutiae of life: buying flowers for a party she is hosting, feeling stressed about whether everything will be ready in time and whether the party will be a success. The attention to detail in the stream of consciousness writing, while still not an ordinary way of writing, highlights how seemingly ordinary actions may have serious implications. An extraordinary life, then, would be one in which everyday occurrences are either absent or unnoticed.
2. Buying flowers is an extravagance, a part of preparation for a party. They signify beauty and attention to detail. The flowers that the children arrange around the dead bird are used in the way that we send flowers to the bereaved as a gesture of comfort. Clarissa uses some of the flowers she has bought to brighten up Richard's apartment.
3. Cunningham implies, by the way his characters carry on their internal dialogues, that insanity is only a little removed from what we call insanity.
4. Clarissa once kissed Richard, and reflects on how important that kiss was in her life, despite her not having had a sexual relationship with him. Cunningham's Virginia kisses her sister Vanessa, and tells her husband that it was a sexual kiss, for reasons I don't quite understand. Laura kisses her firend Kitty, in commiseration about her forthcoming surgical operation, but finds it more saatisfying than she expected.
5. Richard is Laura's son. Laura left him with a neighbour while she checked into a hotel ostensibly to commit suicide, so he probably had issues of abandonment. He certainly did not want to be dropped off at a babysitter's place that day. Louis had left him and he forlornly hoped that he could rekindle a relationship with Clarissa. Although she was caring for him, she was not contemplating leaving her partner Sally for him.
6. I would say feelings of failure, or at least of inadequacy are normal and ubiquitous. I thought that Laura was going to commit suicide over the "failure" of the cake she was baking, which would have been rather extreme, but I believe that most people have moments of suicidal intent when they have done something shameful.
7. I think Louis is the one who denies the passage of time most strenuously. Clarissa and Laura both wonder at themselves for their compliant domesticity. Virginia and Richard both wonder if they have squandered their talents.
8. Virginia is contemplating suicide as the fate of Clarissa Dalloway, which is ironic in light of her own suicide later, as the real Virginia Wolfe. Laura is very tempted to escape the constraints of her role as a housewife by commiting suicide, and Richard actually does so to escape a more protracted and painful death.
9. I started to read it and immediately noticed the whole phrases lifted from it by Cunningham, which was not obvious to me before because I listened to an Audible version of The Hours. I decided not to read the whole thing because it is on my TBR list and I feared the complication if it showed up next month!
11. The Hours are counted off by each of the characters somewhere or another, the passage of time being a constant theme.

1. Clarissa Vaughan is described several times as an "ordinary" woman. Do you accept this valuation? If so, what does it imply about the ordinary, about being ordinary? What makes someone, by contrast, extraordinary?
I don't find her necessarily that ordinary. A casual observer might consider her to be so, but her actions show that she is extraordinary. She was not ordinary to those who knew her. Richard bestowed the nickname of Mrs. Dalloway upon her because he felt she was too special for an ordinary name.

2. Flowers and floral imagery play a significant part in The Hours. When and where are flowers described? What significance do they have, and with what events and moods are they associated? How do flowers affect Virginia? Clarissa?
They are mentioned in the opening line of Mrs. Dalloway. Flowers are are used to brighten up rooms and purchased for the party. Flowers have different significance for different characters. For example, Clarissa buys flowers to signify celebration while Richard views them as representing death.

3. Cunningham plays with the notions of sanity and insanity, recognizing that there might be only a very fine line between the two states. What does the novel imply about the nature of insanity?
Both Richard and Virginia Woolf are said to be suffering from insanity. This makes them perceive their lives as no longer worth living. The author does imply, however, that there is a very fine line between sanity and insanity.

4. Who kisses whom in The Hours, and what is the significance of each kiss?
Virginia kisses her sister and considers experiencing a same sex relationship. Clarissa and Richard kiss. They also have an argument about a kiss. Clarissa considered the kisses with Richard to be part of a superficial summer fling and trivial. Richard attached more significance to the kiss and considered it to be "life-changing".

6. Each of the novel’s characters sees himself or herself, most of the time, as a failure. Are the novel’s characters unusual, or are such feelings of failure an essential and inevitable part of the human condition?
I think feelings of inadequacy and occasional feelings of failure are an inevitable part of the human condition. These feelings can be constructive in helping us better ourselves.

8. What does the possibility of death represent to the various characters? Which of them loves the idea of death, as others love life? What makes some of the characters decide to die, others to live? What personality traits separate the "survivors" from the suicides?
The characters view death and suicide in different ways. Virginia initially explores the idea of suicide and tries to understand what would make someone consider it. Early in the book, she appears to be in denial of her feelings toward suicide. She eventually chooses suicide as her depression and her comfort level with the idea of suicide increases. For Richard, it is an escape from suffering and a hastening of a terminal illness. Laura considers suicide, but then realizes it isn't for her. Overall, suicide is a theme that joins the characters together.

9. If you have read Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, would you describe The Hours as a modern version of it? A commentary upon it? A dialogue with it? Which characters in The Hours correspond with those of Woolf’s novel? In what ways are they similar, and at what point do the similarities cease and the characters become freestanding individuals in their own right?
I read Mrs. Dalloway a long time ago, so it isn't fresh in my mind. I did read both books fairly close together though, when I read this one for the first time. There are definitely a lot of parallels between the two novels. In some ways it is a modern version, but I think this book is more of a reflection of how Mrs. Dalloway affects its characters, rather than a retelling.

11. Why has Cunningham chosen The Hours for the title of his novel (aside from the fact that it was Woolf’s working title for Mrs. Dalloway)? In what ways is the title appropriate, descriptive? What do hours mean to Richard? To Laura? To Clarissa?
The book has many associations with time. It signifies the end of life for Richard and Virginia. For Clarissa, it refers to the hours leading up to and preparing for the party. For Laura, the different phases of her life. The reader sees how time affects people's lives in different ways.

1. Clarissa is an unconventional woman settled into a conventional lifestyle. She is closely tied to Richard who is seen as extraordinary both in personality and as a writer, and by comparison that makes Clarissa ordinary. But the way she finds such enjoyment in life, and the life choices she has made - living on her own terms - don't strike me as ordinary.

2. Flowers tie everything together in The Hours. They are performative, but the performance gets twisted.

For Virginia they are supposed to be festive in the book she is writing, but manifest as a funeral spectacle that children hold for a bird. For Laura they are symbolic of her own failure to perform her role of wife and mother flawlessly, as she becomes hung up on how they need to not look homemade on a homemade cake. Clarissa, unwittingly being the synthesis of everything, means for the flowers to be festive but the flowers end up decorating a wake.

5. I think feelings of failure are part of the human condition, but that people who are perfectionist or under a lot of pressure (internal or external) will experience it more often/strongly, and people suffering from depression will find it harder to overcome those feelings of failure - it doesn't spur them on to do better, it drags them down and tells them they cannot do.

8. I guess it could be argued that the ability to rejoice in the little things is what makes people love life. But as for loving the idea of death - inescapable illness and the fear of complete mental deterioration seems to be the deciding factor. For Laura the deterioration is all due to the life she is living, so while she apparently tries, off-page, to kill herself she afterwards removes herself from her life in another way. Death is the last resort.

11. The hours of a day, of a lifetime. It's all just made up out of hours. But it is somewhat sinister. The hours run out, or even worse - become unbearable and yet refuse to run out.