The Hours
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Baker & Taylor
In a novel of love, family inheritance, and desperation, the author ofFlesh and Blood offers a fictional account of Virginia Woolf's last days and her friendship with a poet living in his mother's shadow. 40,000 first printing.
McMillan Palgrave
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In a novel of love, family inheritance, and desperation, the author of
McMillan Palgrave
Baker & Taylor
In a novel of love, family inheritance, and desperation, the author ofFlesh and Blood offers a fictional account of Virginia Woolf's last days and her friendship with a poet living in his mother's shadow. 40,000 first printing.
McMillan Palgrave
Blackwell North Amer
In The Hours, Michael Cunningham draws inventively on the life and work of Virginia Woolf to tell the story of a group of contemporary characters who are struggling with the conflicting claims of love and inheritance, hope and despair.
The novel opens with an evocation of Woolf's last days before her suicide in 1941, and moves to the stories of two modern American women who are trying to make rewarding lives for themselves in spite of the demands of friends, lovers, and family.
Clarissa Vaughan is a book editor who lives in present-day Greenwich Village; when we meet her, she is buying flowers to display at a party for her friend Richard, an ailing poet who has just won a major literary prize. Laura Brown is a housewife in postwar California who is bringing up her only son and looking for her true life outside of her stifling marriage.
With rare ease and assurance, Cunningham makes the two women's lives converge with Virginia Woolf's in an unexpected and heart-breaking way during the party for Richard.
Baker
& Taylor
In a novel of love, family inheritance, and desperation, the author offers a fictional account of Virginia Woolf's last days and her friendship with a poet living in his mother's shadow
« Less
In a novel of love, family inheritance, and desperation, the author of
McMillan Palgrave
A daring, deeply affecting third novel by the author of A Home at the End of the World and Flesh and Blood.
In The Hours, Michael Cunningham, widely praised as one of the most gifted writers of his generation, draws inventively on the life and work of Virginia Woolf to tell the story of a group of contemporary characters struggling with the conflicting claims of love and inheritance, hope and despair. The narrative of Woolf's last days before her suicide early in World War II counterpoints the fictional stories of Samuel, a famous poet whose life has been shadowed by his talented and troubled mother, and his lifelong friend Clarissa, who strives to forge a balanced and rewarding life in spite of the demands of friends, lovers, and family.
Passionate, profound, and deeply moving, this is Cunningham's most remarkable achievement to date.
In The Hours, Michael Cunningham, widely praised as one of the most gifted writers of his generation, draws inventively on the life and work of Virginia Woolf to tell the story of a group of contemporary characters struggling with the conflicting claims of love and inheritance, hope and despair. The narrative of Woolf's last days before her suicide early in World War II counterpoints the fictional stories of Samuel, a famous poet whose life has been shadowed by his talented and troubled mother, and his lifelong friend Clarissa, who strives to forge a balanced and rewarding life in spite of the demands of friends, lovers, and family.
Passionate, profound, and deeply moving, this is Cunningham's most remarkable achievement to date.
The Hours is the winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Blackwell North Amer
In The Hours, Michael Cunningham draws inventively on the life and work of Virginia Woolf to tell the story of a group of contemporary characters who are struggling with the conflicting claims of love and inheritance, hope and despair.
The novel opens with an evocation of Woolf's last days before her suicide in 1941, and moves to the stories of two modern American women who are trying to make rewarding lives for themselves in spite of the demands of friends, lovers, and family.
Clarissa Vaughan is a book editor who lives in present-day Greenwich Village; when we meet her, she is buying flowers to display at a party for her friend Richard, an ailing poet who has just won a major literary prize. Laura Brown is a housewife in postwar California who is bringing up her only son and looking for her true life outside of her stifling marriage.
With rare ease and assurance, Cunningham makes the two women's lives converge with Virginia Woolf's in an unexpected and heart-breaking way during the party for Richard.
Baker
& Taylor
In a novel of love, family inheritance, and desperation, the author offers a fictional account of Virginia Woolf's last days and her friendship with a poet living in his mother's shadow
Imprint:
New York - Farrar, Straus, Giroux
Pages:
229
ISBN:
0374172897
Language:
English
Statement of responsibility:
Michael Cunningham
Characteristics:
229 p. ;,22 cm.
Author (Original Script):
Cunningham, Michael
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Add a CommentOne of the best and most clever books I have ever read.
I'm not a big fan of Woolf, so this book was not to capture my interest; I realized, however, that this is my own failure and not a real mark of the quality of the book. Because it is indeed well written. There is a quiet power that weaves through the pages, deep emotions that lurk beneath the surface but pushed back. Convention, fear and ambiguity are all motivators that are not expressed but stifle the characters. Despite myself, I was engrossed in Laura's despair and in Clarissa's need for order with Virginia's ghost in the background. The ending was no surprise to me, a neat way to explain the relationships, but an almost needless one because the lives of these women stand alone and are connected through time and emotion - that's the real strength of this book: the love of a rose for beauty, the rush of feeling, the unspoken hurt of love.
Book Club
The book begins with the suicide of Virginia Woolf and doesn't get any more cheerful than that. Laura Brown is an unhappy mom who checks into a hotel and considers suicide. The book ends with a poet comitting suicide. Even though the book won a Pulitzer Prize, it seems dark and arty. The language is like a painting, but it describes artists, gays, lesbians, and suicidal thoughts.
Great book to own
i had previously seen and enjoyed the movie version, but the book proved to be even better. Such pretty prose; strangely uplifting even though the subject matter is so dark.
The novel is a story of three women. 1. Clarissa gives a party for her (long ago) dead partner. 2. Laura is the mother of the dead man, who ahe has abandoned long time ago. 3. Virginia Woolf, who drowns herself, although was living with her caring husband and son. the story intertwines the lives of the three women who are from different generations. Splendid narration it is.
Beautiful book, highly recommended.
Winner of the 1999 Pulitzer prize for fiction.