کتاب، داستان زندگی سه زن رو روایت می کنه. ویرجینیا وولف، زن خانه داری به نام لورا براون و زنی به نام کلاریسا وون. زن هایی که در دوره های زمانی متفاوتی زندگی می کنن ولی تمایلات و اندیشه های نسبتا مشابهی دارن. ویرجینیا وولف که نویسنده ی کتاب "خانم دالووی" هستش و دو زنی که هرکدوم به نوعی از این کتاب الهام گرفتن. و البته در پایان کتاب پرده از راز ارتباط بین این سه زن برداشته میشه.

مایکل کانینگهام قسمت اول رو درمورد زندگی واقعی ویرجینیا وولف نوشته و صحنه هایی از زندگیش رو بازسازی کرده ولی داستان دو زن دیگه، صرفا الهام گرفته از رمان خانم دالووی هستن.

کتاب جذاب و خوش خوانیه. بعد از اینم قصد دارم اول کتاب فیلم نامش رو بخونم و بعد هم فیلمشو ببینم. و البته به شدت راغب شدم کتاب خانم دالووی رو هم بخونم. ویرجینیا وولف از پیشگامان مکتب فمینیسم بوده و متاسفانه تا الان من چیزی ازش نخوندم.

Finally, I am done with reviewing 2023. I kept the honor of the last review of a book read in 2023 for one wonderful novel that I’ve had on my TBR since 2014. Yes, I’ve added this book 10 years ago. However, I think it was a better moment to get to it now, after I’ve read a couple of Virginia Woolfs. She managed to become one of my favorite writers so reading a novel about her surely made an impact on me.

The novel tells the story of three women, from different time periods, with no apparent connection with each other. The link is there but you have to read the novel for it. Ok, one is obvious but it is not the only one. One of the characters is Virginia Woolf, caught in one of her lowest points of her life. Well, the novel starts with her suicide but in the rest of it she is pictured in the country, bored and trying her best to get back to London, a move that might be her doom. The 2nd character, a modern day Mrs. Dalloway, is organizing a party which does not go according to plan. Lastly, the 3rd character is a housewife reading the book I mentioned before and unhappy with her life.
It is a short book but it manages to be so deep but to also flow, as time, an important theme in the book. It is also novel about love, illness, suicide.

I loved the writing and the characters bug I wish I remembered more about this book. As usual, I should have written my thoughts close to the finishing date, not now, 2 months later. Anyway, it is a masterpiece and a deserved winner of the Pulitzer prize.

I saw the movie. I read Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway (2 stars) and finally read this book.

This is an easier read than Mrs. Dalloway because this uses contemporary English. Well, that thin book by Woolf was one of the first few classics that I had read upon joining Goodreads and I knew I must have missed somethings that was why I just found it okay (2 stars). I should read it again someday.

The movie stayed true to this book so it was not hard to imagine the scenes described in here even if I saw it more than a decade ago. I still remember Nicole Kidman's false nose, Julianne Moore checking in in the hotel only to lie down and read the book, Mrs. Dalloway and Meryl Streep shocked upon finding that Ed Harris committed suicide. I mean the movie left those images in me in 2002 and so it was definitely a good movie.

What this book only did was to make me understand the whole movie by letting me go through the dialogues that I missed as English is not my first language the there was no subtitle when I saw the movie during its theater run. I also understood that nuances of the middle-aged characters from Virginia Woolf in 1920's London, to Mrs. Brown in the 1950's San Francisco and Clarissa "Mrs. Dalloway" Vaughman in the 1990's New York. The story is about these three women whose lives intertwined in the end via the works and life of Woolf. It is not about some kind of reincarnation (this book is not fantasy or supernatural) but about the other women sharing the same traits, probably because of reading too much Woolf, as the great English writer.

There are many nice quotes that you would encounter reading this book but this one explains the title:

n  "There is just this for consolation we've ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) knows 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."n

Despite all the latent realization of these women's sexuality, suicide and checking in in the hotel just to read a book, I liked this book and I thought Cunningham did a good job and deserved his Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction.

تجربة جديدة بالنسبة لي بدأت بنفور ثم تطورت إلى إحساس بالفضول ثم انتهت اخيرا بحب غير مفهوم اسبابه لهذه الرواية.

وانا أقرأ الرواية كنت لا أرى أي شىء يربطني بأي شخصية. هم أبعد ما يكونون عن عالمي. علاقاتهم المعقدة لا تخصني في كثير أو قليل.
لم أملك إلا أن أطل بحب استطلاع على هذا العالم الغريب.

في الثلث الأخير من الرواية وجدت أخيرا بدون أن أدري الرابط الذي يربطني بشخصيات الرواية. ربما كان احساسي بمدى بؤسهم-على الرغم من التفاهة الظاهرية لأسباب هذا البؤس-هو الذي جعلني أشعر بنوع من "الإنتماء" لتلك الشخصيات. مجابهة السيدات الثلاث لرعب لا أحد منهم يستطيع أن يفهم ماهيته. ولكنهم يقررن بشجاعة تجاهله كأنه غير موجود. إلى أن يعلن إستسلامهن باشكال مختلفة لهذا المجهول المرعب.

ربما أكون مجرد منبهرة برواية صيغ عالمها بمهارة لتغطي على فكرة غير ناضجة وعالم عاجي بعيد عن عالم الإنسان العادي الذي لا يعرف سوى معاناته في الجري وراء لقمة عيشه.
ربما ما أثر في هو نهايات الأبطال الحزينة التي صيغت مشاهدها في براعة.
أضع رواية السيدة دلاواي في مقدمة قائمة قراءاتي. وربما لن أفهم منها شيئا وربما أشعر بنفس الإحساس بانها لا تنتمي لعالمي. ولكن لا يمكن أن أفوت محاولة القاء نظرة عليها على الأقل.

وأتمنى أن اجدها بترجمة جيدة، لأني عانيت الأمرين مع هذه الترجمة.

I am obsessed! By the end of the day I will have read this book, listened to the BBC radio production, and streamed the movie. If my library currently had a copy of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, I’d be running over there to get that (I have a copy requested/on hold). This was a sublime reading and listening experience and I can’t wait to stream the movie tonight. This book deserved the Pulitzer and every other award it won. Simply brilliant.

Oh and by the way, I had never read any Virginia Woolf, didn’t know her story, but will be digging for more. Apparently (Wikipedia) she pioneered the stream of consciousness narrative device, something I’ve always enjoyed, and Cunningham does this book in that style. The story gets into the heads of 3 women on one day in their respective lives - Virginia Woolf in 1921 outside London as she is starting to write the novel Mrs. Dalloway, a young LA housewife in 1950 who is reading that book, and a middle-aged lesbian New Yorker in the late 1990s whose first name is Clarissa (Mrs. Dalloway’s first name is Clarissa). Their stories thus are all connected, the prose is gorgeous and I love love loved it!

I'm extremely impressed with this book.  I'm pretty sure I saw the movie when it came out (there's no way I'd have passed on that cast), but it wasn't a memorable experience.  At that time I hadn't read Mrs. Dalloway and knew little about Virginia Woolf other than that she was a famous well-respected writer. 

In the past few years, I've read two fiction books of hers and one nonfiction and have also read about her suicide.  One of the books I read was Mrs. Dalloway.  I was so impressed with her writing that someone trying to imitate her would never have appealed to me.  I thought it very unusual that someone would try to live up to her writing in a tribute to her.

I was wrong.  Thankfully, I started a Pulitzer challenge to read all the Pulitzer's, and this was on it and had to be read.   I love everything about this book.   Michael Cunningham's writing is gorgeous and deeply moving.  Every word resonated and even though the blurb said the 3 lives of the characters would come together, I did not have a care for trying to figure that out.  I was simply enjoying his writing. 

When the end came I was floored.  This book is a perfect tribute to the great Virginia Woolf.  I'll be seeking out more of Michael Cunningham's work and I must see the film version of The Hours again, with my heightened perspective.  I normally love a film if I loved the book and vice versa.

“Still, she loves the world for being rude and indestructible, and she knows other people must love it too, poor as well as rich, though no one speaks specifically of the reasons. Why else do we struggle to go on living, no matter how compromised, no matter how harmed?”

I’m actually quite glad that I didn’t have time to go to the movies in the early 2000s. My first child was newly born, and I was more likely to be seen pacing a room with a cranky baby, changing a diaper, or passed out on the couch from exhaustion. Hell, I had even given up trying to read at that point in my life! What I’m trying to say is that I somehow missed seeing the film adaptation of The Hours when it was released. Therefore, I went into this book with minimal knowledge of the plot. It was an absolute joy to read this; Michael Cunningham swept me off my feet.

“She could, she thinks, have entered another world. She could have had a life as potent and dangerous as literature itself.”

I loved everything about this book – truly, every single thing! First and foremost is the sublime prose. The inter-connectedness of the stories between three women (Virginia Woolf, Laura Brown and Clarissa Vaughan -affectionately nicknamed Mrs. Dalloway by a dear friend) and across three timelines (1920s, late 1940s and early 2000s) is extremely effective. There is an overwhelming feeling that despite where and when you are born, our struggles are timeless and cross all boundaries. Virginia Woolf and her book, Mrs. Dalloway, provide the link between all three story lines. I have in fact read this slim novel by Woolf. It’s not necessary to have done so in order to appreciate The Hours. The only advantage I had was understanding the relationship between Woolf’s characters and those of Cunningham. However, Cunningham seamlessly weaves the writing of the book Mrs. Dalloway into the context of Mrs. Woolf’s section of this novel in such a way that you will do just fine without that prior knowledge.

“… she is again possessed (it seems to be getting worse) by a dreamlike feeling, as if she is standing in the wings, about to go onstage and perform in a play for which she is not appropriately dressed, and for which she has not adequately rehearsed.”

I don’t know how so much depth was packed into little over 200 pages. It’s pure genius. I know these women intimately. I shared their deepest sorrows and desperate longings. I ‘get’ them. This is not a cheery sort of book, no. We read about terminal disease, depression and suicide. There is the constant search for identity, love and happiness. Sometimes these things seem just out of reach. Often they are impossible to hold onto when we are lucky enough to finally grasp them. How does any one person make it through his or her day then? What do we do with what we have? Do we plow through and delight in those few moments that sustain us? Do we take extreme action and do the unthinkable? It’s remarkable really that we are still here and we still thrive. Life is a gift. If we hold those few extraordinary hours in a lifetime of ordinary days in our hands like a fragile bubble that could burst at any moment, then we are doing our best, aren’t we?!

I’m not ready to return this book to my shelf yet. I need it by my side right now, to serve as a reminder when I have too much time on my hands to reflect on where I’ve been and where I’m going. It’s a punch in the gut and a divine blessing snugly wrapped up in one little package.

"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."

Just leaving this little reminder here this time:

“Yes, Clarissa thinks, it’s time for the day to be over. We throw our parties; we abandon our families to live alone in Canada; we struggle to write books that do not change the world, despite our gifts and our unstinting efforts, our most extravagant hopes. We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep—it’s as simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out of windows or drown themselves or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us, the vast majority, 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 and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we’ve ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) knows 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.”

2019

I loved “The Hours” when I first read it (translated to Portuguese) in the early 2000’s. I also loved the film adaptation and watched it so many times over the years that I know parts of the dialogue by heart. I’m just like that, and if I love something (or someone) with all my heart I always come back. Always. Less risks of disappointment for being like this. If there’s love then it’s worth it.

And I love this book with all my heart. And I read it this time as compulsively as the first time. Cunningham’s writing is completely mesmerising, it speaks to me, it feels real and I love his way with words. I can relate to his storytelling, to his love for life, art and for all the precious, sometimes ordinary, moments we all have engraved, probably forever, in our hearts.

For me “The Hours” is Cunningham’s finest book. I still have two of his novels to read but I honestly can’t believe they could be as imaginative, as elegant and exquisite as this one. This is what literature as a form of art should be about, in my humble opinion. Oh, and how humble do I feel after finishing this book. Nothing I can possibly say or write will ever compare to this. Actually, nothing will ever compare to this, because this book, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly like those ordinary moments Cunningham always tell us about in his stories; They happen only once (and we know it) and that (we also know it) is what makes them unique, what makes them perfect.
And that’s what this novel is.
And that’s the way life is.

Perfect.

“The hours, always the hours…”

Cunningham's exploration of the themes of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, as well as many of the events in Woolf's life, earned him a Pulitzer Prize along with a big budget award-winning film adaptation. The three storylines follow a day in each protagonist's life, with similar events and themes that echo through each. But, like the novel on which it is based, most of the fun in reading The Hours will come from the enjoyment of the prose and the reflections of the nuanced characters rather than the slow-moving contemplative storyline.

kesinlikle olağanüstü! bu kitap, bu yılın favorileri arasında olabilir. cunningham, üç kadının hayatını güzel bir şekilde iç içe geçirmiş.

ilk olarak, mrs. dalloway'i yazdığı dönemde takip ettiğimiz virginia woolf karşımıza çıkıyor; yazar, woolf'un içsel mücadelesini ve yaşadığı yoğun anları inanılmaz bir şekilde tasvir etmiş. woolf'un bölümlerini çok dokunaklı ve etkileyici buldum. sonra, ev hanımı olan laura brown ile karşılaşıyoruz; laura, gündelik hayatının baskısı altında sıkışmış ve boğulmuş. onun hikâyesi, toplumun dayattığı rollerin ötesinde kimlik ve anlam arayışının ince ama güçlü bir keşfi gibi. son olarak, new york'ta arkadaşı richard için bir parti düzenleyen clarissa vaughan ile tanışıyoruz; clarissa'nın hikâyesi hayatın, aşkın ve dostluğun acı-tatlı özünü yakalamış.

woolf'un karakteri mrs. dalloway ile olan bağlantısı güzel bir şekilde yansıtılmış. kitabın vermek istedikleri düşündürücü; zamanın akıp gitmesi, akıl sağlığının karmaşık doğası ve sondaki küçük sürprizler.. kitabı bitirdikten sonra bile bunlar üzerine uzun süre düşündüm.

I gave the novel one star simply because Goodreads wouldn't let me give it zero! The book is about three self-absorbed, whiny and spoiled women, all from different eras, complaining and whining about their lives, even though, they essentially have it all (wealth, love, family, friends, etc). The book is vile. The characters are repulsive and the plot is tiresome. I keep asking myself how on earth did this novel win a Pulitzer Prize? There's a huge red sticker on the front of the cover, of the novel, proudly advertising this fact -- it won the prize for fiction in 1999. Are the people that judge these things on crack?

"Ia-ma cu tine. Vreau o iubire sortita esecului. Vreau strazi in noapte, vant, ploaie, si nimeni sa nu se intrebe pe unde sunt."
Autorul este cunoscut si pentru romanele "O casa de la capatul lumii" sau "Carne si sange", insa celebritatea a cunoscut-o in 1998 pentru romanul "Orele". Un an mai tarziu a fost distins cu premiul Pulitzer pentru aceasta scriere. A urmat apoi ecranizarea, cu actritele Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman si Julianne Moore in rolurile principale, care a castigat Globul de Aur si Oscarul pentru cea mai buna actrita in rol principal. (Nicole Kidman)
In ceea ce priveste titlul, "Orele", trebuie sa stim ca acesta a fost titlul original al romanului "Doamna Dalloway" de Virgina Woolf.
Cartea de fata urmareste destinul a 3 femei diferite: Clarissa Vaughan - care traieste in anii '90, Laura Brown - din anii '50 si Virginia Woolf - din anii '20.
In ceea ce priveste actiunea, ni se descrie in prolog scena sinuciderii Virginiei Woolf. Ne aflam in 1941, cand intr-o zi Virginia lasa un bilet de adio pentru sotul ei Leonard, se duce la rau unde isi indeasa un bolovan in buzunar si se ineaca. Nu mai putea continua lupta cu vocile din capul ei, cu dorinta de a fugi la Londra, cu nebunia si psihoza care se instalasera din ce in ce mai mult.
Ne ducem apoi in New York-ul anilor '90 si o avem in prim plan pe Clarissa, care exact ca si tiza ei din "Doamna Dalloway" se pregateste sa organizeze o petrecere pentru un fost iubit al ei, Richard. Acesta sufera de Sida intr-o faza terminala si are psihicul afectat. Clarissa se duce sa cumpere flori pentru aceasta ocazie si se dovedeste a fi la fel de fermecatoare, profunda si complexa ca si personajul care a inspirat-o. Sinuciderea lui Richard este la fel de vie si dureroasa ca si a lui Septimus.
Pe de alta parte, ne intoarcem iarasi la Virgina Woolf si ne aflam in 1923 la Richmond unde aceasta s-a retras la tara pentru a lucra la romanul "Doamna Dalloway" si pentru a-si odihni psihicul. Se chinuie sa scrie, sa termine cartea, deoarece vocile si migrenele castiga din ce in ce mai mult teren. Tot ce vrea este sa ajunga inapoi la Londra.
Pe Laura Brown o cunoastem la Los Angeles in 1949. Este insarcinata si citeste cu mare placere si fascinatie "Doamna Dalloway". Casatorita cu Dan, un fost soldat si avand un baietel pe numele sau Richard, ea se gandeste la sinucidere, la parasirea familiei, la fuga de a fi o simpla sotie, casnica, mama. Crede si spera ca poate sa fie mai mult de atat.
Vietile celor 3 femei se intrepatrund minunat la sfarsit, naratiunea este fluida constituind o punte intre cele 3 destine, finalul fiind frumos si deopotriva dureros. O carte cu adevarat impresionanta.
Gandul cu care am ramas dupa terminarea romanului este ca toate aceste 3 femei au in comun o vointa infailibila: nu au dorit sa fie rotitele din marele mecanism al destinului care te obliga sa te invarti dupa meandrele lui. Au vrut sa se invarta ori cum vor ele ori deloc. Viata si moartea sa fie alegerea lor nu a destinului.
In inchiere atasez cateva citate care mi s-au parut foarte frumoase:
"Cu toate acestea, ea iubeste lumea pentru ca este necioplita si indestructibila, si stie ca, probabil, si alti oameni o iubesc, saraci si bogati laolalta, cu toate ca nimeni nu invoca neaparat un motiv anume. Altfel de ce ne-am lupta sa mergem mai departe, oricat de compromisi suntem, oricat de lezati suntem?"
"In zilele noastre, crede Clarissa, ii cantaresti pe oameni in primul rand dupa bunatate si capacitatea de a se devota. Uneori te saturi de spirit si intelect; toata lumea da mici spectacole de genialitate."
"Intotdeauna cartea pe care-o ai in cap e mai buna decat cea pe care reusesti sa o pui pe hartie."
"De ce s-a maritat cu el? S-a maritat din dragoste. S-a maritat din vina; din frica de a nu fi singura, din patriotism."
"Uite spiritul stralucit, femeia tuturor suferintelor, femeia bucuriilor transcendente, care a consimtit sa ia asupra-si sarcini simple si eminamente prostesti, sa examineze rosii, sa stea sub casca de la coafor, pentru ca asta e arta si datoria ei."