4.5 stars

n  

Why else do we struggle to go on living, no matter how compromised, no matter how harmed?

n
Cunningham has forged a masterful novel which melds ideas of creativity, failure, love, suicide, depression and gender, and has done so in a manner that manages to be profoundly moving in just a little over 200 pages. It’s not that the narrative feels compressed, it’s that the text expands beautifully around an array of images and motifs that accrue meaning each time they appear and reappear: yellow roses, a kiss, water, shoes… This fine use of intertexts is exactly what I was hoping – but failed - to get from Ali Smith’s Seasons quartet: Smith inserts traces that don’t add up to anything; Cunningham enables his connections to speak to each other and to us: they carry the message of the text beyond the plot surface.

The engagement with Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway is creative and penetrating: in the three narratives nestled here, Virginia Woolf is wrestling with what she wants her book, originally called ‘The Hours’, to be; Clarissa, nicknamed Mrs Dalloway, in late C20th New York experiences much that Woolf’s own character does in that single day that encompasses both love and death; and Laura Brown in 1950s America is struggling to find the time to read ‘Mrs Dalloway’ amidst her humdrum domesticity – while also pulling the whole book together beautifully by the end.

While, strictly speaking, it’s possible to read this without knowing ‘Mrs Dalloway’ (it’s clever that Laura is reading the book so that pertinent quotations can be inserted within this text), there are so many pleasures to be found in tracing connections and marvelling at how deftly Cunningham has both reproduced key moments and given them a modern contemporaneity Septimus Smith, for example, suffering from ‘shell shock’ in the original, becomes a man dying from HIV/AIDS.

Ultimately, this is a book about the courage it might take to live, to love or to create a work of art – where the payback is those few, singular moments that illuminate and incandesce amidst the everyday, the mundane, the painful and the terrifying of ‘the hours’ of existence.

Когато порасна искам да мога да пиша така.

4.25/5

Myślę, że zanim cokolwiek o niej powiem, musi poleżeć chwilę w mojej głowie

This book was very well written about the life of three women, moving from a few hours in the life of Virginia Woolf when she killed herself, to two other women who lived different lives and in different times. To me it was a very depressing book, but because the book had a profound affect on me, I rate it as a 4. Of course, it caused me to decide that perhaps I will not ever read anything by Virginia Woolf.

I can only hope, after reading this novel, that I will have the pleasure someday of meeting the author, Michael Cunningham. This is what I'd like to say to him: Here, in this novel, you have honored the craft of writing. Here is the place where talent, intelligence and imagination have collided. Here you have proven that you do not need to lower the bar to meet the mainstream and you have, instead, challenged all of us to raise it higher.

This is an exceptional read, a Pulitzer well-deserved. A must-read for anyone who has the heart, the brain, the nerve.

Okay, let's be honest, the only reason this book isn't getting a D is because the language was very beautiful... most of the time. It was beautiful when it wasn't beating me over the head with the whole, "Look how eloquently I can write and use big words and sound smart! Don't you feel smart just reading it? Oh, wait... you just feel stupid, huh?" Which, honestly, wasn't that much, but it was enough to annoy me.

The problem I had with the whole story was that I could not find sympathy in any of the characters. I was not drawn to them, I felt no bond with them at all. I didn't care about them in any way, and with any book you read you should at least care about your characters a little bit, right?

I remember watching the movie and not being very entertained by that either, so perhaps that clouded my judgement when I started reading this. But I don't really think so seeing as how I didn't really remember much of the movie, except the ending, which is what I will probably only remember about the novel when I look back on it.

Usually I'm one of those people that desperately wants you to read the books if you're going to see the movie, you know, get more involved. But, if I remember correctly, the book and the movie are pretty much the exact same thing. So if you want to save yourself some time, go watch the movie. That is if you're really all that interested in the story at all.

So few writers could recreate the brilliance of Virginia Woolf and actually do her justice. Michael Cunningham has brought her doomed figure, her fictional creations, and a modern counterpart to life and conjoined their plight throughout the generations. Their female suffering is a shared one and I was enraptured even as I was ambushed by anguish, for on every single page there was an infusion of lyrical brilliance but also the essence of being known, being understood, and ultimately an ardent sense of belonging to this set of women and their shared stories that echo throughout the ages. How I long to hurl my voice into the ether along with them.

کتاب خوبی بود. فقط باید مقداری حوصله داشته باشید و کمی علاقه تا خوشتان بیاید و لذت ببرید. ترجمه هم خوب بود و در جاهایی دقت زیاد مترجم دیده می‌شد: مثلاً در صفحه 45 کتاب برای کلمه‌ی بلاثکث این خط زیرنویس شده بود
Velazquez
(با توجه به شکل ظاهری، آن را معمولاً ولاسکز ضبط می‌کنند که درست نیست. مترجم)
که دقت و وسواس مترجم حتی در تلفظ صحیح اسامی را نشان می‌دهد که برای من جالب بود و ارزش داشت.
و اما فیلم این رمان. انصافاً عالی بود. به نظر من فیلمنامه نوشتن از روی چنین ��تابی بسیار سخت می‌باشد. اگر نه فیلم را دیده‌اید و نه کتاب را خوانده‌اید، توصیه می‌کنم حتما هم کتاب را بخوانید و هم فیلم را ببینید. نمی‌توانم بگویم کدام را اول شروع کنید. فقط می‌توانم بگویم من از اختلاط فیلم و رمان بسیار لذت بردم. اگر کتاب را خوانده‌اید حتماً فیلم را ببینید و از دنیایی که استفن دالدری و بازیگران فوق العاده و دوست داشتنی خلق کرده‌اند لذت ببرید. و اگر فیلم را دیده‌اید خواندن کتاب جذابیتی جداگانه و از جنسی دیگر دارد. اگر هم فیلم را دیده‌اید و هم کتاب را خوانده‌اید خوشا به سعادتتان.
The hours (2002) 7.5 Meta:80
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کلاریسا معتقد است این روزها مردم را باید در درجه‌ی اول از روی مهربانی و ظرفیت ایثارشان سنجید. ص 30 کتاب
حتی حالا در این عصر اخیر، مردها هنوز مرگ را در دست‌های توانای خود می‌گیرند و با محبت به زن‌ها می‌خندند؛ زن‌هایی که بستر مرگ را پهن می‌کنند و از جان تازه دمیدن در ذات حیات تازه از دست رفته در چشم‌انداز، با معجزه یا نیروی محض اراده حرف می‌زنند. ص 133 کتاب
و می‌داند که اگر- و هر وقت که- هیولا پیدایش بشود، یکسره تنها می‌شود. هیولا سردرد است؛ هیولا پچ پچی است توی دیوار؛ هیولا باله‌ای است که در میان امواج تیره شکسته است. هیولا بند آمدن نغمه‌ی کوتاه توکایی است که همه‌ی زندگیش همین بود. هیولا هر آنچه زیبایی و امید است از جهان می‌رباید و هنگامی که کارش به پایان رسید، آن چه به جا می‌ماند قلمرو زندگان نیم‌مرده است- قلمرویی بی‌شور و شعف و خفقان آور. ص 181 کتاب

(Book 89 from 1001 books) - The Hours, Michael Cunningham

The Hours is a 1998 novel written by Michael Cunningham. It won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the 1999 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and was later made into an Oscar-winning 2002 movie of the same name starring Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep and Julianne Moore.

The book concerns three generations of women affected by the classic novel Mrs. Dalloway.

In Richmond, 1923, author Virginia Woolf is writing Mrs. Dalloway and struggling with her own mental illness.

In 1949 Los Angeles, Mrs. Brown, wife of a World War II veteran, who is reading Mrs. Dalloway, plans her husband's birthday party.

In 1999 New York City, Clarissa Vaughan plans a party to celebrate a major literary award received by her good friend and former lover, the poet Richard, who is dying of an AIDS-related illness. ...

ساعتها - مایکل کانینگهام (کاروان) برنده جایزه پولیتزر؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: ماه آوریل سال 2012میلادی

عنوان: ساعتها؛ نویسنده: مایکل کانینگهام ؛ مترجم: مهدی غبرایی؛ تهران، کاروان، 1382؛ در 236 ص؛ چاپ دوم و سوم 1383؛ و ...؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 20م

عنوان: ساعتها؛ نویسنده: مایکل کانینگهام ؛ مترجم: ماندانا ارفع؛ تهران، عطایی، 1382؛ در 240ص؛

این رمان، با بهره گیری از دیگر زندگینامه ها، شخصیت «ویرجینیا وولف»؛ نویسنده ی بزرگ «انگلیسی» را، بازسازی و زنده میکند، داستان از زبان سه زن بازگو میشود، سه زن از سه نسل، که تحت تأثیر رمان «خانم دالووی»، اثر «ویرجینیا وولف» هستند؛ نخستین آنها خود «ویرجینیا وولف» هستند، که دارند در سال 1923میلادی، هم‌زمان با نگارش رمان «خانم دالووی»، با بیماری روانی خودش، دست و پنجه، نرم می‌کنند؛ نفر دوم «خانم براون» است، همسر یک کهنه سرباز جنگ جهانی دوم، که در سال 1949میلادی، دلمشغول خوانش رمان «خانم دالووی» است، و هم‌زمان جشن تولد شوهرش را ترتیب می‌دهد؛ نفر سوم، «کلاریسا وگان»، زنی همجنسگرا است، که در سال 2001میلادی، جشنی به افتخار دوست شاعر، و معشوق قدیمی خویش «ریچارد» می‌گیرد، که به خاطر بیماری «ایدز» با مرگ دست و پنجه نرم می‌کند

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 18/10/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 21/07/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

No me gustó. Para mi, fue una lectura muy aburrida. En este caso concreto, este premio Pulitzer me resultó de poco interés.

I didn't like it. For me, it was a very boring read. In this particular case, I found this Pulitzer prize of little interest.

“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.” -- Michael Cunningham, The Hours

Michael Cunningham’s The Hours is an inspired creative work of art that uses Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway as a starting point. The author braids together three different stories of three different days in the lives of three female protagonists: Mrs. Woolf, Mrs. Brown, and “Mrs. Dalloway.” Mrs. Woolf is an imagined version of Virginia Woolf herself, in June 1923, as she is in the process of creating her book and envisioning how it will unfold. Mrs. Brown is Laura Brown, a wife and mother in 1949, who is suffering from depression and suicidal thoughts. “Mrs. Dalloway” is Clarissa Vaughan, nicknamed by her gay friend and noted poet, Richard, due to her first name and personality. She buys flowers for a party she is hosting later that evening for Richard, who is about to receive a literary award. The exact date is not given, but implied to be in the 1990’s. It is hard to do justice to this novel through a plot summary. Suffice it to say it is character-driven and plot is secondary.

Poignant and sad, though not without a thread of hope, this novel explores the difficulties of living with depression, surviving day-to-day in the face of mortality, and fighting against perfectionistic tendencies. The reader will notice many parallels to Woolf’s work in style, themes, and scenes. Cunningham’s prose is lyrical, and he successfully simulates Woolf’s stream-of-consciousness writing style, replete with parentheses, semi-colons, detailed descriptions, and asides. Themes include time, mortality, gender, creativity, and finding meaning in life. The perspective is omniscient third person, so the reader is privy to the thoughts of both the main and secondary characters. This work evokes questions in the mind of the reader and invites meaningful introspection. Be aware going in that the content includes suicide.

The Hours is a brilliant and moving tribute to the hopes and fears of everyday life. Cunningham turns the seemingly mundane into the sublime. Recommended to anyone that has read and had a positive reaction to Mrs. Dalloway.

Good read! very intriguing..deals with three women that are intertwine and connected by different time period through a simple book....well written...(paperback!)