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Dec 16, 2009

Sammy rated it:

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 fin More...

2 comments like (9 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Sarah rated it:

When I first read this book, I loved it. But as I spent time thinking about it, I found myself liking the novel less and less. Finally I went back and re-read it, and on the second reading I truly disliked it. Partly, things that had seemed profound or beautiful looked much more flimsy on second glance...even trite, sometimes. Like a facade of depth, if that makes any sense. Which is not to say that Cunningham isn't completely sincere and genuine in his approach to his subject. Just that I'm not More...

3 comments like (6 people liked it)

Feb 10, 2009

Peter added it

When you read a book like The Hours, you have to decide whether you want to see it as a work in its own right or as an illumination of something else. In this case, The Hours can either be seen as a standalone novel telling the parallel stories of three women in three time periods or as a complementary text to Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway.

I struggled with The Hours. (Full disclosure: I struggled with it mostly because I heard Michael Cunningham speak at a screening, and he was More...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

Aug 02, 2011

Tancredi rated it:

"Non credo che due persone avrebbero potuto essere più felici di quanto siamo stati noi"

Scrivere una recensione, o anche uno straccio soltanto di commento su questo piccolo capolavoro è impresa quanto mai ardua ed impossibile. Potrei provarci e riprovarci: rimmarebbe sempre la sensazione di non aver reso per nulla la grandezza e la perfezione di questo gioiello della letteratura contemporanea. Allora potrei anche dire solo questo. Vi basti questo: qualunque recensione non può More...

2 comments like (6 people liked it)

Sep 23, 2010

Madalena rated it:

I really enjoyed this book. I enjoyed that it was beautifully written, even if sometimes 'too' beautiful - the kind of writing that makes you stop reading and think about it. Anyway, I'm always pleased at words that sound good togther, that look nice together, and I think the author's consistently good at it.

Plot wise, I had seen the film before I read it, and although I didnt really remember much details, I think that helped me not getting confused about the characters, names, relat More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 29, 2008

minervasowl rated it:

I'm a little ashamed to admit that I read this book because Oprah told me to.

Actually Oprah, Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore and Nicole Kidman told me to.

It must have been a Thursday or Friday afternoon because those were the days off the last time I had a job for which I worked weekends.

The episode with these three ladies was a little unconventional for Oprah. Rather than conducting an interview from her usual studio, she met them for tea in a fancy hotel. And More...

7 comments like (13 people liked it)

Jan 11, 2008

Donna rated it:

BRILLIANT! BRILLIANT! BRILLIANT! I loved loved LOVED this book! Every word, every page…. Fantastic writing, intricate structure, amazing insights. I have LOADS of passages earmarked. This is definitely a must-read-again (and again and again and again!). I *never* cry when I read books – this time I cried.

FAVOURITE QUOTE: “It had seemed like the beginning of happiness, and Clarissa is still sometimes shocked, more than thirty years later, to realize that it was happiness; that More...

3 comments like (8 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

stephanie rated it:

i kind of wonder what would have happened if this hadn't been my first cunningham. i didn't like any of his other books anywhere near as much (i full on hated Specimen Days). but this, somehow, i think it has to do with the way he manages to write virginia in a way that seems pretty true, that won me over. also, the modern-day "mrs. dalloway" breaks my heart every time i read the damn thing.

i think i liked it so much because it was so ambitious, and i thought he pulled it More...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

Feb 23, 2009

Heather rated it:

I'm not usually crazy about book characters to whom I can't relate, but MY GOD! the prose is magnificent. Sometimes I felt like Cunningham was just showing off, but I would too if I could write like this:

"It had seemed like the beginning of happiness, and Clarissa is still sometimes shocked, more than thirty years later, to realize that it was happiness; that the entire experience lay in a kiss and a walk, the anticipation of dinner and a book. The dinner is by now forgotten; L More...

3 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 24, 2008

Debbie rated it:

I wish I could've rated this 0 stars. It is the hope-less story about three women living in different eras who are unhappy with their lives. Even though they each have significant resources (money, friendship, family, intelligence), they focus on the deficits and let those envelope their lives. Suicide is advocated as some kind of empowering choice. It is a look inside of depressed lives without the slightest possibility that such lives can find joy and hope again.

8 comments like (7 people liked it)

Nov 22, 2011

Mowey rated it:

gaad, i loved it. i just loved the book to pieces.

i’m still confounded of why in that moment i first laid my eyes on this book, did i feel automatically drawn to pick it up and buy it. i have to tell you, it’s even got nothing to do with the beautiful faces of Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman on the glossy cover. for i was even remotely aware of the celluloid version of the novel at the time when i bought it. and then i read the back cover and i thought, maybe, just ma More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 29, 2009

Randy rated it:

A gripping story about 3 woman in different time periods each unhappy with their lives. This is easily my all time favorite book for the beauty, the prose, the connections and the storylines. Simply wonderful. A novel to aspire towards.

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 29, 2011

Karima rated it:

Give this book your undivided attention. It deserves every second.

"The Hours" weaves together the lives of three different women living in three different times and places. The first story is that of Virginia Woolf during a day in 1923, when she is writing "Mrs. Dalloway". The second is the story of Laura Brown, a deeply unhappy, bookish married woman living in the suburbs of Los Angeles. It is 1949 and a pregnant Laura, along with her four-year-old-son is baking More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 05, 2011

Angus rated it:

Disclaimer: This is not a review. This may have spoilers. Read at your own risk. Visit original post at Book Rhapsody.

***

Intro

My original copy of this book was bought by my cousin at a book store in Tokyo. I immediately read it as soon as I got it. But a few years later, termites destroyed it. Maybe those pests are into Japanese cuisine?

Anyway, ever since this book started to appear in secondhand book stores, I developed this urge to buy each copy. I bough More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 22, 2009

Carrie added it

Be warned: he drops the F-bomb 3 times. Also, I went into it knowing that every character was gay or had serious mental health issues, or both. It helped me to know that beforehand. Also, I understood that the entire book was based on Virginia Woolfe's "Mrs. Dalloway" and I was okay with that. (I thought that the point was to figure out which more modern-day character was Virginia Woolfe, metaphorically.)

Things I liked about the book: I loved the Prologue. I thought it was More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 19, 2009

Margaret rated it:

Well at first I made it to "sluttish widow" and then I threw the book down. I picked it up again and made it the part about a woman agreeing to be harmless so her husband will provide for her and then I just decided to skip Clarissa's entire first chapter and move on to the next chapter on Woolf. Thus far I am wondering why this book won the Pulitzer Prize . . . So I have been reading the Woolf and Brown chapters and skimming the Clarissa chapters (I absolutely loathe these; the author More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Jul 27, 2008

Martine rated it:

Several years ago I had the fortune of watching the film adaptation of The Hours, which quite blew me away. I'm not sure why it then took me so long to read the book on which the film was based, but I'm glad I did, as it's just beautiful.

The Hours is both a tribute to and an update of Virginia Woolf's 1920s classic Mrs Dalloway, in which Pulitzer-winning author Michael Cunningham tries to answer the question of how Woolf's characters would interact in a present-day setting. Short on More...

7 comments like (7 people liked it)

Mar 19, 2008

Joel rated it:

This is a book that is difficult for me to review. It is rich in character development and is very well written. It kept my attention and I found that I could not put it down. But some things about it bothered me all the way through. Ultimately, I think they were: (i) I could not really relate to any of the characters; (ii) I found the whole outlook too pessimistic (I guess this is probably the same as (i)) and (iii) I couldn't get into the rhythm of the sentence structure. I really enjoyed More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 26, 2007

Shana rated it:

To be fair, I should state that I never finished this book. I couldn't. It was too awful. Usually, that isn't my style. Usually, I finish what I start. I guess I have some vague hope that maybe some way, some how whatever it is will improve, so I try to power through. Usually. There are a few things I've quit. Moulin Rouge, for example. It was painful. And this.

I love, love, love Mrs. Dalloway. It was no easy task, of course. Mrs. Dalloway is not the kind of book easily More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Nov 22, 2007

Adora rated it:

به نقل از سایت کتاب انتشارات کاروان
ساعت ها، هم بزرگداشت ویریجینیا وولف است و هم مخلوق خود. در این کتاب، مایکل کانینگهام به قهرمان ادبی خود زندگی می بخشد، و در کنار آن، سرگذشت ویرجینیا وولف را به زندگی دو زن معاصر پیوند می زند. وولف یک روز صبح از خواب بیدار می شود، او خوابی دیده که به زودی به رمان خانم دالووی تبدیل خواهد شد. در زمان حال، کلاریسا ووگان سعی دارد مهمانی ای برای عشق قدیمی اش، شاعری دچار ایدز بگیرد. و در لوس آنجلس در سال 1949، لورا براون، زنی حامله ، تمام تلاشش را می کند تا جشن More...

0 comments like

Jan 22, 2008

Renee rated it:

I just finished this a little bit ago. I try to resist reading pop literature, but I liked this movie a lot and it DID win the Pulitzer. The book is almost exactly like the movie--I can't think of a single left out scene or any point that was made clearer in the reading of the book. Cunningham's use of language is pretty good though honestly I find the meat of the story to be a little bit thin, or maybe just not that explicitly executed. He seems to be making a point about how hard it is to More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Sep 11, 2011

Lys rated it:

Ci sono libri più difficili da leggere che non altri. Difficili perché vanno a toccare corde vicine al nostro pensiero, alla nostra personalità, alla nostra sensibilità; difficili perché ogni parola, ogni azione e ogni pensiero è a suo modo un riflesso dei nostri. Non un riflesso preciso, nemmeno veritiero, ma che cattura quell'intima particolarità (mania, insicurezza, paranoia) e la porta sotto la luce (distorta, forse, ma noi ne scorgiamo ancora i contorni, nostri).
Per me, Le Ore è stato un li More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 26, 2007

Ryan rated it:

lush. voluptuous prose. can't help caring for these characters. learned the word "prolix." favorite paragraph:

"It had seemed like the beginning of happiness, and Clarissa is still sometimes shocked, more than thirty years later, to realize that it was happiness; that the entire experience lay in a kiss and a walk, the anticipation of dinner and a book. The dinner is by now forgotten; Lessing has been long overshadowed by other writers; and even the sex, once she a More...