THE HOURS: A day in the lives

 

I first read this book some years ago, and I hadn’t read “Mrs Dalloway” by that time. Now, after reading Virginia Woolf’s masterpiece, it was much more pleasant to read “The Hours”. Cunningham does not only make a homage to Mrs Dalloway, but also a reverence to Mrs Woolf and her unique style.The book follows one single day in the lives of three different women living in different times and places. At first we are introduced to Virginia Woolf herself, who is an artist creating her most daring work.

She is still at the begining of her novel, so we can see her development process. The second women who steps into this book is Clarissa — a.k.a. Mrs Dalloway, named after the character by her friend and ex-lover Richard. She is a gay editor who is organising a party for Richard. The last one we meet is Laura Brown, who has just started reading “Mrs Dalloway” and wants to make a cake to celbrate her husband’s birthday.

Page after page, these women got changed. Unexpected things crop up all the time. It’s someone Clarissa meets at the park; it’s Virginia’s sister arriving earlier for a tea; it’s Laura’s neighbour asking her to look after a dog. Simple things that make them take small decisions, but decisions anyway.

As the book focus on one single day in these women’s lives, not very big events happen all the time. The charm and appeal in Cunningham’s writing are the daily situations. Ordinary things that everybody does are charmly discribed. Buying flowers is much more than this single act, it’s wondering about how Clarissa could have been a closer friend to the shop keep; the result of Laura’s cake may reflect her vision of her life — although it’s very nice, it’s not really the way she wanted it to be–; Virginia changes her mind all the time about what she should do to her character– does Clarrissa Dalloway kill herself? has she got a lost love?

The supporting characters step in and out of the book all the time, but they always leave some footsteps in the lives of our heroines. All of them have some problems and need the help of the main characters. It is the sick neighbour, or the sister worried about her kids, or a daughter and her friend.

I think one of the most interesting thing that happens to all three main character is the fact that they kiss another woman, and this make tehm change their minds. It’s not a love kiss, it is just a silly one, just lips. But the effects are much stronger. Virginia decides that har Mrs Dalloway will kiss a woman either; Laura thows the horrible cake in the trash can; and Clarissa… well, she is a gay, so kissing another woman changed her mind years ago.

You may think it is a chick novel, but, definetely, it isn’t. As a matter of fact, it is a book for grown ups, I don’t mean you have to be old to get it, but you, surely, need some life experience in order to understand the character’s fears and joys. What parent has never worried about a friend of his/her child (such as Clarissa, who does not like Mary Krull)? Or who has never wanted to give up his/her whole life a try something completely different as Laura and Virginia somehow?

Many people may feel a bit down after reading the book. Although the very begining and the last chapters deal with death, the book as a whole shows why we should choose life instead of just letting death take us. Even though Mrs Woolf has killed herself, she does not do it in that day. And we also learn near the end that Laura tried to kill herself either, but it didn’t happen in the day told in the book. So ‘the hours’ of the described day are for celebrating life, more than this, they are to celebrate the option of choosing life!

All in all, it is an important book and I think that it deserves every single prize it won — Pulitzer included. And more than this, it is a novel that deserves to be discovered more and more. If you haven’t read “Mrs Dalloway” yet, you can enjoy “The Hours” a lot, but you’ll feel very tempted to so afterwards.

 Originalmente publicado em 19/12/2001