Resumo de The Hours - Michael Cunningham

A few months ago, I happily delved into The Hours by Michael Cunningham. In fact I had previously been to see the film, directed by Stephen Daldry. This had compelled me not only to read the book it was based on, but also to plunge into ("What a lark! What a plunge!", as Woolf writes) Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway, the centrepiece of Cunningham's homage. Cunningham writes about three women, each in different time periods, leading different lives - or so it seems at first. In the 1920s, Virginia Woolf awakens with the feeling that today she can write - today the voices in her mind will be more bearable. In the 1940s, in the suburbs of Los Angeles, Laura Brown awakens with the painful thought of facing another monotonous day. She allows herself a few minutes of freedom and finds refuge in a book: Mrs Dalloway. In the late 1990s, New York, Clarissa Vaughan, nicknamed Mrs Dalloway by Richard (her life's one true love to whom she clings to), declares that she will buy the flowers herself. Thus Cunningham intertwines with extraordinary dexterity the lives of three women contained in a day, three women trying to escape from time and from reality.However, the spider's web of links the author weaves goes much further than the three main characters. There are three types of parallels: first, inside the novel, between characters from different time periods. Richard, in Clarissa's world, is a poet who is stricken with Aids and tired of struggling. This character corresponds to Virginia's "insane side", represented by the character Septimus in Mrs Dalloway. Woolf often portrayed a world of the sane and insane side by side, an idea that is clearly recognised in Cunningham's book. This Richard/Virginia tie is one of many inside the novel. Secondly there are countless references to Mrs Dalloway, which is why I feel it is crucial to have read Woolf's novel beforehand to fully grasp the book, although this does have one mentally connecting the two novels continuously. Practically all of Mrs Dalloway's characters appear in The Hours, but with different names: thus the names Sally and Richard exist in both books, portrayingopposite characters. In addition, although Cunningham has developed his own style of writing, he continously alludes to V.Woolf's style: her particular use of brackets, for example, or well-known phrases from her writing. Finally, there are several bonds between the characters and reality: Woolf first based Clarissa Dalloway on a rather superficial friend of hers called Kitty Maxse. This name reappears, not by accident, in Laura's world, depicting Laura's friend and fantasy. In my opinion, the intricacy of the ties and relationships in this novel adds to its originality and interest, yet for some it may be seen as an obstacle to the eloquence of the language.Through the power of thought of his characters, Cunningham pursues a pertinent philosophical reflection on concepts that are at the centre of mankind?s anguishes: time, its value and meaning, and the links between life and death. The importance of time is of course expressed in the title - which was V.Woolf's working title for her future Mrs Dalloway - but also in the very essence of the book: the fact that a whole life can be told in one day, that a death can occur in one moment, even when that death has been longed for, but avoided out of love for life. Cunningham glides effortlessly through the decades, reducing time to nothingness, mastering his (and Woolf's) conceptions of these three notions. The key moment, in my opinion, is when Virginia realises the meaning of death: some must die so that the others may carry on living. Thus death engenders life, and not vice-versa, as we so conventionally believe.All in all, Cunningham allowed me to discover Woolf's Mrs Dalloway, and led me to a strong interest in her life and work within the Bloomsbury group. Nonetheless, the author does distinguish himself by the original cohe novel, the beauty of the writing and the depth of the characters, especially Laura Brown who is secretly screaming inside, trapped by the conformity of her life. Furthermore, the philosophical aspect of the novel makes us question ourselves, making The Hours much more than a good read ? and certainly leaving a mark.

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