— The Hours, page 4

In the wake of the enthusiastic reviews of the film, “The Hours,” starring Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep, I felt prompted to go back to the prize-winning novel by Michael Cunningham — a novel that I purchased some five years ago but never read. Influenced by the current quip that shows up on T-shirts and bumper-stickers, I guess I felt that “A book should not be judged by its movie.” In this particular instance, both mediums seem to have produced an admirable work but for entirely different reasons. This review will deal only with Cunningham’s novel.

The Hours begins on a cold morning in March 1941 with a chilling description of Virginia Woolf’s suicide — she filled her pockets with stones and waded into the River Ouse near her home in Rodmell, Sussex. Woolf left a suicide note that sounds remarkably rational. Plagued by excruciating headaches and a chorus of voices that taunted her endlessly with her alleged failures as a writer, Woolf asked her family for understanding and forgiveness. She noted that her suffering had become unbearable. “If anyone could have saved me, it would have been you,” she wrote, but her suffering had increased to nightmarish intensity. “I shant recover this time,” she concluded.

Virginia Woolf is now acknowledged as one of the major innovative novelists of the 20th century, best known for her use of “stream of consciousness.” A dominant theme in all of her work is the nature of time, how it passes, and the difference between external and “inner” time. In essence, Woolf felt that time was not sequential — it did not progress in a linear fashion but “is a luminous halo, a semitransparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end.” This theory has special significance when applied to Michael Cunningham’s novel.

The Hours embodies three interlocking plots. At first, the events seem separated in time and space — each consisting of a single day.

The central story describes Virginia Woolf, moving through the domestic routine of a day in Hogarth House, Richmond, England, circa 1923. In a second plot, the novel focuses on present-day New York where Clarissa Vaughn, a book editor who lives in Greenwich Village, is preparing for a party for her friend Richard, an AIDS- infected poet who has just won a major literary prize. Finally, we have Laura Brown, living in Los Angeles in 1949 — she is baking a cake for her husband’s birthday while her son, Richie, watches.

As The Hours progresses, superficial similarities in the lives of the three women emerge. Woolf is intent on developing the character of her suicidal protagonist in her novel, Mrs. Dalloway. Clarissa Vaughn has been nicknamed “Mrs. D.” by Richard, and Laura Brown is reading the same novel as she ponders escaping from the bonds of her dead-end marriage.

Cunningham alternates a “stream of consciousness” narrative among the three women, moving from England to Los Angeles to New York with each “interior monologue” adding subtle nuances of character.

Eventually, more significant links emerge. Richard, whose “mind has been eaten into lace,” also hears voices (he characterizes them as whispers and occasional outbursts of ancient Greek). Although Clarissa loves Richard deeply and remains devoted to him, she has a lover (Sally) and a daughter (is Richard her father?). Laura Brown, like Virginia Woolf, has an overpowering sense of imminent disaster and a need to escape, either through suicide or by abandoning her family. All three women are beset by similar anxieties, such as the tyranny of servants (real or imagined), sexual ambiguity (does lust have anything to do with gender?) and a sense of having failed in some irrevocable manner.

Perhaps Richard most clearly defines the crisis faced by all of the characters in this novel. Immediately before his death, he tells Clarissa why he finds his life unbearable. He notes that time can no longer be divided into the past and present (He often feels that he is encountering events which he has already experienced.) Once he perceives the certainty of his death, as well as the irrelevance of his life, and accepts his own judgment regarding his failures, he notes,

“But there are still the hours, aren’t there? One and then another, and you get through that one and then, my god, there is another.”

Yet, there is in every character a vitality and a relish for existence. Clarissa, walking through the gritty, debris-littered streets of Greenwich; Laura, fleeing to the freedom of sprawling Los Angeles; and Virginia, standing in the fading light of her garden — all three are occasionally moved to look at the physical world and say, “It is enough.” There are fleeting moments in which they are immeasurably happy. As the lives of these three women converge, a kind of quiet revelation begins — a sense of another reality that lies behind all time and place — an intuitive awareness of invisible bonds and unheard music.

Although the final revelations of The Hours are tragic, it would be a mistake to conclude that this novel is filled with despair. Cunningham’s writing is a rich blend of provocative thought and descriptive detail. As his characters move and interact, the narrative sparkles with wit and humor. There are perceptive observations on such topics of celebrities, film, music and interior decorating. Despite the fact that Laura, Clarissa and Virginia are trapped in scenarios that will eventually merge, they talk, react and observe their individual worlds with boldness and clarity.

Finally, there is the quality of the writing: Cunningham’s sentences are a joy to read. Frequently more lyric than prose, The Hours exhibits cunning craftsmanship. The interplay of minds and the flow of thought have never been rendered with greater skill ... except perhaps by Virginia Woolf.

(Gary Carden is a writer, storyteller and lecturer whose book, Mason Jars in the Flood, was recently named Book of the Year by the Appalachian Writers Association. He can be reached at gcarden498@aol.com.)