Somebody said this book is "a piece of literature and not novel". The best part for me was the prologue with Virginia approaching the river. It immediately reminded me of the wonderful prize winning movie adapted by David Hare and directed by Stephen Daldry. Nicole Kidman winning the best actress Oscar and nominations for best adapted screenplay, supporting actress and direction. Unfortunately the book is so much more hard work, full of dry introspection, whilst the film has all terrific dialogue. I'm quite happy with the alternating stories of more than one character, but here many of changes in the nearly twenty chapters are too short (especially those for Virginia Woolf0 which makes the narrative awkward.
The three women who are the main characters, Virginia, Clarissa and Laura, are interesting in themselves, but the men in their lives do not come out well. There is a huge amount of description of places and characters. Early on New York in June is well written. But going on and on about that birthday cake was awful. There is one chapter when Clarissa's daughter Julia turns up with her older friend Mary that is great, and of course that other dramatic event near the end. It was only at book club I realised it mirrored that at the start.
There were other aspects of the book that I had not appreciated until our discussion last night. It would have definitely helped if you had read Mrs Dalloway first as there are deliberate parallels in The Hours. Some were revealed at book club and others are in articles on the web. Although I was not a great fan of the book, and could never get into anything by Virginia Woolf, it made for one of the best discussions we have ever had.
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