Existing in the world as a woman has never been easy. Even today, when women are freer and more independent than ever, we’re still relentlessly policed for how our hair looks, how our bodies look, whether we smile enough. Women in the professional world know the delicate balance we must strive to achieve between being forceful enough to not be railroaded while not being aggressive enough to attract male ire. When women become mothers, they’re expected to be the primary parent even if that’s not what they or their partner want, and be involved enough to be interested but not so involved that they smother their child’s independence. Sometimes it feels like a mean-spirited game, in which there isn’t so much a way to win as just a way to lose less badly.
The ways the world traps women are highlighted by Michael Cunningham’s The Hours. It follows three women, all connected by Mrs. Dalloway. There’s Virginia Woolf herself, as she begins to be inspired to write the book. There’s Laura Brown, a pregnant 1950s housewife who can’t understand her own dissatisfaction with her loving husband and adoring young son, who’s reading the book. And then there’s Clarissa Vaughan, who shares the name of the novel’s protagonist and has been teasingly called “Mrs. Dalloway” for years by her ex-lover and dear friend Richard, who is dying of AIDS. Like in Mrs. Dalloway, each character’s story takes place over a single day.
For each woman, that one day is their life in miniature. Woolf doubts herself in the wake of a mental breakdown that has driven her husband to insist on a move to the countryside, but carefully nurses the inspiration that has come to her for her new book. Her sister and nieces/nephews come to visit and Woolf feels inferior to her, as she does not have the family that their social world celebrates as the pinnacle of female achievement. Having that perfect domestic situation, though, doesn’t make Laura Brown happy. Faced with the same demands to be a cheerful spouse and mother, she wants desperately to find her situation idyllic, but the pressure of putting together a birthday party for her husband causes her such distress that she leaves her child with a neighbor and takes a hotel room for a few hours to just have some space to read. Vaughan is also preparing for a party, a celebration for Richard having won a literary prize. As she’s getting ready, she reflects on the path her life took, the failure of her romance with Richard during a heady summer in which they and Richard’s boyfriend lived together and tried to sort out their own sexualities and romantic ties.
This is a book I’d been meaning to read for a long time, but wanted to hold off until after I’d read Mrs. Dalloway itself. Which was the correct call: reading this book without having any real background in that book would have robbed it of a lot of context and power. And whew, what power this book has! It’s a short read, about 250 pages, but it packs a punch. Cunningham’s writing is incredible: his prose is smooth, elegant, rich. Though each woman’s story is allocated only about 70 pages, he builds deeply-felt characters who feel three-dimensional and real. And the way he structures the book, with alternating chapters, works beautifully. It highlights the parallels between them, as well as making each one feel fresh when it gets its turn.
The only flaw I would say this book has is that while it’s admirable, it wasn’t something that I felt a particularly strong emotional connection to throughout. Moments, like Laura in her hotel room, really struck me and stayed with me, but there was something removed about the way Cunningham wrote about existential despair. I never got truly pulled in to and transported by the narrative, but I don’t know that it’s fair to criticize it for that as it never seemed to be the kind of book that was trying to do that. Otherwise, though, it’s incredibly well-done. Writing a book that explicitly seeks to have itself compared to Mrs. Dalloway is a big lift, but Cunningham achieves it. I highly recommend this book!