"...One and then another, and you get through that one and then, my god, there's another." Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1999, The Hours is a glimpse into the lives of three women: Virgina Wolfe, Laura Brown, and Clarissa Vaughan. All three exist in different places in time, but their lives intertwine in an unsuspecting twist. So understanded, that I almost missed it, and I believe I did miss it when I watched the movie. Perhaps I can pass that off to time and ignorance. I was over ten years younger and spend most of the movie marveling at Nicole Kidmans prosthetic nose.
I digress...
The book revolves around Wolfe's novel Mrs. Dalloway: Virginia is in the process of writing the novel, Laura (a 1950's suburban housewife) is reading the novel, and Clarissa, an independant New Yorker, finds herself in a parrallel universe, unknowingly portraying Mrs. Dalloway as she goes about planning a party in honor a beloved poet. All three women go about their lives, getting through the hours and struggling with their own demons: Virginia with the voices in her head, Laura with the mundane existence as a housewife and her embarrassing failure in baking a birthday cake for her husband, Clarissa with the actuallity of her life and the memories of a past she cannot get back.
At this point in my life, I found this book especially poignant for at times, I find myself frustrated with the mundane events that can take up the hours of a day: loading the dishwasher for the eighth time, washing an almost identical load of laundry as the previous week, picking up my daughter's dirty socks that mysteriously migrate from room to room without the aid of tiny feet. Not to mention the eight hours spend improving the lifes of others, or at leaset attempting to. It is easy to get bogged down in the hours of the day, the hours that you almost have to 'survive,' that you forget to enjoy, to revel in the thrill of living. As Cunningham so aptly states, "We live out lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep - it's as simple and ordinary as that. ... There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) knows these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still we cherish the city, the morning; we hope, more than anything, for more."
So here I sit at the computer, the soft glow of the screen drying my tired eyes. The sink is empty, and the dirty clothes safely stored until laundry day rolls back around. My daughter dreams blissful dreams of coloring books, crayons, and cows. The hour is growing late, and it is time to call it a night. And while there are times I desire to run away, to shrug off the cloak of responsibility, I will go to bed wanting another year, another day, another hour of this life.
Up next... The Killer Angers by Michael Shaara, winner of the 1975 Pulitzer.
Until then, my friends... Happy reading.
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