Mrs Dalloway, The Hours

I have both read the book and seen the movie of the hours I haven't yet read Mrs Dalloway though cause it never come in to the unsed book store Iwas at. its been a while since I've read, but I know that I really liked both the book and the movie (the book being better of course)

Mrs. Dalloway is now and has been for the past six months sitting in a cubicle on my computer desk waiting for me get back to reading. Haven't seen the movie--because I wanted to read the book first, and because a friend who saw it said she had to sit in the theater for 15 minutes after the thing ended because she was crying so hard. Yep, she's a writer.

i'm a big fan of seeing the movie first and then reading the book because I find that I am almost never dissapointed in the book, but its easy to get dissapointed in a movie based on a good book. I don't thin kyou'd be dissapointed with this one though. there are only a few changes, but overall it follows very closely. and I totally cried. not for 15 minutes, but I cried.

I'll probably read Mrs. D first, then see the movie, then read the book the movie was based on. Sheesh, literature is getting complicated. Although, I just found out that Michael Cunningham, the author of the book, went to the same high school as I did. Means nothing, but I'll take any grandure-by-association I can get.

Comment: put it down while you still have the chance.

[QUOTE=Thag]Comment: put it down while you still have the chance.[/QUOTE]

Put down which one?

I don't know what h'es talking about, but I read the hours in about the same amount of time that it took me to see the movie cause I couldn't put it down.

The book.

Which book, The Hours or Mrs Dalloway?

I just picked up Mrs. Dalloway myself as a side-project along with Frankenstein, Hemingway's short stories, and the latest Harry Potter. Classics, all of them. I'll let you know my thoughts when they've all had their say, but Mrs. Dalloway is taking a bit more concentration than other books. It's not always so easy to figure out who's thinking what when the point of view starts jumping characters. I like it though, keeps me on my toes.

The first time I picked up Dalloway I was maybe 17 or so--and I didn't get it. I tried to force myself through a few pages because it was one of the [I]important[/I] books to read. But I quit before page 10 because, um, a whole book about buying flowers for a party? Just didn't get it. Truth is, I didn't start to appreciate, let alone really be able to [I]read[/I] Woolf until I was older and married and trying to write while staving off a very determined bout of depression. I read the Room of Her Own essay in the same week I first read The Yellow Wallpaper. Wowsers.

My 15 year old daughter is having to read Frankenstein as one of her summer reading books. Frankenstein and A Seperate Peace. They have to write a paper on the similarity in the themes. They also have to turn in the book itself with their notes in the margins--proof they read the book. This may strike an adult teacher as a worthwhile project, but Mary Shelley is killing my kid. Every page is its own horror story. This is for an honors class, but still, I don't know why we insist on doing this to adolescents, forcing books on them when they are only going to hate because the language will read as stilted and the subtler aspects of a book that make it a benchmark of genius are going to be lost. This is the sort of thing that makes kids hate reading. I know Robyn will love Separate Peace. She would love Catcher in the Rye. The stacks are full of books well-suited to teaching The Big Life Lessons to teenage readers, books that kids will enjoy reading and that will make them read more. Why torture them in the name of education?

I am not a fan of mary shelley's frankenstein I've read it a couple of times for clases and I understand that it was an important peice of work for the genre but I don't see it as a good novel.

I this that you kinda have to be/have been depressed to truely appriciate woolf I read first when I was rather young and then later after I had had some bad depression spells and I had a much better appriciation of her work after I had experianced what I had.

Just finished Mrs. Dalloway. Loved it. Read it in a straight two full day session. Another book that has such a complex, demanding rhythm that to set it aside means returning will require a few minutes of working back into that high-speed circular waltz of words. I've started The Hours. Really admire how Cunningham echoes Woolf's style without it becoming parody.

Once more, Mrs. Dalloway is one of those books that read one way in my twenties (I didn't get it; I quit) and far differently in my forties (I got it so well; I spent half the book in tears). I wonder if there is something to be said for reading books at the same age as when the author created them.

Madde suggested this book to me once, when I requested a list of great books with female characters. At the time I was having trouble writing from the 1st person as a female.

I didn't know why, but I actually kind of liked this book. I obviously found it pretty boring, being a guy that doesn't care much for the subject matter (I was seriously hoping the dude with the pocket knife would shank someone) but it was endurable, and interesting in a way like, when you're flipping through the channels and a spanish soap opera catches your eye, and even though you don't totally know what's going on, you watch it for a few minutes.

[QUOTE=Luddy Dunn]The first time I picked up Dalloway I was maybe 17 or so--and I didn't get it. I tried to force myself through a few pages because it was one of the [I]important[/I] books to read. But I quit before page 10 because, um, a whole book about buying flowers for a party? Just didn't get it. Truth is, I didn't start to appreciate, let alone really be able to [I]read[/I] Woolf until I was older and married and trying to write while staving off a very determined bout of depression. I read the Room of Her Own essay in the same week I first read The Yellow Wallpaper. Wowsers.

My 15 year old daughter is having to read Frankenstein as one of her summer reading books. Frankenstein and A Seperate Peace. They have to write a paper on the similarity in the themes. They also have to turn in the book itself with their notes in the margins--proof they read the book. This may strike an adult teacher as a worthwhile project, but Mary Shelley is killing my kid. Every page is its own horror story. This is for an honors class, but still, I don't know why we insist on doing this to adolescents, forcing books on them when they are only going to hate because the language will read as stilted and the subtler aspects of a book that make it a benchmark of genius are going to be lost. This is the sort of thing that makes kids hate reading. I know Robyn will love Separate Peace. She would love Catcher in the Rye. The stacks are full of books well-suited to teaching The Big Life Lessons to teenage readers, books that kids will enjoy reading and that will make them read more. Why torture them in the name of education?[/QUOTE]

You americana and your summer reading and your honour courses.
Kids need lives. We have honorus course up here, known as Academic, but SUMMER IS SUMMER. I read in the summers but because i like to. Im guessing your daughter does too.

that has to blow. Does she have to do summer reading for the course?

[QUOTE=Thag]Comment: put it down while you still have the chance.[/QUOTE]Thank you thag its hard to believe any of these people would read such a thing. Disconcerting for sure!

I finished Dalloway and liked it pretty much. It's a hard read though. I'll start the hours soon, but I'll wait a little bit more before starting it.

I just finished reading Mrs Dalloway (It's on the imfamous List) and I still can't really tell if I liked it or not. It had a really dreamy, talky quality that reminded me of Graham Greene's "The Man Within", which I read in high school and [i]still[/i] am not sure if I liked or not. The book was very train-of-thought and jumped from character to character without blinking an eye, and something about that won me over with its realism. The downside is, well...nothing really happens.

[QUOTE=jane s.]I just finished reading Mrs Dalloway (It's on the imfamous List) and I still can't really tell if I liked it or not. It had a really dreamy, talky quality that reminded me of Graham Greene's "The Man Within", which I read in high school and [i]still[/i] am not sure if I liked or not. The book was very train-of-thought and jumped from character to character without blinking an eye, and something about that won me over with its realism. The downside is, well...nothing really happens.[/QUOTE]

Well, except to Septimus and his wife. And all the details we can now read as prefiguring Virginia's downward spiral. It really is just about a day in the life of a rich woman putting together a party. I loved the way it captured the depth of consciousness and implied unconscious forces behind even the most minor characters. It was a reminder that everyone you meet, or even pass by on the steet, is living this real, full and mysteriously unfathomable life. I couldn't put it down.

[QUOTE=stoyan]I finished Dalloway and liked it pretty much. It's a hard read though. I'll start the hours soon, but I'll wait a little bit more before starting it.[/QUOTE]

You won't believe how [I]fast[/I] and straight forward The Hours reads compared to its inspiration. Hours is marvelous and it does make reading it so much richer for having all the Dalloway references well in hand--just to watch how Cunningham riffs off them. But really, hoping not to sound dismissive here, but The Hours reads like Mrs. Dalloway for Very Busy People. You'll cruise through it in a few hours. No pun intended.

I don't know if I told you guys about this before, but I was watching The Hours one night this summer and I was scared witless by Julianne Moore's big, deformed face. If you ever get to watch it just turn tilt your head to the left and focus on her left eye. You won't be able to look away, but you also won't be able to sleep for the next few days.

I'm seeing her face right now......the eye and the demonic grin.

It was worse in this bacause she was made up as an old woman so she reached new realms of hideousness.

I had to study Mrs Dalloway for Uni and after a traumatic experience with Pride & Prejudice I was expecting to feel the urge to bash in the head of first my tutor then myself. However after struggling the first time I read it when it came to studying the text I found myself getting what she had done and loving it, especially for the reasons you gave Luddy...

[QUOTE=Luddy Dunn]It really is just about a day in the life of a rich woman putting together a party. I loved the way it captured the depth of consciousness and implied unconscious forces behind even the most minor characters. It was a reminder that everyone you meet, or even pass by on the steet, is living this real, full and mysteriously unfathomable life.[/QUOTE]

Fantastic characterization, how she makes a reader care about a society lady in Victorian London having a party is brilliant. I've been meaning to read more Woolf since but haven't got round to it yet.

I found a picture of it!
[URL=http://www.themakeupgallery.info/age/2000sa/hours.htm]That fucking eye![/URL]
Now I know how the guy from the Tell-Tale Heart must have felt.

I read Mrs Dalloway a long time ago, like 10+ years ago. I saw the last 20 minutes or so of The Hours and it didn't make a damn bit of sense. I think being fresh with the book, then starting at the beginning of the movie and paying attention would probably be a good idea.