I am currently in the recreational area in a hospital, waiting for my partner’s operation to be finished. This will take almost two hours, but I’m afraid it will feel double that amount of time. That’s because time passes at a different pace in hospitals. Everything is strictly organised, which means you don’t need to look at the clock at all. That’s why it was such a relief to read Michael Cunningham’s novel The Hours, because this novel fluently moves across decades, ignoring any rules imposed by the passage of time. Want to know what it is about? Read on!
The Hours is about a day in the life of three different women; Virginia Woolf is writing her novel Mrs Dalloway in 1920s England, Laura Brown is trying to read Mrs Dalloway on her husband’s birthday in 1950s Los Angeles, and Clarissa Vaughan is trying to organise a party for her dying friend in 1990s New York. Each woman considers the life she is leading now and the paths they have taken to get where they are.
I think almost twenty minutes have passed since the operation started. I’ve written two paragraphs so far. I wonder how he’s doing. While waiting here, I keep thinking about how I happen to be here, thinking about how we met (he was taking a break at the teacher’s lounge while I was waiting for my interview to start – it was only a month after David Bowie had died, so I know it was in 2016) and how we ended up as a couple. Now we’re here, and I’m in this hospital, waiting and hoping everything will be ok.
Last week, I finished Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. I’m giving a lecture on it in a week and a half because it’s almost a hundred years old and I’m going to talk about why everyone should still read it. This novel is timeless, both literally and figuratively; even though it takes place on a single day in June, we read about the main character’s lives because they keep thinking about what has happened to them. When I was in London last year, I went on a Mrs Dalloway walking tour, and when I arrived at all the buildings that are important in the novel, I was transported to 1920s England, and I felt like I was looking at London through Woolf’s eyes.
The Hours is a tribute to Woolf’s most famous novel. We read about what inspired Virginia Woolf to write Mrs Dalloway, we experience how Laura, feeling like she’s failing her husband and child, is desperate to escape reality by reading that same novel Virginia is trying to write, and we see how Clarissa Vaughan’s day mirrors the events in Mrs Dalloway. Everything is connected and everything takes place at the same time, even though these women don’t know each other – or so we’re supposed to believe. Time is fluid in The Hours, and at this moment I wish the same were true in my life.
It’s been forty-five minutes now. I keep thinking about both The Hours and my boyfriend. Like Laura Brown, part of me really wants to escape from this place and dive into a book, but I feel like I’m too worried to concentrate. Like Clarissa Vaughn, I am determined to take care of my loved ones, and like Virginia Woolf, I also feel like writing is the only thing that matters. I like to think that if I keep writing, the operation will be over sooner. Or am I just passing the time?
The Hours was the working title for Mrs Dalloway, because it takes place on a single day and the only constant factor in it is the striking of the Big Ben with every hour. In Cunningham’s novel, its title is, of course, a clear reference to Woolf’s original title, and each character keeps noticing the passage of time; some of them are happy there’s more time, other see more time as a form of torture because they are in pain and want to give up. In both novels, a character commits suicide, and in both novels someone’s death inspires another to appreciate life.
For what is life but the passage of time? Over an hour has passed since my boyfriend left for his operation and I started writing this post. My mind has taken me further back in time, to before I started working at my current school where I met the man who’s at this moment being operated on, to the time I studied in Liverpool and had the time of my life (in both Mrs Dalloway and The Hours, the main characters keep thinking about their youth, too, and how these glorious days influenced the rest of their lives), to falling in love with books and reading at a very young age, to the moment I decided to study English literature when I was fifteen years old, and back to this moment, right here in the hospital.
I guess time has become fluid after all.
What did you think of The Hours? Have you read Mrs Dalloway? Do you think time moves more quickly if you’re doing things you enjoy? Do you ever think about events that have changed your life? If you could write a novel inspired by your favourite author, which one would you pick? Please let me know in the comments! Also, don’t forget to follow me for more book-related posts!
The Open Book 