So far The Hours has hardly done anything other than bore me. The way it is written (modeled after Mrs. Dalloway) is not incredibly intriguing. We have already read the original and I honestly didn't enjoy it enough to have the urge to read a more modern take on it. It is the same basic story, with less description and "author tricks". I feel that the way in which Virginia Woolf wrote Mrs. Dalloway conveyed much more depth and personal feeling, in not only the tone and the characters, but in the reader as well. When I am reading in The Hours and Cunningham includes an excerpt from Mrs. Dalloway I find that i am immediately drawn in. The details and things that Woolf includes almost blow Cunninghams less descriptive more straightforward detail straight out of the water. By including passages from Mrs. Dalloway, Cunningham is cutting his own writing down by showing the work of a more gifted author.
I do not think Michael Cunningham is a bad writer, i just believe that by including the writing of a much more accredited author he is discrediting his own work.
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Clayton,
I was about to slam you for starting off this post by stating that you find the book "boring" (challenging? frustrating? those I could accept--but Cunningham's inability to entertain you is not really the issue here). However, as I read on, I found this to be a pretty intriguing post. I found myself wondering what you mean about "author tricks" (that sounds pretty 'middle school'--go ahead and elaborate), but I was "intrigued" (to borrow your term) to hear that the most engaging parts of this book are the ones that Cunningham has lifted straight from Woolf's book. You might be able to do more with this (to argue, in short, that the very inclusion of Woolf's prose makes Cunningham's pale by comparison).
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