The Hours

I picked up this book I had on my shelves five mnoths ago to read on vacation and only now got around to finishing it. It is told as three parallel stories told in stream of consciousness style about three women experiencing trouble following the prompts of their own hearts owing partly to the people in their lives. There are many colors of blue they feel, chronic barriers to communication, secrets they feel obliged to keep, regrets about the way life has gone, and so on. We start out with the famous one, Virginia Woolf, whose story Mrs. Dalloway informs the way we experience the other two, in a prologue at the very end of her life. There are echoes between the stories concerning mental turmoil, of illness, of self-harm, and more. At the end a link between two of the storylines is uncovered which did seem clever.

I never really felt in harmony with this book, from the opening prologue which felt manipulative to me, to the way dialogue was used to depict character. I know things don't have to be expressed in a naturalistic way in fiction, but I had a hard time entering into these characters' lives or taking them seriously. Even the scenes I thought were striking along the way felt more artificial than I prefer. I can imagine coming back to this sometime in the future from a different frame of mind and maybe having a more positive response, but it doesn't seem too likely. I don't fault the author's craft as much as feel that the tale is just not for me.