Hello, freedom! (At least for a few weeks anyway…)

So this week brought the end of the fall term, which means I only have one more left before I am finished! Which means I will have a master's degree, and this is slightly frightening because it means that I am getting old. But it also means that I will have more time to do the things that I want to do, like read books, take pictures, write blogs about the books I read, bake, and generally lounge around (because let's face it: there are very few things that I love more than lounging).

The Hours by Michael Cunningham

The Hours was a fun one because it reminded me of being in college and reading books that I would eventually have to write a paper on. This was fun because I kept realizing that I didn't have to write a strict paper and could write about whatever I wanted and no one would care and I wouldn't be graded on it (but I guess if you don't like what I write, you won't come back here again. I'm willing to take that risk, since Nick is the only person I think who reads this). It was very Virginia Woolf-y, but I guess you'll read that in any review. It's impossible not to say it though. Not much happened, yet so much did. And through not a lot happening, strong themes ran throughout the whole thing.

I really liked the use of three parallel worlds interrupting each other, and the similarities between them was interesting. By the end, we come to learn that all three included suicide attempts (sorry if this spoils things for you, but I don't think it should) and in all three there was a Richie/Richard/Richmond strangling the main character of that world. The "Rich" character doesn't allow the woman to become the woman she was meant to be, or could be, and that is really depressing. In one of the world, Richie is Laura's son, a total momma's boy who plays his part in forcing Laura to conform to the role of a soldier's wife after the second world war. This world infuriated me, because Laura kept making excuses for her own needs and desires by saying that her husband had seen all of these horrors in the war and was a good person and that she was bad for wanting a life and personality of her own. No, Laura! That is how it should be! I could go on forever. In another world, Richard is the best friend of Clarissa, who has been captivated by Richard their entire adult lives, even though he doesn't challenge her or really value her as a human being, in my opinion. And Richmond smothers the insane Virginia Woolf in a way to protect her from crazy London. Let's shut her up in the countryside and that'll fix her! Also, the way Leonard is portrayed as Virginia's babysitter rather than her husband really pisses me off. I really hope that's not how it was in real life. Although it probably was. And who is to say that insane people don't need babysitters rather than husbands? It was just depressing, that's all. I wonder why Rich was the root word for all three. Perhaps Cunningham is saying wealth is the root of all evil. It's possible!

Running through these three worlds are themes of death, meaning in life, regret, becoming who you are supposed to be, societal expectations, and women's role throughout it all. I wouldn't consider myself a feminist, but I guess when you look at the basic definition, I am. I don't go around whining about the inequality of society because I think that it's pretty obvious that society is inequal and is wrong about it. It isn't a secret that, for the most part, women are more capable of handling complex situations and emotions better than men. I'm not saying women are better, but in many cases, women are more capable human beings. And perhaps feeling this way is why I have so few girlfriends—I have too high expectations of the way women should behave. It could also be because I am anti-social and incapable of keeping in touch with people. I am trying, though, so perhaps we can turn this around.

One night in class I noticed a Madeline Albright quote on my friend's Starbucks cup: There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women. Well, Madeline, besides the time you had a cameo on Gilmore Girls, I couldn't have been more in love with you than I was reading that for the first time. And this is from a person who knows absolutely nothing about Madeline Albright. Isn't it just great that my first dose of Madeline Albright wisdom traveled to me through a Starbuck's cup? Anyway, what she says is true. Eff you if you allow a fellow woman to be trampled on in life. And there are peripheral women characters throughout each of the worlds who allow the women to stumble and struggle through life when they could have been like, listen, this just won't do. And these characters will undoubtedly go straight to hell because look at how many lives they ruined as a result of their selfishness. I'm just saying.

Thanks to the About Alice post, I decided to start a new tradition where I recommend when said book would be an appropriate gift. We'll see how long this lasts. I would buy The Hours for any undergraduate lit/writing major due to the literary form and Virginia Woolf-iness of the book, but that is such an easy cop-out that I'll come up with another. I don't think it would be appropriate to buy The Hours for a woman who is going through a tough time, because I think it would probably set her over the edge and make her miss the point the book is trying to make. I'm not sure a male would enjoy this book, unless he was a Virginia Woolf fan, and I've never met such a creature. So I think an appropriate receiver of The Hours would be a 20-30 something woman who is slightly dull and needs to realize that her life should be fun and exciting and something that she looks forward to experiencing. Although shouldn't everyone come to realize this?

Up Next: A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (and more crying on the train)