The Hours - Innovations

Some people accuse Michael Cunningham of having merely copied Virginia Woolf. I would argue that Michael Cunningham's work is a work of innovation and newness. Cunningham does not copy, he reinvents. For instance, the relationships between the characters are clearly drawn from Virginia Woolf, but they are new and original. Clarissa and Sally, in Mrs. Dalloway, have a brief attraction as young women which does not turn into much of anything. Cunningham reinvents this relationship, turning it into a lasting relationship which seems to perfectly suit both women. Clarissa and Peter in Mrs. Dalloway, who are sort of Clarissa and Richard in The Hours, have a brief relationship in their youths, as well; again, Cunningham not only reinvents this relationship but he complicates it, turning Clarissa and Richard into best friends and former lovers who, at the present time in the novel, have no attraction to each other. This relationship is also complex because it plays on the idea of Clarissa and Richard as husband and wife in Mrs. Dalloway. In The Hours, Clarissa and Richard are a life-long female/male partnership, but it is non-romantic, platonic. Am I making my point? Cunningham was clearly inspired by Virginia Woolf, and it is obvious that he wanted to pay homage to her with his work, but he has done much more than copy or imitate Mrs. Dalloway. Cunningham has created a complex, intelligent, creative, innovative, and still very readable text.

One other example of Cunningham's brilliance as a writer comes not from comparisons between him and Woolf but from his own writing alone:
She could, she thinks, have entered another world. She could have had a life as potent and dangerous as literature itself. - Pg. 97
and then just a page later:
It had seemed like the beginning of happiness, and Clarissa is still sometimes shocked, more than thirty years later, to realize that it was happiness; that the entire experience lay in a kiss and a walk, the anticipation of dinner and a book. - Pg. 98

These observations are not fluff. They are not the work of an amateur author. Cunningham has skills!!

Ok, one more comparison. Doesn't the first quote remind us of Clarissa Dalloway's (Woolf's) observation that it is dangerous to live for just one day? Cunningham is not saying the same thing, but these ideas are related... Cunningham's statement seems to be pointing directly to Woolf's work, both because it is a similar sentiment, and because he points to the possible power of literature... which he clearly felt Woolf's work possessed. Mrs. Dalloway is dangerous. And so is life.