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PrintWorth reading: Revisiting "Hours"
Michael Cunningham will be in Tulsa on September 26-27 at the Celebration of Books sponsored by the Oklahoma Center for Poets and Writers at OSU-Tulsa. In anticipation, last Wednesday night at the central library, three Tulsa leaders discussed his novel, “The Hours.”
“The Hours” is about a day in the lives of three women who lived in different times. The characters are Virginia Woolf (1923), Laura Brown (1949) and Clarrissa Vaughan (present day). The three Tulsa speakers were Dr. Martin Beal (gynecologist), Dr. Brian Cowlishaw (professor) and Justice Waidner (social activist). They answered questions posed by
librarian Rebecca Howard such as, Is hiding your private self from public view simply a human condition? Are our days consumed by acting?
Halfway through the event, it dawned on me that these questions were partially inspired by the homosexual sub-theme of “The Hours.” Yet, they are questions we ask ourselves no matter our sexual orientation. I read “The Hours” in 2000 and never once gave a thought that the author was homosexual, although it was plain to see. The characters embody feelings we all share.
Carry this notion a step further, I would have to cut my list of books read dramatically, if all gays novelists were banned – Marcel Proust, E.M. Forester, Evelyn Waugh, Thomas Mann, Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, etc. For the most part, I didn’t know they were gay when I read their works and didn’t need to know. Judge the author by his pages, not his peregrinations.
