Author Michael Cunningham wasn’t afraid to take a risk with his novel The Hours — that risk, writing about another book, ultimately won him a Pulitzer Prize and a movie deal with Paramount pictures.
In a conference call with the Daily Lobo, Cunningham answered the question every one is dying to know the answer to — how did he write a book about one of the world’s most admired piece of literature, Mrs. Dalloway, written by modernist author Virginia Woolf?
“I had to overcome my excessive reverence,” Cunningham said. “I had to come to see it not as an artifact of Western culture, but as a living thing. I had to apply to the book a tough love and willingness to dismantle it.”
It took Cunningham three years and many sources to recreate a day in Woolf’s life accurately. Although he did have many people to speak with about Woolf, if faced with her directly, he said he would still have much to ask her.
“I would like to ask her how she did it,” Cunningham said. “How she took ink and paper and made worlds of transcendent beauty. And I would ask her where she buys her shoes. I would also beg her not to commit suicide. She didn’t need to.”
He not only had to get into the head of Woolf to write The Hours, but he also had to try to understand two other women — one whose life mimics Mrs. Dalloway’s and another who’s life is in a process of transformation while reading the book. That Cunningham is male didn’t impose any limits on him while writing about these three women.
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“I really think that men know what it’s like to be a woman and women know what it’s like to be a man,” Cunningham said. “It doesn’t seem to have impaired the book. I don’t believe in setting limits about who can write about whom. The further you move your experience, the harder to is to get it right, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.”
Giving his book over to a director to make the movie wasn’t at all a problem for Cunningham. He said that he doesn’t think of his book as a sacred object, in fact that notion seems a little sad to him.
“The whole fun of it is seeing what another director will do with what you started,” he said. “When a novel you’ve written is being made into a movie you wonder what you will lose. You do lose, but you gain a great deal.”
And Cunningham did lose his vision of the character Louis in the movie.
“I was sorry to see Louis’s role diminish, but on the other hand, I understood,” Cunningham said. “Sorry Louis, but that’s Hollywood.”
Cunningham’s admiration for Woolf influenced his writing of The Hours tremendously. His use of numerous parentheses and semicolons comes directly form Woolf’s writings.
“I don’t know another author that wrote more beautifully about the joy of life,” Cunningham said. “Her life was about continuance — that was present in the novel.”
As for Oscar night, Cunningham will be in the audience cheering on the actors of “The Hours” for their nine nominations, including best picture and best actress for Nicole Kidman’s portrayal of Woolf.
“I get to have all the fun with no consequences,” Cunningham said.
