"The Hours" by Michael Cunningham

Review by Dave Karp

            “Yes, she thinks, this is probably how it must feel to be a ghost. It’s a little like reading, isn’t it-that same sensation of knowing people, settings, situations, without playing any particular part beyond that of the willing observer.”

            This is probably one of the most haunting lines that stuck with me from Michael Cunningham’s fantastic novel, The Hours. A friend/mentor of mine let me borrow the book, knowing that I so much loved Virginia Woolf’s novel, Orlando: A Biography, which made me fall in love with Woolf. And, after reading The Hours, I can tell you this: This is one of the most haunting books I have yet to read, but in a unique way that maybe Mrs. Dalloway did for her generation, though I have yet to read the famous Woolf novel yet. The novel has been made into a movie as well, directed by Stephen Daldry and starring Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, and Meryl Streep as the leading ladies (and, may I add, a haunting score by Philip Glass). I recommend the movie, as it was a very good adaptation of the book and brought the haunting atmosphere the novel did to the screen, and stayed true to most of the book. But, back to the novel!

            Cunningham takes the day in the life of three different women in three different time periods. There is Virginia Woolf herself in the early 1920’s in a suburb in London. Then, there is Laura Brown in 1950’s suburban Los Angeles. Last, but not least, is Clarissa Vaughan in New York City, 2001. Woolf is beginning to write Mrs. Dalloway, Laura deal with the disenchantment of suburban life with her husband, son, and another child on the way, and Clarissa is trying to get a party put together for a very dear friend and poet. We are thrown into the lives of these characters as well as their ghosts and troubles, and at the end of the novel, we find how all three of these stories and these lives come chillingly together.

            This is a novel rich with not only story, but description. We look at the world these characters are living in almost poetically, and it works. Of course, there is dialogue, but the imagery that Cunningham gets on the page is very rich and he makes you see everything clearly as you are brought into the lives and environments of these characters. It’s some of the strongest description I have read in a while, and it really brings a whole other layer to the story, one that really makes you feel as if you are an “observer” or a “ghost”.

            The story is one that you become quite curious and enriched in, and is very well written. The thoughts of these characters come out on the page amazingly as well, which makes us feel for them even more, and we understand their struggles all the more. The three women are haunted by many things, and we see that clearly, almost as if in some way it mirrors the lives you and I are living, and questioning how much happens within a day of the lives of everyone.

Which brings me to the thing I may have liked about it the most and was one of the most haunting aspects for me: It was an epic about the everyday life. Such as what Woolf did with her novel Mrs. Dalloway, Cunningham brings into his novel and adds his own flair to it. He brings out the power and the epicness of everyday thought, worries, and questions. With the question the three main characters have, you can’t help think about your own life and your own time you are occupying. The book gets even philosophical about living day after day, and why life is, in a way, both tragic and beautiful. But we are left with remembering that we have many days, many hours, and we should always remember that there are good things and bad, luck and bad luck, but that also, strangely, life is a beautiful thing and the only real enemy is time.

            
         

The Family of Man

Review by David Karp

        I believe that the title says it all about what this amazing collection of photographs is about. The Family of Man. One must ask, what does that mean? Well, once you go through the book, you find out. The family of man is the family of the world.

            The book, originally an exhibit in the Museum of Modern Art in NYC put together by Edward Steichen,  explores people that we see every day in America throughout time and then, we also travel the world to various different countries to see the everyday men and women of that particular country. We see how people live and express their emotions to one another.

            This collection’s aim, I believe, is to knock down borders and show that we, as in everyone in the world, are all a family. We are all citizens of the earth, and we are all human, so why are we blowing each other up and acting like someone different is an enemy? I’ve seen this all too often in my life, and it doesn’t make much sense to me.

            I’ll start here: The picture that struck me the most was on page 70 of the man who is on the steel part being hoisted up in the sky, probably trying to get that onto a larger structure that was soon to be a building. The reason why I liked this picture so much? It reminded me of home.

            I grew up in New Jersey. I know, a lot of people believe that New Jersey is basically what you see on Jersey Shore or The Real Housewives of New Jersey or other stupid reality shows like that. Believe me, we are not all like that! In fact, though I am from suburban North Jersey, I grew up around a lot of working class people! There were a lot of blue-collar workers around my home that I got to know, and they all seemed to have some sort of brotherly/sisterly bond to each other that I really admired. They seemed the most realistic, yet the most loving. I remember when I was younger and I would always be fascinated with the people who were high up building buildings or fixing stuff, whether it was somewhere in Jersey or just across the river in New York City. But I was always fascinated by them. Hell, I still am! I believe that’s what the picture I mentioned reminds me so much of home…because of the people around me that considered each other family.

            Not only does the collection showcase the various kinds of people in the world, but it also showcases the different types of human emotion, which is why I believe these photos were picked to be in the book: the emotion is at the rawest form and brings the “reader” to the emotion itself. It lets us know how human we are and lets us connect with the different people in the book, and we ask the question: How different are we really if I feel what she/he is feeling in this picture. We feel love, fear, anger, hope, uncertainty, and more and we relate to the people in the photos even if we don’t know them! It doesn’t get much more human than that! It just proves that we all have the ability to help and relate to each other, so why is the state of the world the way it is today? That’s a question that I don’t believe anyone can fully answer. It’s just the absurdity of life.

            So, all and all, I really enjoyed taking a look at this collection and the having the questions it brought to me posed. It really does make you think about life and love and why we can’t just all realize how silly it is to be so angry with each other.

Still, with all the questions it poses, in the long run, The Family Of Man really made me feel at home, and this past weekend, I realized how happy I am to have any type of family and that sometimes, we have to make our own family and learn to know how lucky we are to just have hope. And yes, I believe there is some hope left in this world. I may be pessimistic at times, but deep down, I still have some hope. The Family of Man is another example. It’s a family album, just of the bigger family you may have not realized we had. We are all in this together, and we are just another photo in the family of man.

This may not be a “book” book, as there are not that many words to read, but the pictures are its own kind of story and the quotes in the book speak as loudly as a million words. I truly believe that this collection is worth a look for those who love history, culture, literature, and photography!