| Reading a novel is fascinating at all times. Novel is only one of the many possible prose narrative forms. Although it comes in the form of narrative, it includes artistic merit, fictional content, a design to create an epic totality of life, and a focus on history and the individual. The characters in the novel could be animals, strange creatures like vampires or angels, and human beings which are psychologically real to the readers. The characters have feeling, emotion which in mysterious way connected to or even influence the readers. When reading a novel, the readers occasionally put themselves into the shoes of the characters. And so, consciously or unconsciously, the readers learn about psychology. This novel entitled The Hours by Michael Cunningham won the Pulitzer Prize in 1999, The 1999 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and later was made into an Oscar-winning 2002 movie of the same title (The Hours, 2009). The novel also won The New York Times Best Seller. It draws creatively on the life and work of Virginia Woolf. |