This book seems to be an exemplar of the kind of book that the world admires, my friends love, and I sort of shrug at. Maybe it’s because I’m a man, maybe it’s because I’ve never read Mrs. DallowayThe Hours struck me as overwrought and somehow fake. There are some real insights here, and some genuinely beautiful prose, but everything about the book – the characters, the story, the message – comes across as a performance, looking for the audience’s reaction out of the corner of its eye.