Michael Cunningham told the Guardian book club that he initially chose to rework Mrs Dalloway in The Hours (Virginia Woolf's working title for her own novel), because it had been the first book he ever really looked hard at.
He was trying to impress a girl. By the time he'd ploughed through it, he explained, she had moved on to James Joyce. He was not about to take on Ulysses and nothing came of it.
But 20 years after his teenage crush he returned to Mrs Dalloway and decided write his own book, about reading a book. He tells the book club that he realised Woolf could write as amazingly as Jimi Hendrix could play the guitar. He did, however, admit that as a human being, she was a snob.
Cunningham said the book had been successful beyond any expectation and even had the effect of persuading many new readers to buy Woolf's own book.
