Specimen Days |
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Michael Cunningham
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Pages: 320 (Paperback)
ISBN: 0007156065
Pub: HarperPerennial
Pub date: 2006-06-05
Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 196891
Editorial Review:
It's hard to overestimate the impression made by Michael Cunningham's The Hours; this was literary fiction of a rare order, detailing the inner lives of its female protagonists with sympathy and understanding. Now we have Specimen Days, and this has to be counted among the most eagerly anticipated novels in recent years, such is the reputation of the Pulitzer prize-winning novelist has acquired in a relatively short time. And if Specimen Days does not immediately exert the grip of its predecessor, this is due to no failure of technique. Cunningham knows exactly what he is doing, and his slow, penetrating accretion of detail ultimately pays off in ways that are richly satisfying.
The various sections of the novel describe the same group of protagonists: a young boy, a young woman and an older man. But the treatment of these characters is strikingly varied from section to section, and the ambitions of the novel are jaw dropping. In the Machine is set during the industrial revolution, and balances the carefully examined pathology of its characters against supernatural elements. We are then taken to the early 21st century in The Children's Crusade which has a far grittier tone, with a terrorist group setting off bombs at random throughout the city. Finally, we are plunged 150 years into the future, when the city of New York is struggling to deal with the host of refugees from a planet that astronauts have reached.
All of these widely disparate narratives are united by the telling presence of the poet Walt Whitman, who acts as an anchor for the reader in a narrative that disorients as much as it stimulates. Not everyone will be able to accept the massive reach of Cunningham's novel, and the wrench between different time periods is certainly more shocking than that in The Hours. But for those willing to accept the new and challenging, Specimen Days is a masterful and visceral read. --Barry Forshaw
Reader Reviews:
Surprising and disconcerting (0/0 people found this helpful)
I am a massive fan of Michael Cunningham's work. I thought his first two novels were very accomplished and skillfully constructed, and I absolutely adored The Hours which ranks of one of the best books I have ever read.
As for Specimen Days, well it certainly surprised me. I would have never dreamed of reading about a love story between a cyborg and a extraterrestrial lizard-female in one of his books - and there was something refreshing and exciting in such a bold departure. Unfortunately I am not sure that the book as a whole was successful. Like in The Hours, Cunningham tells three stories which have a common thread of characters, themes and literary/poetic background. But where in the Hours, the stories were beautifully interwoven and magnified each other depth and meaning, here they seemed to be running separately and sequentially and I often felt like reading three novellas rather than one coherent piece of work.
I thought the first story was especially hard work and I would have definitely given up if it wasn't for some kind of loyalty and respect that i felt towards Cunnigham's work. In sum, this book is a bold and ambitious attempt and should be celebrated as such but i felt that the effort of going through it was greater than the reward.
Worth reading! (1/1 people found this helpful)
Michael Cunningham is a very talented writer. Focusing on themes of love and death, regeneration and survival, 'Specimen Days' is a cleverly structured, well-written triptych. The three sections are linked by three recurring characters, while Walt Whitman's poetry provides a continuity throughout that supports the regeneration theme. In many ways, the book reminded me of David Mitchell's 'Cloud Atlas'; structurally, thematically, and in the writer's skillful narration from different perspectives.
Although the first section is set amid the grinding poverty of mid-nineteenth century immigrant New York, the second in contemporary fear-stricken New York, and the third in a dystopic future-New York, this book is - ironically - profoundly optimistic. The settings are interesting and believable, and the lives of the characters compelling.
A good read.
Intense, captivating, ambitious (3/4 people found this helpful)
I did not expect to be as captivated by this book as I came to be in sheer minutes since turning the first page.
As a narrative, it takes you on a journey through time, through the eyes of three different characters - a boy, a young woman and a man - all experiencing different things.
Walt Whitman and a china bowl are the strings binding them together.
Heartlessness is a word that perfectly describes the world around them, whether it is past, present or future. Their voices are intricately united however, and there is no dissonance in the text.
For those looking for a theme, why could the beauty of life not be the answer? It is what Walt Whitman celebrated; it is what poor little Lucas with his heart condition speaks of in his fits; it is what the children's crusade sets Cat onto finding about; it is what a man's implant makes him churn out of the blue.
An immensly enjoyable read, deserving its every penny and then some.
Unclear to me what the theme of this book is (1/8 people found this helpful)
Specimen Days consists of three stories, with in each of them a woman, a man and a boy. The first story is located in New York at the time of the Industrial Revolution, when a young boy has to take the place of his older brother when the latter dies during an accident with the machine that he operates. In order to safe the girlfriend of his deceased brother he mutilates himself... The second stories plays in the present time and portays the life of a police woman who tries to prevent random violence from people with mental problems and who is more or less overwhelmed when all of a sudden children start committing suicide bombings... The third story is located in the future, when Earth has made contact with another civilization and a Nadian and a humanoid flee from theme park New York to go to Denver. It is unclear to me what the common theme of the book is and the stories were not overly interesting.
A noble attempt, but only half accomplished (1/2 people found this helpful)
I very much loved Cunningham's previous novels (The Hours, Flesh and Blood, A home at the end of the world), and I was very excited when I heard about this new one. However, I did not enjoy it as much as I had hoped for. The three stories are all interesting (although the first one really stands out compared to the other two), but the general impression is that they could have gone much further, that the whole novel could have been way better. I believe Cunningham's idea is a very good one (linking three different times, three different stories, and using Walt Whitman's poetry to unite it all), but it is not developed the way he could have done (and should have done). Again, it remains a good novel by all standards, but also an unfinished attempt. If in The Hours, and in the two other novels, Cunningham's homage to Virginia Woolf had been multi-faceted and very profound (language, issues, characters, attitudes...), here I have the impression that the homage to Whitman is way too simplicistic (quoting him, mainly). I hope Cunningham will move back to Virginia very soon...
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