Specimen Days

by Michael Cunningham

Specimen Days

published	April 18th 2006 by Picador USA
first published	2005
binding	Paperback
isbn	0312425023 (isbn13: 9780312425029)
ebook
pages	336
description	In each section of Michael Cunningham's bold new novel, his first since The Hours, we encounter the same group of characters: a young boy, an o...more [close] In each section of Michael Cunningham's bold new novel, his first since The Hours, we encounter the same group of characters: a young boy, an older man, and a young woman. "In the Machine" is a ghost story that takes place at the height of the industrial revolution, as human beings confront the alienating realities of the new machine age. "The Children's Crusade," set in the early twenty-first century, plays with the conventions of the noir thriller as it tracks the pursuit of a terrorist band that is detonating bombs, seemingly at random, around the city. The third part, "Like Beauty," evokes a New York 150 years into the future, when the city is all but overwhelmed by refugees from the first inhabited planet to be contacted by the people of Earth. Presiding over each episode of this interrelated whole is the prophetic figure of the poet Walt Whitman, who promised his future readers, "It avails not, neither time or place ... I am with you, and know how it is." Specimen Days is a genre-bending, haunting, and transformative ode to life in our greatest city and a meditation on the direction and meaning of America's destiny. It is a work of surpassing power and beauty by one of the most original and daring writers at work today. [close]
date added	10-04-06 edit book

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Peter

Peter rated it:

06/19/07

Read in August, 2006

recommends it for: Fans of The Hours and everyone else in the world

A preface: It has been a good long while since I read this book, and whether or not my glowing review is one-hundred percent genuine or I've simply romanticized my enjoyment of it based on my preconceived notions that it was going to be a work of genius and my subsequent recommendations to anyone and everyone I know who likes to read (you know, when the book comes to mind, at any rate), remains to be seen.

And that's not even true, because how could I ever recapture how I felt after reading...more

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George

George rated it:

05/10/08

Read in May, 2008

Specimen Days is divided into three sections -- each set in a different time period in New York. A man named Simon, a woman named some variation of Catherine, and a boy named Lucas/Luke appear in each section (rotating who takes the lead in each), and a couple of settings, as well as a minor character or two, also repeat. The poetry of Walt Whitman also threads through the whole book, with Whitman himself actually making a cameo at one point, in the kind of gratuitous appearance that you expect ...more Specimen Days is divided into three sections -- each set in a different time period in New York. A man named Simon, a woman named some variation of Catherine, and a boy named Lucas/Luke appear in each section (rotating who takes the lead in each), and a couple of settings, as well as a minor character or two, also repeat. The poetry of Walt Whitman also threads through the whole book, with Whitman himself actually making a cameo at one point, in the kind of gratuitous appearance that you expect from a bad television show (or from the Simpsons), rather than from a book that has this kind of literary pedigree.

In the first section, we're in New York in the 19th century. There are lots of exciting changes afoot -- it's the Industrial Revolution after all. The star of this section is Lucas, who works in a factory, but has no idea what exactly he's making (I love that part). Lucas spouts Whitman poetry in the midst of normal conversations, something that grows old pretty quick (I can only imagine how quickly it'd grow old if you were actually talking to the kid). I'm torn between whether this section should have been longer or shorter. As it is, it reads like one of Stephen King's lesser short stories.

The second section zooms us forward to a more modern New York. This time we've gone from Stephen King to a crime show -- not a Law & Order type, but one of those ones where we get to follow the detectives home after work and realize that they're human too. There's a glimmer of something interesting in this section (I admit it, I'm a sucker for those crime shows), and I think it's overall the strongest of the three, but on the last page, Cunningham manages to suck all life and hope right out of the story in a matter of a couple of sentences. That's fine -- I was an English major, I can handle that kind of thing -- but it was a disappointing end to a fairly promising set-up.

The final section is where Cunningham tests how many readers can give up on a book after reading 2/3 of it. I, for one, can't, so I followed him from crime show to science fiction -- fearfully, because science fiction is a genre that should be attempted by precious few "serious" writers. Unfortunately, Cunningham is a weak science fiction writer, and seems to have nothing to offer here other than a pasted-together version of half a dozen other books and movies (and don't get me started on his choice to name a character Tomcruise).

What's going to save this book for me, I think, is trying to connect the three stories. The repeated themes of love, sacrifice, and discrimination are all relevant, important themes, and maybe this book will go down as capturing some sort of post-9/11 zeitgeist. I have not read The Hours, so I came to this book with some uncertainty about what to expect. I can appreciate an author's foray into genre fiction (Michael Chabon has demonstrated both the good and the bad sides of this), but there was something about this one that read a little bit like a writer's workshop exercise (I imagine the as-yet-unpublished fourth section takes us to the world of fantasy, where Simon is a gallant knight, Lucas a gnome abandoned by his parents, and Catherine a talking unicorn). All in all, it just felt a little too slight for an author of this supposed caliber....less

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Dale

Dale rated it:

06/18/08

Read in June, 2008

I haven't done this in a while, but today seems like a good day to bring it back to the fore: I started my current job exactly one year ago, June 18, 2007. I've been doing the Metro commute for a whole year. And today, as the Blue Line train pulled into Crystal City, I finished my sixty-fourth book. (Don't worry, I have number sixty-five with me as well, to start on the commute home. I've gotten pretty good at knowing when I'll finish a book and having backup available.)

I wanted to sprea...more I haven't done this in a while, but today seems like a good day to bring it back to the fore: I started my current job exactly one year ago, June 18, 2007. I've been doing the Metro commute for a whole year. And today, as the Blue Line train pulled into Crystal City, I finished my sixty-fourth book. (Don't worry, I have number sixty-five with me as well, to start on the commute home. I've gotten pretty good at knowing when I'll finish a book and having backup available.)

I wanted to spread around the kind of books I was reading, so how did I do?

Classics: 9
Modern Lit: 24
Genre (sci-fi/fantasy/horror): 17
Non-fiction: 14

Considering that I probably could have spent the past year reading nothing but genre-dork stuff, I think that's pretty good. A little slack on the classics, but I did read both Ulysses and Gravity's Rainbow in the past twelve months. I expect that number will be higher in the next year.

But let's pause a moment in appreciation of Specimen Days, which I filed under "Modern Lit" for my tallying above, but which actually has a pretty high genre content level as well. The book is actually three stories told consecutively which aren't so much interwoven as indebted to one another. It starts with a tale of immigrant factory workers in late 19th century New York City. The middle part concerns a forensic psychologist dealing with terrorist-inspired murders in early 21st century New York City. The last third chronicles the pilgrimage of a cyborg man, an alien woman and a mutant child from NYC to Denver in an unspecified future (though for symmetry's sake and from other clues I'd guess early-to-mid 22nd century). The connective threads (besides New York) are slight - a beautiful painted bowl that passes from owner to owner, the names of the main characters (always variations on Simon, Catherine and Lucas), the poetry of Walt Whitman cropping up in almost entirely non sequitor ways. Each story examines what relationships are, what they mean, how they work - and if that isn't a summary that applies to almost every single book I've read in the past year, I don't know what is.

Cunningham looks at a lot of old things in new ways and gets to a lot of truths, and I enjoyed reading the stories very much. The only know I have against the book is that it claims to be "A Novel" but in my opinion it's really not. I was expecting the third story to tie everything together and show me the hidden connection between all three by the time it ended, but that never happened. Or maybe it did and I'm a bit too obtuse to see it, but the three stories seemed to be distinct and separate with some clever overlaps but no real unity. Still, whether it truly deserves to be called a novel or is just a short collection of long stories, it was worth reading.
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Doogyjim

Doogyjim rated it:

(review of isbn 000719384X)

07/06/07

Read in June, 2006

As an admirer of the films of Michael Cunningham's novels (A Home at the End of the World & The Hours) I thought I better get round to actually reading one of his books. Specimen Days sat on my shelf since September of last year when I bought it with an Amazon voucher but for months was ignored as I'd run my finger over the spines looking for my next read. I'd notice it in passing and feel a little sheepish as it sat there, so unassuming with its stark black and white jacket design. Judging ...more As an admirer of the films of Michael Cunningham's novels (A Home at the End of the World & The Hours) I thought I better get round to actually reading one of his books. Specimen Days sat on my shelf since September of last year when I bought it with an Amazon voucher but for months was ignored as I'd run my finger over the spines looking for my next read. I'd notice it in passing and feel a little sheepish as it sat there, so unassuming with its stark black and white jacket design. Judging books by their covers is bad habit of mine.

Just as The Hours is a voyage round Virginia Woolf, this novel is haunted by Walt Whitman whose work is quoted throughout the book and who makes a cameo appearance at one point. Indeed the same three characters appear in each of the three sections (Cunningham structures many of this works around trios) and all have the same personal traits as if they have been reincarnated. Names, events and objects echo through the book, creating a sense of unity and transcendence. Cunningham never lets his creations have an easy time of it and their fate at the ending of each section remains ambiguous - but the thematic and visual leitmotifs woven throughout hint at a coherence behind the scenes, as if a grand scheme is afoot.

The first section concerns a boy in 19th Century New York who's convinced his brother's ghost is trapped in the machine that killed him. In the second a NYPD officer is trying to track down a squad of child suicide bombers and the last concerns a cyborg and extra-terrestrial escaping a dystopian future. Poetry, escape, transcendence, mortality and trust are the focuses.

Boldly, beautifully written, it faltered only in the final section for me. The first part I thought hugely moving (the tears could just have been my hangover), the second gripping - I had imaginings about the thriller he could have written based on the child suicide bombers. But the third really wasn't my cup of tea. Sorry, lizard romances just don't do it for me. Maybe I'm not open minded enough. Though at least in future I'll listen to that nagging voice coming from my bookshelf. Now, where did I put that copy of of Finnegan's Wake.....?
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Max

Max rated it:

06/16/08

Read in June, 2008

Michael Cunningham's Specimen Days is an interesting if not entirely satisfying exercise in juxtaposition, setting the poetry of Walt Whitman against three related vignettes which trace New York City through ages real and imagined.

First, in industrializing nineteenth century New York, an aloof twelve-year-old boy tries to save his late brother's fiancee from a flesh-hungry ghost in the machine. This story is probably the best of the three, ruminating on the rise of the machine and th...more Michael Cunningham's Specimen Days is an interesting if not entirely satisfying exercise in juxtaposition, setting the poetry of Walt Whitman against three related vignettes which trace New York City through ages real and imagined.

First, in industrializing nineteenth century New York, an aloof twelve-year-old boy tries to save his late brother's fiancee from a flesh-hungry ghost in the machine. This story is probably the best of the three, ruminating on the rise of the machine and the commodification of the lower class. The protagonist's dreary personal life contrasts nicely with an excited encounter with a fascinated Walt Whitman, whom the protagonist quotes both at will and in unintentional spasms. This encounter leads to a bizarre epiphany and some of Cunningham's strongest writing.

Next, a band of preadolescent brothers begins hugging and then exploding passersby in present-day New York. In calls to the police, the boys quote Walt Whitman, from whom they also claim to be receiving their instructions. This story examines modern life in the light of Whitman's bygone adulation. The result is ambiguous and also rather fascinating.

Finally, Cunningham flirts with science fiction in a future New York crawling with marginalized and misunderstood space-alien refugees, and androids whose existence has been rendered a crime. While the themes of the story are still interesting, Cunningham's prose wanders too far into the realm of bad science fiction and detracts from the story's valuable etudes on the question of humanity. In case you were wondering how Whitman fits in, the android protagonist has been programmed to quote Whitman in an attempt to render him more human.

Cunningham has interesting ideas and his prose is peppered with beautiful bits (my favorite, from the middle story: "The city was only being rocked in its less visible parts, along its filaments, in its dreams of itself."); nevertheless, Specimen Days as a whole is uneven. Still, its benefits and the healthy dose of Whitman dished out by its characters make the book a worthwhile read....less

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Ryan

Ryan rated it:

01/15/08

Read in January, 2008

recommended to Ryan by: Ryan

My good friend Ryan, who works in publishing, sent me this book with no explanation or context. I assumed I should read it.

First off, this is very ambitious prose. If this book accomplishes nothing else, it accomplishes the right to be called ambitious. Which is no small feat.

Secondly, I enjoyed this book a lot. Michael Cunningham definitely has knack for describing the malaise of late 20th century and does so in swoon-worthy prose. This is most assuredly writing that will make ...more

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furies

furies rated it:

(review of isbn 0374299625)

06/16/07

bookshelves: contemporaryfiction, historical-fiction, would-never-rec

Read in January, 2005

i was SO looking forward to this book, it's kind of ridiculous. i mean, i own the first edition copy, because i BOUGHT it right then.

and then. it was so disappointing. part of it may be personal, but i don't think all of it.

he does (or tries to do) what he did with The Hours, but i think he fails spectacularly. there are three stories, in three separate time periods, and there are things interwoven between each of the stories t...more

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Jae

Jae rated it:

06/24/07

Read in January, 2007

I put off reading this for a while, even though I'd liked The Hours, because the reviews kept dwelling on the science-fiction-y third part and as I'm not a big fan of sci-fi, I thought I wouldn't like it. But I was wrong! This was really beautiful -- the writing was incredible, dizzying at points, dense and lyrical and intense. The book is structured in three thematically linked sections, each set in NYC and inspired in different ways by Whitman's Leaves of Grass. The first section, In the Machi...more

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kathy

kathy added it (review of isbn 0374975388)

04/14/07

Read in June, 2006

recommends it for: Walt Whitman fans and transcendentalists

An amazing novel, and a great surprise to me since I am one of the few people on earth who apparently didn't love Cunningham's "The Hours." This is a truly creative and American-hearted novel, written in three parts that each take place in different centuries, while the soul or spirit of the main characters carries over into each part. Anyone who appreciates Whitman will find his echoes and influence throughout the novel, but it's not at all necessary to have read Whitman to enjoy the ...more

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Lily

Lily rated it:

(review of isbn 0374299625)

07/07/08

Read in July, 2008

recommends it for: hobby intellectuals and philosophers, and people who like a good/different read.

"Specimen Days" is an exquisitely written work. Its three chapters contain three different stories--the first historical fiction, the second police thriller, the third, sci-fi. But all of them are written with the care of poetry, and linked in surprising ways.

The book-flap claims that the stories are all linked through the setting (New York City), with Walt Whitman and "Leaves of Grass" as a leitmotif. But the threads connecting the stories are much more proliferate.
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Leah Shafer

Leah rated it:

09/05/08

After finishing The Hours, I had to go out and get this newer Cunningham book. Remember what I said about him having some sort of OCD qualities? In this book, it's all about Walt Whitman in three different stories. This book is definitely weird, but in a way that is quite pleasant.

First takes place during the Industrial Revolution in New York City and looks at the time when people were moving off of farms and into cites, swallowed by the machines of the time, figuratively and, in this chapte...more

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Tony duncan

Tony rated it:

08/24/08

bookshelves: literature, science-fiction

recommended to Tony by: emusic books
recommends it for: literarary literati

Well, this felt like it could have ben a great book. But similarly to the Junot Diaz book, it flet overwrouhgt with detail. Beautifully rich ezquisite detail. Is this waht is currenyl considered good writing these days? Unfortunatley the book doesn;t really make any sense. I am only giving it three stars becuase the rich writing is so pleasant to ingest. it is a story in three sections that are somehow connected in some sort of spiritual ethereal way. In all three stories there are characters ...more

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Zach

Zach rated it:

04/08/08

Read in January, 2007

HEY, do you have my copy of this book? i can't figure out what i did with it.
------------------
this is one disturbingly beautiful book that ultimately serves as a meditation on (im)mortality, with Walt Witman's Leaves of Grass woven throughout (like Virginia Wolfe's Mrs. Dalloway in The Hours, for which Cunningham is more well known.)

Cunningham creates breathtaking images, gets a thousand different balls rolling poetically, and unravels a complex intertextual dialogu...more

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Susan

Susan rated it:

10/31/07

Read in October, 2007

Michael Cunningham is such a great writer that you just have to excuse his rather bleak take on the world. Like other books that I have read by him ( The Hours, A Home at the End of the World) this book is in the end the story of human endurance in the face of high odds and periods of incredible lonliness and alienation. It is composed of three novellas, all set in New York, all integrating the poetry of Walt Whitman in one way or another. The first is a story of Irish immigrants set at the dawn...more

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Bostian

Bostian rated it:

05/07/08

Read in May, 2008

I went to hear Michael Cunningham read a passage from this novel when it was first published, this at the flagship Powell's in downtown Portland. That was an author reading which changed my life, or at least a comment he made during the question segment after the reading. I had enjoyed reading the novel he was famous for writing, but I wasn't a huge fan; I was impressed, however, with his candid explanation of why he was always disappointed, to some degree, with everything he had written. Any...more

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Nick

Nick rated it:

09/16/07

bookshelves: fiction

Read in May, 2006

recommends it for: brews before screws

3 stories. Walt Whitman's word bubbling up on the lips of all three protagonists, in all three stories. The same character names rearranged.

1. A kid with an awful life and effectively dead parents in industrial revolution-era NYC laments his dead brother, is eaten by machines, falls in love with a prostitute. Things are so desperate he starts hallucinating.

2. Present day cop realizes her rich white stock broker boyfriend likes her because she's exotic. There's a child terrorist plot. She...more

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Rachel

Rachel rated it:

02/19/08

Read in January, 2008

recommends it for: unhappy people looking to feel happier

This book was not very favorably reviewed. It was described as brave yet ultimately inadequate, ambitious but overdramatic in its sweep. I would say that all of the things that make this an irritating book make it it one impossible not to love. I love that his prose is dripping in sensual imagery to the point of being overblown, and I love that an automaton of the future falls in love with a lizard, and I love that the three novellas are only tenuously connected, and I love that he uses Walt Whi...more

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Tracy

Tracy rated it:

05/12/07

Read in May, 2007

Each separate part was haunting and filled me with vague feelings of dread and discomfort, it was hard to keep reading in many (good) ways. The characters mirroring themselves and the transition from human to machine to back to human was beautifully done. It's a book that, when I finished it, I kept thinking about it and realizing more.

I still felt there was a lack of - something, that three sections were hinting at wanting to something more and never quite got around to it. I think the a...more

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Lavinia

Lavinia rated it:

09/03/08

Read in July, 2007

problema cu whitman e ca nu mi-a placut niciodata. in afara de o poezioara pe care o retinusem pe la 19 ani, nu i-am suferit niciodata poemele lungi, firele de iarba & co.
problema cu cunningham e ca il ia pe whitman si il face erou de roman, la fel cum a procedat cu virginia woolf in orele. doar ca partea aia i-a iesit mult mai bine. aici whitman e si nu e, adica apare in toate cele trei parti ale romanului, ciudat de direct si totusi indirect, cunningham ascunzindu-l in spatele personajel...more

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Anne

Anne rated it:

03/22/08

Read in March, 2008

I'm still pondering starrage. Lots of wonderful stuff here -- bold genre-crossing, the notion that poetry is what makes us human, the truth of the Operatic, the cyclical sense of what we share and interpret...and I admired the thematic connections among this triptych, even in moments when I wished he'd take each story just a bit further. The weakest choice is unfortunately a major one: Cunningham's interpretation of Whitman and the particular choice of this poet and his words for this story or a...more

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avg rating (this edition): 3.32 (769 ratings)
number of reviews: 164

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