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Specimen Days: A Novel
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780374299620
Edition: 1st
ISBN: 0374299625
Label: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: June 07, 2005
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Release Date: June 07, 2005
Studio: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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Editorial Review:
Book 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 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.
More from Michael Cunningham |
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The Hours | 
A Home at the End of the World | 
Flesh and Blood |
|
The Portable Walt Whitman | 
Specimen Days & Collect | 
Walt Whitman: Poetry and Prose |
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.
A highly anticipated bold new novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours--three linked, visionary narratives set in the ever-mysterious, turbulent city of New York
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Haunting -- a masterpiece!
Anyone who claims this novel to be "too deep" or "hard to follow" is obviously delusional, and does not recognize a work of art when he or she sees it. Never in my life have I had the pleasure of reading such a novel that created a world so meaningful, and so ornamented with layer upon layer of tremendous passion.
To top that off, the author's interwoven use of Whitman's poetry is exceptional. Once again, Cunningham proves that he is a literary genius worthy of immense praise. I cannot ... Read More
Rating: - What Is Life?
This is a very interesting book if you can get past some of the science-fiction that he has in his version of the future. If you're expecting something like The Hours... then read The Hours again. This is an entirely different book. His juxtaposition of similar people and elements in the past, present, and future make it feel almost like you're reading a puzzle put together in three different ways, all, in my opinion, asking the same question: what does it take to be alive, and what does it mean? ... Read More
Rating:  - This is NOT The Hours
Wow.
What a weird and disappointing book!
I LOVED The Hours- but this is on par with The Mermaid's Chair, in terms of its failure to measure up. TMChair is no "Bees" and THIS is no "THours"!
If you enjoy historical fiction AND SciFi, you will like the way Cunningham bridges the two genre; otherwise: forget it.
Rating:  - Ultimately disappointing
The three stars are for the first two novellas of this three-part novel. The first story is set in Industrial-Age New York and it is, by far, the best of the three, with its eerie settings and interesting insights into 19th-century urban life. The second story takes place in post-9/11 New York and moves along at the crackling pace of a crime novel. So far, so good. In the third section -- a sci-fi "thriller" set in the distant future -- the wheels fly off entirely and it becomes painfully clear that Cunningham ... Read More
Rating: - Walt Whitman as Yogi Berra
Specimen Days is not only the title of Cunningham's book, it is also the title of a work by Walt Whitman, the poet whose observations were apparently the inspiration for Cunningham's latest tome.
Less a novel, and more a series of three thematically connected novellas that relates each tale via different literary genres (19th century ghost story, late 20th century crime thriller, and 22nd century sci-fi love story). New York City is the backdrop for each chronicle and similarly named characters make ... Read More
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