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    Specimen Days: A Novel
    Specimen Days: A Novel
    Specimen Days: A Novel
    Audiobook4 hours

    Specimen Days: A Novel

    Written by Michael Cunningham

    Narrated by Alan Cumming

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    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

    In each section of Michael Cunningham's new book, we encounter the same group of characters: a young boy, an older man, and a young woman. "In the Machine" is a ghost story which takes place at the height of the Industrial Revolution, as human beings confront the alienated 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 which 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 distance nor 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—a work of surpassing power and beauty by one of the most original and daring writers at work today.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Audio
    Release dateJun 1, 2005
    ISBN9781593977153
    Specimen Days: A Novel
    Author

    Michael Cunningham

    Michael Cunningham is the author of six novels including A Home at the End of the World, Flesh and Blood, The Hours, Specimen Days, and non-fiction book, Land’s End: A Walk Through Provincetown. The Hours was awarded both the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the 1999 PEN/Faulkner Award and made into an internationally acclaimed, Oscar-winning film. His new novel, The Snow Queen, will be published in May of 2014. He lives in New York.

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    Reviews for Specimen Days

    3.5/5

    426 ratings21 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Not bad but a little strange. I was expecting more about Walt Whitman, but he is quoted a lot.
    • 3/5
      Three stories or mini novels that are connected by New York City, names of three main characters, a bowl, and poems by Walt Whitman. It was sometimes hard to see where this is going but writing was good and the ideas intriguing.To me this was about humanity and life. Life that can take various forms.Most of the time (two first stories) the book was quite serious but the third story made laugh.
    • 4/5
      A really interesting trio of stories that keeps bringing a trio of characters together, in the past, present, and future.
    • 3/5
      Three novellas, hooked together by a seemingly random grab bag of recurring names, objects and Turette-like spouting of Walt Whitman. The first piece is riveting, the second is OK and the third unfortunately, just doesn't work. Readable, but misses greatness.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book. Wish I'd written it.
    • 3/5
      Not my favorite by Cunningham. The first story really turned me off - i nearly gave up, but I knew I would have wondered about the others for a long time if I had, so I stuck it out. The second and third stories were much more interesting, perhaps because they built on the first two. I wonder if Walt Whitman fans would have appreciated the book more? Not that I don't like Whitman, but I wouldn't say I am really into him or know his work.
    • 5/5
      When I first started reading this, I didn't think I would like it. But it slowly started to grow on me, so that by the end of the first story, I loved it. This book is fascinating, and it has so much going on. I'm so glad I stuck with it.It has also made me want to find out more about Walt Whitman.
    • 3/5
      The mixture of dialog and sensory details was like that of oil and water; staccato, halting, disjointed, etc. It just didn't seem to flow nicely. The stories were incredible in the theoretical sense and I know that, years from now, I'll have no idea why I didn't like the book, but the way the stories were executed just seemed over-done and over-thought whereas they should have been as simple and elegant as the work of Walt Whitman that is quoted throughout the book. In my opinion, each story was very slow to start, had an amazing center (I'm not going to say exposition, climax, etc. because those terms don't seem to really apply to this work...it's more complex than that), and finished leaving you feeling empty. Like going out to dinner at a fancy haute-couture restaurant and only getting an appetizer.
    • 4/5
      Cunningham attempts to capture the spirit of Walt Whitmans' work Leaves of Grass in this unique tripartite novel. Inhabiting the past, present, and future, a separate but related cast of characters revolving around a man, woman, and youg boy exhibit Whitman's idea that "every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you." Each story takes place in New York in different time periods. The opening story is situated within the period of the Industrial Revolution and looks at humanity's reaction to this new age of machines. The middle story, set in the current era, presents a society still dealing with terrorist jitters and explores the dangers of impressionable minds exposed to an irrational group-think mentality. The final futuristic setting comes full circle in that now we encounter a machine (in the form of a man) musing on the ways of humanity.This is not a book for the passive reader wanting only to be entertained. Instead, it demands active engagement. Having only read through it once as of this writing, I remain intrigued by the work, yet undecided as to my satisfaction with it as a whole. Parts of it were fascinating, yet others left me unsatisfied and scratching my head in wonder. Whether that dis-satisfaction arises from the quality of the writing or my inability to connect certain dots is a question that can only be answered following a second reading.
    • 4/5
      Each of the three stories in this book have unifying themes and motifs that bring a real sense of continuity and satisfaction for the reader as they find how they are incorporated into each plot. The past, present, and future are each represented in a different story, creating a book that mixes historical fiction, a modern suspenseful thriller, and some science fiction into one larger concept. That alone is very entertaining and to be applauded, but I had one large problem with this book - I liked each story less than the one before it. I loved the first one and would read it again gladly, the second would make a pretty cool movie to see but not a story I'd read again, and the third, while bringing a sort of closure to the running themes, would not be much of a story at all by itself. The level of predictability in a story can make me love or hate it. The first story was unpredictable without being chaotic, and I was drawn in nearly immediately, while the rest became gradually more predictable as they went on.This book is still worth reading! If you like the enduring nature of poetry or would like to experience a few different genres at once, go for it. The first story, as I've said, is my favorite, it's worth reading the whole book to see where the different aspects of the first story show up in the others. And if someone could get going with making a movie of the second story, that would be great.
    • 1/5
      Conclusive evidence that you can have too many stories about people who quote Whitman compulsively.Cunningham is usually a good writer: I was very impressed by The Hours. However, this book doesn't quite come off. He has three stories in different generic styles: historical fiction, contemporary crime, and science fiction. These all have different characters, settings and periods, but they intersect in various ways, and all bring in the voice of Walt Whitman as a linking theme. Unfortunately, Cunningham clearly doesn't get on very well with any of the three genres he has picked. The dreadful plot-clichés that he has to resort to are all the more obvious because each story is necessarily rather short.The Whitman idea is dangerous, too: if you introduce a far more powerful and original voice than your own into a book, there's always the risk of it making your ideas look a bit silly, and I think that is what happens here. Whitman's exuberance, which is sometimes a bit absurd when you see it in isolation, suddenly starts to look developed and grown-up when it's set against the weaknesses of Cunningham's flimsy structure.I suppose that's a positive result, in a way, but really you might as well cut out the middleman and buy a copy of Leaves of grass instead.
    • 3/5
      I wanted to like this book. I started it expecting to like it. I love Whitman and I also love interconnected stories that span long periods of time. It was a little clunky and rough around the edges, but I was on board until we got to the alien lizards with voices like flutes. Just...what? Cunningham also should have been able to show that the three main characters were reincarnations in all three novellas without having to give them the same names. That's just shoddy and unskillful. I get what this book was trying to do. It wanted to be like Cloud Atlas. It really, really wasn't.Good idea, poor execution.
    • 4/5
      This was a great book. It described three different stories with the same thread throughout that takes you through a history of New York and society. I have never read any Walt Whitman and I must confess, poetry is not my forte. However, he was an intriguing poet and I often returned to the stanzas in the book to reread them in an effort to understand their context within the storyline. As for the short stories, I loved how Cunningham was able to blend the characters in each of the different eras together. He addressed the challenges each faced within their time with regard to gender, disabilities and race. I loved the addition of the little blue and white pottery that flowed throughout the book and it made me ponder on its importance within the lives of each of the characters. A worthy book for the sci-fi lover who is looking for something a little bit more interesting.
    • 5/5
      I was hooked before the aliens showed up. One of those books that you just keep frigging thinking about even when you want to stop. Good for fans of the po-mo and the sci/fi. Damn it, Michael Cunningham! Get out of my head!!!!!!!!!!!!
    • 5/5
      Written by Michael Cunningham, this haunting novel is one of my all-time favorites. Machines that seem to eat people, terrorists with bombs, aliens that populate New York City, and Walt Whitman. All rolled into one. This novel connects the three time periods, stories, and characters (always a man, a woman, and a young boy) through the words of the poet Walt Whitman. I don't want to give away the plot to you but you have to read this book to see how everything is connected and intertwined. Cunningham creates a beautiful tapestry of words in each of the novellas, a stunning tribute to Whitman's works. Though some may find his portrayal of Walt Whitman as less-than-kind, I saw it in a different light. He brought the words of the poetry to life through a story woven together through time. I usually have no interest in poetry, but after I read this novel I decided I wanted to read Leaves of Grass as well (Whitman's original work of poetry that all of the quotes were taken from). It was fantastic. And all because of the impression this book had on me. There is something haunting and beautiful about the first line of the book, "Walt said that the dead turned into grass, but there was no grass where they'd buried Simon." This is one of those books that I pull out the pen for and underline everything in sight, because every line is fantastically written and emotionally striking. And one crazy story, too.
    • 3/5
      A book in sections. I have loved several of Cunningham's earlier works but this one feels like a failed experiment. I enjoyed some of the segments, but the final one that addresses the world's unsure, post-apocalyptic future felt disjointed and difficult to relate to. I suppose in part that was the point, but it made for a difficult read nevertheless.
    • 5/5
      Specimen Days is an unusual novel, beautifully written and gloriously strange — the best kind of novel, the kind that keeps you thinking and wondering long after the cover has been closed. The book is divided into three sections, each one connected by character, setting, iconic images and the poetry of Walt Whitman. In each section, the same three characters appear — a man, a woman and a deformed child — but each section is told from a different character’s point of view. Although it is never stated, I got the sense that reincarnation is at work, and each character in their new time is a continuation and evolution of who they were before.The first section is set in Victorian New York, among sweatshops, ironworks and extreme poverty, in an age just beginning to become industrialized. The boy, so struck by Whitman’s Leaves of Grass (which he calls “the Book”) that he cannot help but recite lines from it at odd and inappropriate moments, has taken his dead brother’s job at a factory. He becomes convinced that ghosts haunt the machines around him and that the machines love the people who work them so much that they want to consume the people themselves. The boy feels compelled to save his brothers fiancee from such a fate.The second section, set in present-day New York, follows a forensic psychologist for the NYC police department as she is caught up in a strange terrorist plot involving children blowing themselves and a randomly chosen stranger up in an effort to change the course of human history. The children, all unwanted and abandoned, were raised by a woman calling herself Walt Whitman in an apartment where the walls, floors and ceilings have been covered with pages from Leaves of Grass. For me, this was the most compelling section, although all three stories were fascinating.The final story is set 150 years into the future. It begins in a New York that has devolved into an amusement park, but the story moves outside the confines of the city for the first time. The characters — an android who compulsively recites Whitman due to his “poetry chip,” an intelligent alien lizard and a deformed but wise young boy — go on a quest together that takes them across a ruined America to Denver and the promise of a more hopeful future. This was the strangest story of them all, but the common threads of character and theme keep it grounded.Each story is ultimately about love: how it begins, how it can end and what it compels us to do for and to each other. But I think this novel is also a warning about how disconnected we are becoming from the Earth and nature — connection to nature is a strong theme in Leaves of Grass – and the inevitable consequences of that disconnect. Each time there is an attempt to reconnect, to alter the direction that society is going, and a failure to do so. But despite these failures, there is still hope — hope embodied in Whitman’s enduring words, in the persistence of love, in the continuing quest for a reunion with the natural world and the cosmos. The ultimate fate of that quest remains unknown as the novel ends, and there is hope in that too.
    • 5/5
      Sheer genius!
    • 5/5
      I love Cunningham's writing, and the way his stories echo around each other.
    • 5/5
      Again from master Cunningham, three stories that are related as only us humans, and not so human, can intertwine.
    • 5/5
      This book is amazing. I read a lot of reviews before reading it and some people just didn't get it. It's comprised of three separate stories, three different times, "...and yet the same old human race, the same within, without, Faces and hearts the same, feelings the same, yearnings the same, The same old love, beauty and use the same." (excerpted from the Walt Whitman quote at the beginning of the book).So basically, Cunningham takes the themes of love, death, and the influence of ideas on people's lives, and intertwines them through three stories in three different time periods. By giving the characters in each story the same names but different relationships to each other, Cunningham underlines the universality of the themes. There's also the fascinating thread of New York City throughout the three stories--places and pieces of history that recur in each story."In the Machine" takes place at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Lucas (from whose point of view we are reading) is a thirteen-year old boy, Simon was his brother (now dead) and Catherine was Simon's fiance who Lucas adores. Lucas is autistic and obsessed with Walt Whitman's poetry, he quotes it at random (or is it random?), it influences everything he does."The Children's Crusade" is almost contemporary, a few years into the future. Catherine/Cat (the point-of-view character) is the detective, Simon is her boyfriend, Lucas was her son (now dead). The other children in this story have no names. They were raised on Walt Whitman's poetry. They're obsessesed with it. It influences everything they do."Like Beauty" takes place far into the future. Simon is an android, Catareen is an alien, and Lucas is a boy they meet along their travels as they escape a modern society that holds no place for either of them. Simon has been programmed with Walt Whitman poetry and quotes it at random (or is it random?). It influences, you guessed it, everything he does.If this book does nothing else, it will make you look at poetry differently. Powerful stuff.