Specimen Days
Torque Control reviews Michael Cunningham's "Specimen Days". It is a slightly old review of a slightly old book, but still worth the read.
(...)like The Hours, Specimen Days involves three stories linked across time. The differences are of focus and structure. Specimen Days does not stay in the 20th century, it ranges from 1850 to 2150, and its stories are not intermingled, they are arranged in chronological sequence.
(...)
If this is the myth of America it is empty, and it is a shame that Cunningham’s undoubted skill — the first two novellas, at least, are worthwhile — should be used in service of a message so obviously banal. It is also the novel’s ultimate undoing, because such clumsy logic does a disservice to Whitman as much as to the reader. By the end, a great poet is not so much a reference point as a crutch for a narrative that emphatically rejects complexity; and such a crutch can only leave splinters in the reader’s hand.
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