Cunningham, Michael *1952
Specimen Days, 2005 - Information about the Book
- General Information
- Specimen Days presents the formation of a self through participation in communal and even ecological process; unlike most autobiographies in the Western tradition, Whitman's emphasizes the dependence of individual identity upon community identity, and thus upon historical placement.
- Information from Wikipedia
- Facts
- After the huge success of "The Hours" (pulished 1998) Michael Cunningham thought that that was his last book. Yet at a party at a poet's house he decided to write another book, but not a second book with a literary figure.
When he worked on the first chapter he learned that New York was a hellish place and that this hellish place had produced a poet like Walt Whitman. Whitman who saw beauty in everything and gave the 21. century its sense of beauty. If this terrible place had produced this great poet, he had to be in his new novel.
- After the huge success of "The Hours" (pulished 1998) Michael Cunningham thought that that was his last book. Yet at a party at a poet's house he decided to write another book, but not a second book with a literary figure.
- Author
- Michael Cunningham talks about the novel, host: Hans Fischer. SwissEduc; Provincetown, MA; July 15, 2006
- Michael Cunningham talks with James Michael Tyler about 'Specimen Days'. August 4, 2005
- Michael Cunningham on Specimen Days. The John Adams Institute; September 29, 2005
- Michael Cunningham and novelist Neel Mukherjee. The Book Club of The New York Times
- Michael Cunningham talks about the novel, host: Hans Fischer. SwissEduc; Provincetown, MA; July 15, 2006
- Articles
- Review: "In fact this is not a novel at all but three novellas lumped together". The Guardian; July 21, 2005
- Review: "Each of the three novellas that make up "Specimen Days" plays with a different literary genre - the ghost story, the detective story, the sci-fi thriller". The New York Times; June 20, 2005
- Audio (5:07)
Maureen Corrigan reviews 'Specimen Days'. NPR Radio; July 19, 2005 - Entryism: "One way of reading Specimen Days: as Whitman meets Freud. A psychoanalytic narrative weaves its way through all of Cunningham’s novels, which often involve tripartite arrangements, not just formally but psychologically. Cunningham seems bent on a progressive rewriting of the classical Oedipal narrative". Jacqueline Rose, London Review of Books; September 22, 2005
- Audio (2:14)
Alan Cheuse reviews Specimen Days. The title comes from Walt Whitman, and Whitman's voice is heard throughout the three novellas that comprise this book. NPR Radio; June 7, 2005
transcript - Fine Specimen: "If the stories that Cunningham is left with may strike some readers as unresolved, this challenge to Whitman, or to the sublimation of selfhood he might stand for, is exactly the kind of bold experiment that a novelist who takes his art seriously ought to make." The New York Magazine; January 20, 2024
- Walt Whitman
- Audio (7:17)
Walt Whitman Inspires 'Specimen Days': "The novel takes place in three different time periods, with the 19th-century poet Walt Whitman as muse in all three." NPR Radio; June 7, 2005
transcript - ‘Specimen Days’ Is Both an Ode to Walt Whitman and Its Own Portrait of America. The New York Times; November 22, 2022
- Time travelling with Walt Whitman: "The stories may seem unpromising, even silly, but Cunningham is a superb writer and Specimen Days is full of the same lovely prose and generous spirit that distinguished his previous novels." The Guardian; August 6, 2005
- Audio (2:14)
Whitman a Constant Companion in 'Specimen Days': "It is an extraordinarily imagined book and, line by line, page by page, one of the most beautifully executed experiments of the decade." Alan Cheuse; NPR Radio. June 7, 2005
Transcript - More information about Walt Whitman.
- Audio (7:17)