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.

Before reading this book, I came across a couple of comments (one that I heard directed to Cunningham himself at the Tennessee Williams Festival in N.O. last month) that addressed Cunningham 'copying' himself, that he was doing here with Whitman what he did with Woolf in The Hours. It is true that each writer has a lot to do with each respective novel, but beyond that I see no similarity.

At the aforementioned literary fest, I heard Cunningham call himself a 'language queen' and then later in the day a 'language crank,' meaning that what he looks for when he reads are beautiful sentences. He writes them too. Last night after finishing this book, I dreamed of his sentences, a sure sign of a book that has implanted itself in my brain.

The first section was my favorite, not surprisingly, since it's set in the 19th century. The writing, with the foreboding and visionary thoughts of Lucas, is exquisite. At times (as in each of the later sections as well) it's even creepy and tension-filled. Maybe it's meant to evoke a sensational novel of the time period, and though I know it can be read as a ghost story, I think it can also be read as not one. (A la James' "The Turn of the Screw"?)

Even in the second section, which is of a crime-thriller style (not my favorite genre), I was won over, though I wasn't sure of it at first and in certain passages. It may not have been a fit for me, but looking back on it, I think it fit the overall pattern and scheme of the book.

To say what I liked about the speculative, dystopian third section might spoil the experience for another reader. I'll just say that it addresses what it means to be human, and what it might mean to be human in the future, and that who turned out to be a Whitman figure in this section surprised me and perhaps is what turned the whole work from 4 to 5 stars for me -- that, and my dreaming of its sentences.

I have my friend James Murphy and his review to thank for my reading this novel, and for my seeing the parallels to Dante (I don't know Dante well enough to have seen that on my own), making the read even richer. Now I wish I had read this before the Fest, so I could've asked Cunningham about that!

That was interesting! *review to come*

Quite a disappointment. I found the plot line and characters hard to follow. I like the concept - crossing over genres and tying in themes of love, revolution, change, evolution. I just didn't think it worked. Don't get me wrong, I really like Michael Cunningham and have read two of his others books (one being The Hours, which was fantastic). I just was diappointed in this book and would not recommend it to read, even though a core focus is Walt Whitman. A brave and noble effort that fell flat.

Michael Cunninhgam nunca nos deixa indiferentes.
Neste seu livro ele conta-nos três histórias diferentes, bastante espaçadas no tempo, mas com alguns pontos comuns - Nova Yorq, Walt Withman e uma singela tigela...
A primeira história é triste, cinzenta e reflecte muito bem a era da industrialização, nos finais do século XIX; o poder da máquina é total e o ser humano a ela é subjugado.
Na segunda, aquela que mais perto está dos nossos dias, vemos todo o efeito que hoje continua ou mesmo se acelera do medo e da realidade do terrorismo, que pode e isso é um facto real, não ter razões específicas, políticas ou religiosas.
Finalmente a terceira história mostra-nos uma América pós-apocalíptica, numa ficção científica de certo modo não totalmente convincente mas com pontos de interesse.
Todas as histórias escapam a um fim trágico, embora também não enveredem por um "happy-end" - é como que um adeus aos problemas que cada uma mostra, mas sem entusiasmo e sem chama.
De todas elas, gostei essencialmente da segunda - A Cruzada das Crianças - e ela é de todas aquela com um fim mais positivo.

I would guess David Mitchell provided a hefty dose of inspiration for this novel in three parts and different historical settings. All three narratives are set in an alternate New York. In the Hours Cunningham used Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway as the linking common dominator; here he uses Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. All three stories have a young disenfranchised and lost boy at their heart who quotes Whitman.
The first story takes us back to the beginnings of the mechanised age. Lucas' brother has just been killed at work by a machine. Lucas is to take his place at the factory. He falls hopelessly in love with his brother's fiancé. Soon he begins to believe it is the aim of all machines to kill their operators and sets out to save his brother's fiancé.
The second story, for me the least successful, is about a woman who handles emergency police calls and her relationship with a boy who is part of a cult, known as the children's crusade, brainwashed into becoming suicide bombers.
The third story is set in the future and features an android as its hero and an alien as its heroine. Sounds a bit daft but it was actually my favourite narrative of the three. Because it deals so brilliantly with what it means to be human with all our emotional equipment. This isn't as accomplished as The Hours but again there's lots of fabulous writing and I really enjoyed reading it. 4.5 stars.

so cool. so many thoughts but all i can say is so cool!

He nearly lost his balance, looking up. The stars sparked, brilliant and unsteady on a field of ebony. There were thousands of them. [...] He stood for some time, watching. He had never imagined this star-specked stillness. [...] A sensation rose in him, a high tingling of his blood. There came a wave, a wind, that recognized him, that did not love him or hate him. He felt what he knew as the rising of his self, the shifting innerness that yearned and feared, that was more familiar to him than anything could ever be. He knew that an answering substance gathered around him, emanating from the trees and the stars. [...] What he'd thought of as his emptiness, his absence of soul, was only a yearning for this.

Lėtokas ir verčiantis susimąstyti skaitinys.

375 / 550'000

I never really liked Whitman, but since Cunningham makes him his book’s hero [remember Woolf and The Hours?] he becomes more accessible. Directly or not, he is present in all three parts of the book, being hidden by Cunningham behind the characters that populate a New York from different periods of time [same pattern as The Hours], thus speaking and existing through them. I really liked the first two parts, the third one is S.F. and I’m not quite a fan. In the end, Walt doesn’t seem so impossible.

***
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 personajelor care populeaza un new york din trei perioade diferite [recunoastem patternul din orele], vorbind si existind astfel prin ele.
romanul e ok, primele doua parti mi-au placut chiar mult, dar ultima se intimpla undeva in viitor si e populata si cu ceva SF, ceea ce stomacul meu digera mai greut, asa ca am trecut mai in viteza peste ea.
in rest, numai de bine. parca walt nu mai e chiar asa imposibil.

Kirjan kahdelle ensimmäiselle osalle olisin varmaan antanut 4-4,5 tähteä, mutta viimeinen meni sen verran ohi oman maun, että kokonaisuudesta lähti aika paljonkin pois. Tai no, ei se ehkä edes niin omasta mausta ollut kiinni, enemmänkin suuresta epäuskottavuudesta, joka vei jotenkin pohjaa aiemmiltakin osilta. Tulevaisuuden kuvaaminen on toki aina haastavaa, mutta kuten tässä, siinä vedetään hirveän helposti jollain tapaa yli. Harmi. Mutta yleisesti ihan kelpo teos oli, hyvää lentokoneviihdettä.

Amazing writing. Three great stories on their own, but fun because of the little "links" between each one. Not my usual fare, this is almost sci-fi in parts, but I really enjoyed it.

Full disclosure: I "read" this as an audiobook, beautifully narrated by Alan Cumming, and I would probably give the back of a cereal box 4 stars if Alan was reading it.