I have come to an end, and I remain mixed.
I can't say that I didn't have a good time reading. But I cannot classify it as the book I want to read again, that is for sure.
Once I read the first part, I was afraid to find the same story twice in two different eras the back cover offered.
In the book's second part, I tried to find Luke, Simon and Catherine to see how the author would replace them and make them meet again.
At least there is originality, and I did not expect to read the same story three times. Only specific passages and individual descriptions were dense in my eyes. But I must admit that I prefer to let my imagination be activated then to see it fill all the tiny holes by the author.

"Sento com si hi hagués quelcom terrible i meravellós i sorprenent que està just fora del meu abast. Tinc somnis sobre això. Per cert, sí que somio. Em sobrevola en moments inesperats. I després desapareix. Sento com si sempre estigués a la vora d'alguna cosa que mai no arriba. Vull o bé aconseguir-ho o alliberar-me'n."

This is an odd read: its a fusion of three stories which are as different and separate as they are connected and ultimately belonging to each other. They all foster the idea that life doesn't always go as expected and that it's the unexpected that shapes the human experience.

Specimen Days three stories are all set in New York City in different time periods: the first one is historical fiction and is set during the American industrial revolution and centres around a deformed boy who tries to find his way in the world. The second, a noir crime thriller set roughly in our present, has a criminal psychologist at its core who tries to solve the case of a child suicide bomber. The third story is futuristic science fiction set in the future and deals with an outlawed android who has to rely on help from an alien race to survive.

This feeds on the idea that the past, present and future all belong together. There's such a fascinating mix of connection and differences between the stories. We've got three different genres and time periods, yet the underlying themes are surprisingly similar: all characters are seeking, they are all looking for where they belong and what our shared humanity is. There's also Walt Whitman as an overarching presence, may that be through quotation of his works or his ideas expressed through characters. I really enjoyed this play of common threads.

Cunningham's prose has a way of feeling easy but never simple. This was my first experience reading his work and I was very surprised with how he (seemingly) effortlessly creates atmospheres that feel engaging and beautiful. This book is surprisingly short for the wide span of ideas and themes it covers and each story holds it own, which is always something I fear in novels constructed like this one.

In an alternative world I would have read this before To Paradise and the novelty of it would have blown me away. In this universe however, I have already experienced what I personally consider a more epic execution of a similar concept. There's still the similarity of tampering with history and yet retaining the feel that this is a deeply American story saying so much about the real world we live in. Reading Specimen Days is a strange experience and a touching one at that.

Como é bom reencontrar um autor favorito. Espero que com essa leitura eu o tenha liberado para finalmente publicar um novo romance, pois mereço. A tríade de personagens me lembrou Uma casa no fim do mundo, o mendigo cantando perto da floricultura me lembrou As Horas, as casas frágeis da terceira parte me lembraram Laços de sangue. É estranho ler tão depois dos outros dele que li, em tempos de twitter militudo e gente brigando por tudo: parece que tô vendo problematizações mil por conta das escolhas narrativas de Cunningham. É estranho ler depois que mudei tanto, depois de ter visto o mundo mudar tanto. Mas é fato que ele me pegou de jeito e eu me emocionei com a leitura e era tudo que eu tava precisando.

Read via audiobook and hardcover
~~~

Stories:
In the Machine - 4.5 stars
Children's Crusade - 4.5 stars
Like Beauty - 4.5 stars

Alan Cumming's narration = <3 5 stars :)
~~~~

This is a series of inter-connected stories that feature the same souls but in different roles and circumstances. A man named Simon, a boy named Luke, and a woman named Catherine/Catareen.

Each story has it's own feel and vibe but at the same time you can sense this thread connecting everything.. not sure of where it leads but content to go along for the ride.

It made me smile when bits of other stories made an appearance in the following one, making that connection (for lack of a better word) more clear. A certain small thing that seemed to have a certain aura about it had a connection to everyone, drawing them to it even if they didn't understand why. No big purpose in it, just a small beauty in uncertain times.

Throughout it all, Walt Whitman and his poetry maintain a solid presence.. it's felt keenly in some cases and is strangely approiate in one.

The third story was the most out there, but in a good way. The whole world of that story was done very well and despite being semi vague it gave you enough of the world to understand what was going on.

I have no adequate words to explain how much I love this book... beautiful and gorgeous seem clichéd but I don't care:).

Would highly recommend :)
*May edit for thoughts and quotes on other stories later... pardon any errors till I can get to my laptop*

Not quite CLOUD ATLAS, but still loved it—esp. the second story. Troubling colonial/expansion politics that weirdly mimicked Whitman. Still deeply humane and visionary. & Cunningham writes 2 damn g00d. Excited to hear what IBG thinks: happy birthday!

3.5⭐

PRO: Dende o punto de vista da análise literaria, é moi interesante!

CONTRA: A primeira parte fíxoseme lenta (a 2ª e a 3ª xa non) e o autor segue sendo un señor...

"Избранные дни" - это книга необычная. Она поделена на три части, в которых фигурируют люди (и не совсем) с одними и теми же именами. Саймон, Кэтрин и Лукас - мужчина, женщина и ребенок. Не берусь судить, разные это персонажи или те же самые, эволюционируют они ли деградируют. Здесь все сложно, очень и очень. Я не смогла связать вместе их поступки и мотивы. Смысловой целостности в этих трех частях немного, на мой взгляд. Они соединены чем-то высшим, более тонким и трудноуловимым. Да, конечно, "пророческая фигура Уолта Уитмена", как сказано в аннотации, и огромное количество цитат из его "Листьев травы" . Но я на первое место поставила бы даже не идею стремления к Красоте, которая, судя по другим рецензиям, запала в душу многим читателям, а тезис об ответственности за окружающий мир и людей. Эдакое суперсовременное "мы в ответе за тех, кого приручили". Эта линия раскрыта так виртуозно, что размышления, вызванные "Избранными днями", до сих пор не дают мне покоя.

И все они льются в меня, и я вливаюсь в них,
И все они — я,
Из них изо всех и из каждого я тку эту песню о себе.


Еще одним показателем качества книги и мастерства автора для меня являются описания людей, и их внешности, и их характера. Я бьюсь в экстазе, когда писателю в нескольких метких предложениях удается рассказать нам о человеке абсолютно все. Может быть, не всю жизнь, но все то, что необходимо нам, читателям, чтобы составить свое мнение о персонаже и как можно ярче его себе представить. И чем безумнее и необычнее эти характеристики персонажей, тем больше мое уважение к автору. Каннингему - безоговорочный respect.

Она пила второй бокал, когда пришел Саймон. Ее до сих пор потрясало, как он держится на людях. Он был недосягаемо молод и подтянут. Он был «ягуаром», карнавальной колесницей, самим своим ходом демонстрирующей обывателям, что среди убожества повседневной рутины время от времени являет себя мир ярче и великолепнее — мир могущественно безмятежной, самодостаточной красоты; что за серой, бледной личиной вещей существует скрытое царство богатства и легкости, царство изысканного празднества. Она следила взглядом, как его встречает метрдотель. Следила, как он с уверенностью бригадного генерала проходит �� столику, ��ногсшибательный в темно-синем костюме, на котором уместно бы смотрелись полуночные звезды и планеты.


Пару баллов в своей оценке я сняла из-за того, что по моим ощущениям книга шла не по восходящей, а наоборот. Абсолютно фантастическая первая часть сменилась слегка шероховатой второй и вызывающей в некоторых местах недоумение третьей. Если бы было в обратном порядке и апофеозом была концовка, то книга бы заслужила даже десятку с плюсом.

P.S. Теперь, каждый раз когда на новостных сайтах я замечаю заголовки о терактах, в голове сразу проностися мысль: "Мы живы лишь потому, что нас еще никто не захотел убить".

8 / 10

The continued re-contextualization of a few famous Walt Whitman quotes creates an intriguing statement on the ambiguity of art.
I realized that I have a bias toward fiction set in the past as I found myself immediately judging the stories set in the present and future as "John Grisham garbage" and science-fiction nonsense. Both stories proved me wrong.

Maybe it is because I'm not a big fan of a) Walt Whitman and b) Science Fiction, but this book really did not speak to me at all. This has nothing to do with the clear and eloquent language Cunningham uses, but all the caracters somehow remained vague, poetified êtres de papier... What I leaned from this book? Maybe that Walt Whitman is apperently timeless and that going to the West and back to nature are still two of the US's strongest motives in literature?!

Каннінгем пише як боженька, навіть коли у тексті є ящери і багато мертвих дітей

I have to preface this review by saying this is the first Michael Cunningham novel I have read -- I'm not familiar with "The Hours" nor the movie of the same name (although I do have the Philip Glass soundtrack). With that in mind, read on:

I have just finished "Specimen Days - A Novel" by Michael Cunningham. The book is set in three parts, whereas the first takes place approximately a hundred years in the past, the second in the near present or near future, and the third in the distant future. The three parts are linked by characters which despite sharing names do not share the same attributes; a certain inanimate object; and the poetry of Walt Whitman.

For those who might not know, "Specimen Days" is also the title of a prose-poetry book by Whitman described as "autobiographic"... but it is much more than that; everyone needs to read both "Specimen Days" back to back to appreciate what Cunningham has wrought.

Of the three sections, the first is the most compelling. I can't say much without revealing plot, so I'll generalize by saying the imagery and symbolism are most vivid in the first section, perhaps because the author is trying to recreate a world already gone before we were born. The second section, depicting the world we live in now, seems wan in comparison; the effect is similar to placing a black and white photograph beside an impressionist's painting -- the riot of color in the painting makes the black and white photograph seem two-dimensional and less substantial. The third section takes place about four centuries in the future and is still less vivid than the first section, but does have more imagery than the second section. A key scene in the park, a chase scene, and a swimming scene stand out in my recollection of the final section.

My intuition tells me that the author sees more than the obvious connection between the three sections of this novel. There are themes: the first that comes to mind is Whitman and his life-celebrating "Leaves of Grass." The second theme is a juxtaposition of the beauty of inanimate things with the often-banal daily existence of living things (or maybe the point I missed is the fragility of all things, living and inanimate, and how this fragility binds us together as we all seek to survive). A third theme is the question of what constitutes a life. A fourth could be related to the color green (even the dust jacket and spine are green), although I'm struggling to remember any reference to it in the second section... creative choice or oversight? There's also death, and renewal -- children figure prominently in all three sections. The setting of Gotham/New York City is an obvious thread. Loss and longing are common threads, and the desire to survive. Movement from the familiar into the unknown also binds the sections together.

At the end of the novel I'm left with each of these themes (and perhaps more, subconsciously) as my mind seeks to join the three events together. Its a clever device, similar to placing three seemingly unrelated photographs side by side and leaving them for everyone who follows to attempt to decipher not only the underlying story that connects them but also the artist's intent for choosing those particular photos and placing them in that particular sequence. The unfinished nature of each section leaves them hovering in the mind's eye like landscapes glimpsed through the window of a speeding train, joined only by the rails and the relativity of the traveler. This would be an excellent book club novel, as it contains so much that is open to interpretation and each reader is going to synthesize the connections differently.

I will say that as a stand-alone opening of a science fiction novel the third section was fantastic, and I would have enjoyed a book length treatment of the issues brought up in the last section to see where the author would take them. Michael Cunningham, if you're reading this, change the ending of the third section and make it the opening third of a novel and answer the questions you honed in "Specimen Days." Actually, each of these sections could have been expanded into deeply insightful and probing novels, which might explain why I've come away from this book feeling as if I've dined at the table but I'm not sated.

Perhaps, if we're very lucky, the author will publish a sequel with three more sections equally intertwined whereby we pick up the stories of these carefully crafted characters and delve even more deeply into the themes outlined above while learning where their destinies take them. Having tasted the power of what was offered, I would leap at the chance to enjoy more.

Thank you Michael Cunningham!

Now that I've discovered that this isn't the first book of three juxtaposed sections Mr. Cunningham has written, it becomes obvious that he's experimenting with the "collage as literary device" that he began in the other book. The difficulty of composing and coordinating three different interlocking works of fiction based upon the issues and writings of another writer (the fourth dimension) and spaced out across time (the fifth dimension) cannot be exaggerated. Writing in three dimensions overwhelms most aspiring writers. Writing fiction in five dimensions is a new art form, and I love it. If you want ordinary writers and novels, look elsewhere. If you want extraordinary writing and reading, choose Michael Cunningham.