Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham

I bought Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham quite a while ago without really knowing what it was about or what to expect. As I started reading, I felt strangely like I was hovering above the characters watching them go about their lives. The use of Walt Whitman's work to weave these three stories set in different times together intrigued me and kept me wondering where Cunningham was going. As I read what in many ways felt like three novellas tied together by some common elements I couldn't help but think about the remnants we leave behind as we travel through life, remnants that might mean the world to us and nothing to someone else or might feel like nothing to us but change someone else's life. Cunningham's characters aren't all necessarily likable but they are engaging and even relatable in an uncomfortable way that seems to bring to mind some of the less desirable aspects of one's self as one wonders what one would do in similar circumstances. Specimen Days draws distinct parallels between the things we choose to see and the things we choose not to see as we go about our daily lives. In the three story lines, which almost feel like they have an air of reincarnation about them, Specimen Days puts human interaction - really all interaction between beings - under a microscope to examine if we really know ourselves and others as well as we think they do and even seems to question our view of life itself.

 

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