Specimen Days

Critics

• Time travelling with Walt Whitman

  Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham 308pp, Fourth Estate, £14.99 Is Specimen Days a novel, or three novellas loosely threaded together? This is just one of the many genre disputes in which this book can become ensnared. The opening story tackles hist ... (read full critics)

  guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

• Ghost machines

  Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham Fourth Estate £14.99, pp320 This is less a novel than a linked trio of moving, bizarrely lyrical novellas meditating on Descartes's argument for the essential separation of mind and body, which makes of the perceiv ... (read full critics)

  guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

3 Reviews

• 2 people find this helpful

  

  A cross between 1984 and Oryx and Crake. Brilliant!

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  annemarie said on Oct 3, 2006 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

• 

  It's too much related to Washington way of life and politics.

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  Stefania said on Mar 27, 2010 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

• 

  Really three novellas

  This is the first of Cunningham's novels that I've read, and while genre fiction is not my usual preference, I enjoyed this novel thoroughly. I think "In the Machine" and "The Children's Crusade" were the strongest entries, though that may well be because I'm not particularly a sci-fi fan (that be ... (continue)

  This is the first of Cunningham's novels that I've read, and while genre fiction is not my usual preference, I enjoyed this novel thoroughly. I think "In the Machine" and "The Children's Crusade" were the strongest entries, though that may well be because I'm not particularly a sci-fi fan (that being said, though, I still shed a tear at the end of the "Like Beauty"). The idea of Walt Whitman's poetry (among other things) connecting the three stories is a clever idea, though I feel the credulity of it was being pushed, especially in the final story. The writing was amazing though, and I wm willing to forgive so many things in lieu of good writing.

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  Arrogance said on Jun 11, 2007 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

Book Details

• Rating:
  (33)
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• English Books
• Hardcover
• ISBN-10: 000200559X
• ISBN-13: 9780002005593
• Publisher: Harper Collins Canada
• Pub date: May 26, 2005
• Also available as: Paperback, Audio CD, Audio Cassette and Others
• In other languages: other languages Libros en Español, Libri Italiani

Groups with this in collection

• science fiction (467)

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