Specimen Hunting
One has been sent an advance e-book version of Michael Cunningham's forthcoming Specimen Days. Under normal circumstances, one would have pounced gleefully upon this work, refusing to emerge until one had finished it. But one can't get the pesky thing to download: apparently, it's attuned to a more recent version of Windows than one has installed. One is working on it: with some luck and tinkering, one's entreaties will be successful.
From whatever information one has of the book so far, it appears that Cunningham has simply reworked the formula he employed so winningly in his earlier The Hours: take real-life episodes from the life of an writer, mingle this with fictional narratives involving characters from the present, and link them thematically. (In The Hours, it was Virginia Woolf; now, it's Walt Whitman.)
However, Cunningham is a gifted and serious author -- so one is going to stop pre-judging him and get back to the task of saying "open Sesame" to the e-book in question.
From whatever information one has of the book so far, it appears that Cunningham has simply reworked the formula he employed so winningly in his earlier The Hours: take real-life episodes from the life of an writer, mingle this with fictional narratives involving characters from the present, and link them thematically. (In The Hours, it was Virginia Woolf; now, it's Walt Whitman.)
However, Cunningham is a gifted and serious author -- so one is going to stop pre-judging him and get back to the task of saying "open Sesame" to the e-book in question.
posted by PrufrockTwo at
6.6.05
5 Comments:
Dude, what's with all the 'ones'? The Brits have split baby, the sun has set on the Empire. It ain't gonna strike back.
By
Anonymous, at 5:01 PM
Ah. If that's the style you prefer, one could do no better than to direct you to the compelling and vivid posts of The Compulsive Confessor: www.thecompulsiveconfessor.blogspot.com
By
PrufrockTwo, at 8:34 AM
She's compulsive alright. Nice pointer. In return, I'd like to leave behind a few favorite lines:
We have been, let us say, to hear the latest Pole
Transmit the Preludes, through his hair and fingertips.
“So intimate, this Chopin, that I think his soul
Should be resurrected only among friends
Some two or three, who will not touch the bloom
That is rubbed and questioned in the concert room.”
To be read, preferably with Arthur Rubinstein playing in the background.
By
Anonymous, at 3:16 PM
Why, thank you.
"To find a friend who has these qualities,/ Who has, and gives / Those qualities upon which friendship lives./ How much it means that I say this to you- / Without these friendships - life, what cauchemar!"
Cauchemar: that's the French supermarket chain, right?
By
PrufrockTwo, at 3:44 PM
Hahahaha. To paraphrase Coppola's Col Kurtz who paraphrased Condard's Kurtz, 'the nightmare, the nightmare'
By
Anonymous, at 4:40 PM
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