i don’t usually discuss fiction here, but one novel caught my eye recently, not because of the author, but because of the title. michael cunningham’s new book is titled specimen days. for those you who know primarily about walt whitman from leaves of grass, he did write other works, one of which is a collection of prose called specimen days. cunningham obviously knows that, for whitman’s presence can overwhelmingly be felt in this work. overwhelmingly might be too strong of a word—perhaps eerily would be more appropriate. some of you probably know cunningham at least through the hours, the film based on his book. this new novel presents three separate but connected stories that tie together through whitman and through the characters, though the stories all take place in different time periods. the stories in themselves are interesting because of the odd twists, twists which could easily be adapted to a film screen, yet what most interests me, and not surprisingly, is the way that cunningham weaves whitman into the work. leaves of grass becomes biblical in this novel, inspiring the characters to wonderful actions and to terrifying ideologies. ultimately, cunningham plays around with whitman’s work, taking lines like “For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you” and pushing them ad absurdum. If you take such lines as prophetic or dogmatic, what actions might come out of your belief?
perhaps one of the reasons i also read through this novel is also the same reason i watched a film like The Wings of the Dove when it came out. the work itself drew my interest because of its interpretation of and reaction to a past literary figure of importance, who for me appears to be the founding father of american literature in its democratic setting. cunningham takes up whitman’s words and thoughts, words that shaped american culture, and both shows how wonderful that belief system is and also presents how it can lead to terrifying conclusions. cunningham asks the question that many whitman scholars have been asking lately: how does whitman’s very appealing vision of liberal capitalism function when it’s in action in the hands of the american government?
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