Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham

I read three books by Michael Cunningham: The Hours, which is my favorite, Flesh and Blood and Specimen Days, which is my least favorite. I really liked it, almost loved it, but I loved the others in all aspects. This one has three stories, starring each a man named Simon, a woman named Catharine (or a variant) and a boy named Luke (or Lucas). There's a victorian ghost story, amodern day cop thriller and a sci-fi love story, by thids order. The first one was my favorite, it reaches Cunningham's other books greatness. The characters are fascinating, the writing is poetic, beautiful and haunting, The twists are intelligent, the pace is exciting and at the same time reflective, and the ambience is uniquely strange. It's filed with gorgeously dark descriptions, and I was absorbed by this. It made me think about life, death and love. The second story is still very well written, but the dialogue was unrealistic and the subplots weren't developed enough. Even so, it builds a convincing athmosphere, you can feel the fear of the characters, and the children are brilliantly sinister and evocative. The ending leaves you wanting to know more and thinking about the story. The last one was the one I liked the leaqst. Even if I liked the characters, the settings were terrible, very clichéd and typical. Besides, why are ETs always green humanoids with some distinctive feature, but still able to speak, walk andreacting like humans? This had too much action, and Cunningham obviously doesn't really know what to do with sci-fi, creating alien words and an apocalyptic, unbelievable version of a near future. But I loved the painful ending and the love that Simon is unable to express. It's good to compare the stories and see the similarities, that go beyond the names and Walt Withman. Together, they create a beautiful mesage about the power people have to heal and love each other. This is a very original read, but it's not a good book if you're just starting this author's work.