Day - Michael Cunningham

It had been years since I had read anything by Cunningham and I was very excited to read this book. Too excited, as it turned out. 

I am now honestly wondering if The Hours and A Home at the End of the World were really so ground-breaking, or whether I had simply read them at a time in which gay American literature was a complete unknown to me. 

I found this book to be of a borderline astounding banality (hey, most likely I didn't get its meaning!), but I felt that the pandemic was just used a useful literary tool, the characters were not just unlikeable (which I can live with, we don't always need to love a novel's characters) but also unremarkable. And seriously, when the great idea is interrupting the narrative and only looking at one day in a number of consecutive year, there must be something wrong with your work (I mean, if David Nicholls, with his mass-appeal and lack of pretence, had done it better, you must really go back to the drawing board!). 

Flesh and Blood - Michael Cunningham

I read this book because I couldn't get my hands on Cunningham's latest novel. 

Surprisingly, it didn't make me think of the other Cunningham novels that I had read, but rather of a relatively unsuccessful Eugenides or Franzen book. I do realize that very often Cunningham looks at his characters' family background in order to explore the lives and actions of the younger generations, but this attempt felt particularly botched. 

The most problematic character of all for me was Constantine, whose gradually revealed flaws seem to be sprinkled throughout the book without much planning. All in all, this to me looks like a book that would have loved to be a great American novel but falls considerably short. 

A Home at the End of the World – Michael Cunningham

A book that the same girl who had given me The Hours lent me when I was 16 (kudos to her, she figured she could impress me with Michael Cunningham).

Three-way loves have been explored by countless authors, but Cunningham simply does it better (and it also throws in a bit of suburban life and a passage in New York City for good measure, just to make sure he can have me hooked). The scene of the death of Bobby’s brother in the first few pages, and the final one in the lake are, somehow, two of the most vivid images a book has ever left me with.

And I’d just like to copy and paste my final comment about The Hours since it clearly also applies here: “The book is written with such a soft touch that probably only gay writers can master without falling into plain sappy romanticism (although Cunningham himself doesn’t like being referred to as a gay writer). It’s a shame that, now, so many readers seem to have forgotten about Cunningham’s talent.”

Although it’s probably kind of sad when you start quoting yourself.

The Hours – Michael Cunningham

A book that was given to me by a girl who had a huge crush on me when I was 16, and with whom I was not particularly kind. She gave me this novel to impress me and, at that age when nobody around me actually read, she did.

It made me want to read something by Virginia Woolf (a desire that quickly vanished after reading To the Lighthouse). I have the feeling that most readers end up remembering mostly either the portrayal of Virginia Woolf, or that of Richard Brown, but to me Laura Brown is by far the most interesting character in this novel (probably also because of my undying love for Julianne Moore, who played her in the movie – a love that started in the early 2000s before the entire world was in love with her, by the way). Although it’s a reality that is really rather far from me, I somehow love depictions of American sub-urban life in the post-WWII period – in my mental imagery the era always has the most beautiful colours.

The book is written with such a soft touch that probably only gay writers can master without falling into plain sappy romanticism (although Cunningham himself doesn’t like being referred to as a gay writer). It’s a shame that, now, so many readers seem to have forgotten about Cunningham’s talent.