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The Snow Queen
A vision appears in the sky above wintry New York and seems to exert an influence over two brothers, in this luminous, compassionate novel from the author of ‘The Hours�.
Barrett Meeks, having lost love yet again, is walking through Central Park when he is inspired to look up; in the sky he sees a pale, translucent light that seems to regard him in a distinctly godlike way. Barrett doesn’t believe in visions—or in God—but he can’t deny what he’s seen.
At the same time, in nearby Brooklyn, Tyler, Barrett’s older brother, a struggling musician, is trying to write a song for Beth, his wife-to-be, who is seriously ill. Tyler is determined to write a wedding song that will not be merely a sentimental ballad but an enduring expression of love.
Barrett, haunted by the light, turns unexpectedly to religion, while Tyler grows increasingly convinced that only drugs can release his creative powers.
Cunningham follows the Meeks brothers as each travels down a different path in his search for transcendence. In subtle, lucid prose, he demonstrates a profound empathy for his conflicted characters and a singular understanding of the human soul. Beautiful, unexpectedly comic and truly heartbreaking, ‘The Snow Queen� proves again that Cunningham is one of the great novelists of his generation.
258 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2014
225 people are currently reading
9,162 people want to read
About the author
Michael Cunningham
74books4,116followersMichael Cunningham is the author of the novels A Home at the End of the World, Flesh and Blood, The Hours (winner of the Pen/Faulkner Award & Pulitzer Prize), Specimen Days, and By Nightfall, as well as the non-fiction book, Land's End: A Walk in Provincetown. His new novel, The Snow Queen, will be published in May of 2014. He lives in New York, and teaches at Yale University.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,129 reviews
June 8, 2019
I'm a long-time Michael Cunningham fan so I knew what to expect going into this. Like Virginia Woolf, Cunningham is not about plot. Don't read him expecting nail-biting drama or jaw-dropping plot twists. With that being said, few books have kept me turning the pages as eagerly as The Snow Queen, and actually there were several unexpected surprises and moments of thick tension. But mostly I couldn't put it down because of its beauty. It's the type of book that demands a highlighter in hand. You feel drawn to circle every brilliant passage and scrawl notes in the margins.
In a Cunningham novel, everything is symbolic and everything is more than it seems. Unexpectedly, he does this in a nonchalant way. It's not complicated or showy. You get his symbolism because it is relative to the characters and, somehow, makes perfect sense in their reality. A light isn't just a light. A snowflake isn't just a snowflake. Themes of youth and aging, expectation versus reality, and providence are scattered all about, like snow. The characters themselves are symbolic, within a context, within the context of the other characters. There is never a wasted sentence. If it seems like there is a wasted sentence, you're probably missing something.
Overall: If you get turned on by good sentences, clever perspectives on life, or feeling 10 years wiser after reading a novel, The Snow Queen will leave you satisfied in an almost sexual way. Like actual sex, it's fairly short, but it's also passionate, emotional, revealing, and incredibly hot.
In a Cunningham novel, everything is symbolic and everything is more than it seems. Unexpectedly, he does this in a nonchalant way. It's not complicated or showy. You get his symbolism because it is relative to the characters and, somehow, makes perfect sense in their reality. A light isn't just a light. A snowflake isn't just a snowflake. Themes of youth and aging, expectation versus reality, and providence are scattered all about, like snow. The characters themselves are symbolic, within a context, within the context of the other characters. There is never a wasted sentence. If it seems like there is a wasted sentence, you're probably missing something.
Overall: If you get turned on by good sentences, clever perspectives on life, or feeling 10 years wiser after reading a novel, The Snow Queen will leave you satisfied in an almost sexual way. Like actual sex, it's fairly short, but it's also passionate, emotional, revealing, and incredibly hot.
May 14, 2014
I could not and did not connect with this novel by one of my favorite contemporary writers. And the overuse of parentheticals (parentheticals everywhere) (and once a parenthetical following a parenthetical) (all much to my annoyance) was beyond distracting. Even so, stylistic quirks aside (annoying though they were) (annoyance being the overpowering effect of this slim volume), ain't much here to ponder or (in my case) enjoy.
January 4, 2025
Like all the characters in this novel, I’m not in a particularly good place in life at the moment. I know, I know, we’re all “in the same boat�, etc, etc, but so were all those people in the Titanic and look where the majority of them ended up.
No, I’m not trying to drag everyone down (no pun intended). This is actually all about positivity. I’ve been in really bad places before and I managed to keep the damn boat afloat. It’s just that this is a storm like no other storm before and I was (we all were, I also know that!) completely caught unaware and sometimes it can take a while to find the strength to keep on rowing!
Reading Michael Cunningham always makes me a bit more happy to be alive though; it always balances things out for me.
Anyway, let me be a bit more specific and tell you about this novel in particular.
Hmm ...
So, lots of really negative reviews for this one, hmm?! Even one star ones...
Did we read the same book?!
I mean, this is not in the same level of brilliance of The Hours, I totally get that, but a one star review (or even two or three) it seems a bit too harsh, in my opinion.
And I know my opinion may seem slightly (aha) biased considering how much I appreciate/love Cunningham’s writing. I get that as well.
At first, it might seem like this is just a mashup of everything Cunningham has ever written, and apart from the snarky omniscient narrator, it’s hard to pin point some other traces of originality, but overall I think Michael Cunningham successfully achieved what he wanted to achieve with this one; he wrote a stunning love letter to New York.
Such amazing descriptions of The Big Apple here. And such lust for life.
Excellent writing, good characterisation, brilliant dialogue and an unforgettable sex scene.
Ah, the joy of reading a good book.
Thank you for the lifeboat, Mr. Cunningham.
No, I’m not trying to drag everyone down (no pun intended). This is actually all about positivity. I’ve been in really bad places before and I managed to keep the damn boat afloat. It’s just that this is a storm like no other storm before and I was (we all were, I also know that!) completely caught unaware and sometimes it can take a while to find the strength to keep on rowing!
Reading Michael Cunningham always makes me a bit more happy to be alive though; it always balances things out for me.
Anyway, let me be a bit more specific and tell you about this novel in particular.
Hmm ...
So, lots of really negative reviews for this one, hmm?! Even one star ones...
Did we read the same book?!
I mean, this is not in the same level of brilliance of The Hours, I totally get that, but a one star review (or even two or three) it seems a bit too harsh, in my opinion.
And I know my opinion may seem slightly (aha) biased considering how much I appreciate/love Cunningham’s writing. I get that as well.
At first, it might seem like this is just a mashup of everything Cunningham has ever written, and apart from the snarky omniscient narrator, it’s hard to pin point some other traces of originality, but overall I think Michael Cunningham successfully achieved what he wanted to achieve with this one; he wrote a stunning love letter to New York.
Such amazing descriptions of The Big Apple here. And such lust for life.
Excellent writing, good characterisation, brilliant dialogue and an unforgettable sex scene.
Ah, the joy of reading a good book.
Thank you for the lifeboat, Mr. Cunningham.
April 6, 2019
It's fascinating that great writers are also capable of mediocrity. I suspect Virginia Woolf, who lived for her writing, knew Flush, The Years and Between the Acts were books by an author whose powers were irrevocably waning and this depressing realisation contributed more than is acknowledged to her decision to end her life. Writers, like rock stars, it appears have a finite reservoir of inspiration. You could argue Iris Murdoch began destroying her reputation by writing novels out of habit. Martin Amis has long since lost the literary equivalent of his looks. David Mitchell's last two books suggest he might already be struggling to find a foothold on the peak he's trying to climb. The Snow Queen is Michael Cunningham's most recent novel and I'm afraid the signs aren't good for him either.
I couldn't help wondering while reading this if Michael Cunningham was bullied into writing it by a contractual obligation. The other, more worrying possibility is, like Virginia Woolf after The Waves, he's simply lost his mojo. This novel struck me as almost comprehensively bereft of inspiration. He's pillaged earlier books for his characters and material - in particular it's like a strained inferior version of A Home at the End of the World. Even the writing is humdrum, lacking the usual glistening sparkle. If you've never read Cunningham avoid this one. I've just started Specimen days which is already infinitely more magical. And I've got my fingers crossed for his next book.
I couldn't help wondering while reading this if Michael Cunningham was bullied into writing it by a contractual obligation. The other, more worrying possibility is, like Virginia Woolf after The Waves, he's simply lost his mojo. This novel struck me as almost comprehensively bereft of inspiration. He's pillaged earlier books for his characters and material - in particular it's like a strained inferior version of A Home at the End of the World. Even the writing is humdrum, lacking the usual glistening sparkle. If you've never read Cunningham avoid this one. I've just started Specimen days which is already infinitely more magical. And I've got my fingers crossed for his next book.
August 4, 2023
More like a 3.5 star book, but it's Michael Cunningham, so naturally I'm rounding up :D
May 17, 2015
Sigh. Does winning a Pulitzer Prize give you license to pen indulgent "literary" drivel, punctuated with showy vocabulary words and boring, navel-gazing, delusional characters who have mastered the art of the banal inner monologue? I tried very hard to get into this book, but then I remembered that life is fleeting and PRECIOUS and I could not justify wasting any more time than I already had listening to this nonsense, even if it WAS read to me by Claire Danes. In fact, the narration on the audio version of this book was perhaps its most redeeming quality. I would rate this 1/2 a star if I could...
March 21, 2019
If is Cunningham's Virginia Woolf book (and it is) and has Walt Whitman as its guiding star (and it does, though thanks to the perception shown in my friend James Murphy's , I was also able to view Whitman as a Dantean Virgil figure and now that I've since read , I see that more clearly), this is arguably Cunningham's Henry James book -- stylistically that is, with there not being much of a plot (though perhaps a very faint echo of ?); certainly with its interiority; its parenthetical asides; its semicolons; its double negatives; its sentences that sometimes need to be traced back to its origin to get at its meaning; and its intelligent, literate imagery. Perhaps you've guessed, if you've made it through the previous sentence, that I appreciate this kind of writing when it is done well, and it is done so well here: Cunningham is a master of language; his prose is beautiful. Near the end (page 212), I came across a paragraph from inside the head of the character of Tyler that immediately reminded me of my favorite of James' short works, , and while skimming that work this morning, the phrase "The torment of this vision became then his occupation ..." jumped out at me: it describes Tyler's brother.
The novel's synopsis may sound bleak, but there is also wry humor, some of which I detected toward the writer himself in a musing-upon a scene that is reminiscent of a scene in , though that scene is, of course, informed by .
The Snow Queen of the title is not who I immediately thought she'd be; but once the identity hit me, it seemed obvious. The Han Christian Andersen tale is evoked almost immediately (page 12) and perhaps because I was looking for that type of reference (though after rereading the HC Andersen tale this morning, I see that the rest of Cunningham's allusions (only a few) are quite subtle), I was a bit disappointed to see the initial incident mentioned again (too much? too blatant?) on the penultimate page of the book. But that's a quibble; read this book for the gorgeous language and its insights into our fallible human natures -- how what we hope for is of course what we don't get, don't need, or probably ever really wanted.
If you're interested in the author's take on language, you can find a bit of that in my of . To the question that may be asked of this novel, because I heard it asked of that novel: no, I don't believe (admittedly based on the only three novels of his I've read so far) Cunningham is copying himself here either.
The novel's synopsis may sound bleak, but there is also wry humor, some of which I detected toward the writer himself in a musing-upon a scene that is reminiscent of a scene in , though that scene is, of course, informed by .
The Snow Queen of the title is not who I immediately thought she'd be; but once the identity hit me, it seemed obvious. The Han Christian Andersen tale is evoked almost immediately (page 12) and perhaps because I was looking for that type of reference (though after rereading the HC Andersen tale this morning, I see that the rest of Cunningham's allusions (only a few) are quite subtle), I was a bit disappointed to see the initial incident mentioned again (too much? too blatant?) on the penultimate page of the book. But that's a quibble; read this book for the gorgeous language and its insights into our fallible human natures -- how what we hope for is of course what we don't get, don't need, or probably ever really wanted.
If you're interested in the author's take on language, you can find a bit of that in my of . To the question that may be asked of this novel, because I heard it asked of that novel: no, I don't believe (admittedly based on the only three novels of his I've read so far) Cunningham is copying himself here either.
June 9, 2017
One astronomical catastrophe!
Words that come to the forefront: wow, geez, ouch. And you must first remember that I am a HAaayuge! & devoted fan of Cunningham-- a complete Cunnilingulite in fact--and truly treasure at the very least three of his novels prior to, well, I somehow just really want to deviate from the writings/musings/rants on this "Saturday"esque failure. For some avid admirer, it really hurts.
But perhaps because the writer's tomes are mostly on the slim side, this constitutes a minute failure in literature. I still compulsively adore By Nightfall and Specimen Days. Perhaps Mr. C should consider the stuff he hinted at in "Days" (not to mention the incomparable "Hours")-- sadness emerging like disease at different places and times. The invisible thread is the winning ingredient-- this is less inspired than, say, "Frozen." (i'd rather entertain that spectacle than this abhorrent a-bobo [y'all know what that means... it rhymes with motion])No, no. I'm being much too kind. I kinda dig "Frozen" (though "Princess and the Frog" and "Tangled" are vastly superior) especially what it does for a child's freaky screen interaction thingy which my lovely niece does perfectly. Anywho, on to next thing... so I resist to hate on Cunningham! TRULY I do not want to disparage a modern and essential pioneer. (Take for instance how I conveniently "lost" my notes on "Le Coke Queen"...)
Words that come to the forefront: wow, geez, ouch. And you must first remember that I am a HAaayuge! & devoted fan of Cunningham-- a complete Cunnilingulite in fact--and truly treasure at the very least three of his novels prior to, well, I somehow just really want to deviate from the writings/musings/rants on this "Saturday"esque failure. For some avid admirer, it really hurts.
But perhaps because the writer's tomes are mostly on the slim side, this constitutes a minute failure in literature. I still compulsively adore By Nightfall and Specimen Days. Perhaps Mr. C should consider the stuff he hinted at in "Days" (not to mention the incomparable "Hours")-- sadness emerging like disease at different places and times. The invisible thread is the winning ingredient-- this is less inspired than, say, "Frozen." (i'd rather entertain that spectacle than this abhorrent a-bobo [y'all know what that means... it rhymes with motion])No, no. I'm being much too kind. I kinda dig "Frozen" (though "Princess and the Frog" and "Tangled" are vastly superior) especially what it does for a child's freaky screen interaction thingy which my lovely niece does perfectly. Anywho, on to next thing... so I resist to hate on Cunningham! TRULY I do not want to disparage a modern and essential pioneer. (Take for instance how I conveniently "lost" my notes on "Le Coke Queen"...)
February 5, 2025
“Empty, vast, and cold were the halls of the Snow Queen. The flickering flame of the northern lights could be plainly seen, whether they rose high or low in the heavens, from every part of the castle. In the midst of its empty, endless hall of snow was a frozen lake, broken on its surface into a thousand forms, each piece resembled another, from being in itself perfect as a work of art, and in the centre of this lake sat the Snow Queen, when she was at home. She called the lake ‘The Mirror of Reason,� and said that it was the best, and indeed the only one in the world.� � Hans Christian Andersen, The Snow Queen
And so begins Michael Cunningham’s The Snow Queen, with his lyrical and magical prose that has a fable-like quality throughout as it begins with a vision. Barrett Meeks is walking through Central Park lamenting his breakup via text from his latest gay relationship. Barrett is a failed PhD candidate and struggling to find his place. But there is his older brother, Tyler, a struggling musician trying to write a wedding song for Beth, who is fighting for her life. The setting is in Bushwick, Brooklyn as Barrett and Tyler with Beth live their lives as best they can on Knickerbocker Avenue. This is in the fall of 2004, just before the election that will give George W. Bush a second term. I must say that the banter about Bush being the worst president in history, just wait. . . .
“There it was. A pale aqua light, translucent, a swatch of veil, star-high, no lower than the stars, but high, higher than a spaceship hovering above the treetops. It may or may not have been slowly unfurling, densest at its center, trailing off at its edges into lacy spurs and spirals.�
While The Snow Queen borrows its title from the Hans Christian Andersen fable complete with its wintery setting, it is its own delightful tale with Michael Cunningham’s evocative and lyrical prose. This novel is set in three different periods from 2004 to 2008, each part composed in a single day. The days are chosen precisely, not only in the lives of Barrett and Tyler Meeks, but evoking the political feeling of that decade. This is a messy novel with all of the flawed characters but yet in the hands of the beautiful writing of Michael Cunningham, it is a wonderful read.
April 8, 2024
I loved Cunningham’s Specimen Days. The Snow Queen has some very memorable and moving scenes, but I felt it would have been stronger as a novella. It was a bit drawn out and wordy in places.
It was an interesting time to read The Snow Queen as it is set during Bush’s running for a second term as President (as Trump’s second attempt is currently happening). I purposely use (parentheses) in my review because Michael Cunningham excessively used parenthetical sidenotes throughout the book. I found it a bit distracting and annoying.
Overall, I liked the title and how it relates to Beth. She was my favorite character. Loved her and Liz’s store. Loved her relationship with Tyler and Barrett. They are both flawed in their own way, but both entirely devoted to Beth.
Beth is battling cancer, Barrett a breakup, and Tyler himself (addiction and critical of his songwriting). I love the comparison of Beth’s battle with that of those in fairy tales.
Tyler and Barrett are brothers. Their mother died in a unique way. The brothers are very close, but both keep a secret (or two) from each other. Barrett sees a “strange light� or luminous phenomenon in the sky one night. He searches for meaning and significance in his sighting throughout the book.
The Snow Queen is a well-written novel about relationships (family and friends that are like family) and brokenness (personal, political, and societal).
This was my second attempt at reading it. I stalled the first time 10 years ago, but was able to finish this time with the help of the audio book. Claire Danes’s narration brought the story to life and made it a more compelling read. I felt the beginning was a bit slow (and that may have been done purposefully pacing the writing with the slow battle with cancer) and the ending moved much quicker (when the cancer moved quicker). Overall an excellent read and listening experience.
It was an interesting time to read The Snow Queen as it is set during Bush’s running for a second term as President (as Trump’s second attempt is currently happening). I purposely use (parentheses) in my review because Michael Cunningham excessively used parenthetical sidenotes throughout the book. I found it a bit distracting and annoying.
Overall, I liked the title and how it relates to Beth. She was my favorite character. Loved her and Liz’s store. Loved her relationship with Tyler and Barrett. They are both flawed in their own way, but both entirely devoted to Beth.
Beth is battling cancer, Barrett a breakup, and Tyler himself (addiction and critical of his songwriting). I love the comparison of Beth’s battle with that of those in fairy tales.
Tyler and Barrett are brothers. Their mother died in a unique way. The brothers are very close, but both keep a secret (or two) from each other. Barrett sees a “strange light� or luminous phenomenon in the sky one night. He searches for meaning and significance in his sighting throughout the book.
The Snow Queen is a well-written novel about relationships (family and friends that are like family) and brokenness (personal, political, and societal).
This was my second attempt at reading it. I stalled the first time 10 years ago, but was able to finish this time with the help of the audio book. Claire Danes’s narration brought the story to life and made it a more compelling read. I felt the beginning was a bit slow (and that may have been done purposefully pacing the writing with the slow battle with cancer) and the ending moved much quicker (when the cancer moved quicker). Overall an excellent read and listening experience.
November 14, 2021
I like writing set in New York since it’s a fascinating city and my home. I try not to miss great stories and novels by intelligent authors, among whom we emphatically include Michael Cunningham.
A few such favorites are , , , , ,, , , , and �
What impressed me about The Snow Queen was its black humor and deft characterizations; it’s tragic and deeply moving. And, my God, does it ever nail New York!
I now declare The Snow Queen to have esthetically pleasing affinities with the above great works, and to stand resolutely on its own among them. Let the heralds proclaim the news from the city squares and let the church bells toll.
A few such favorites are , , , , ,, , , , and �
What impressed me about The Snow Queen was its black humor and deft characterizations; it’s tragic and deeply moving. And, my God, does it ever nail New York!
I now declare The Snow Queen to have esthetically pleasing affinities with the above great works, and to stand resolutely on its own among them. Let the heralds proclaim the news from the city squares and let the church bells toll.
August 26, 2023
Snow Queen is the story of four people with all their weaknesses, grazes, and will to escape it despite what life has in store.
And then this glow seems weird and will indeed have a meaning on them, but which one?
The back cover intrigued me, but I asked myself why not discover this book and this author.
The style is rather unspeakable: there is, at the same time, little dialogue, and when there is, it is a bit flat. But, on the other hand, some passages are rather funny and show that this group of friends and family has no limits: everyone wants to sleep with everyone and is doing drugs together.
The glow has no explanation, or perhaps one, but it remains very vague and to the reader's appreciation (or imagination).
In specific passages, I got hooked, and then afterward, not really. I admit that sometimes I was lost in what I was reading.
On the other hand, certain emotions manage to pass when death occurs and upsets everyone. But this part is quickly forgotten even if there are some reminders afterward.
And the end casts doubt: has the author inverted first names? Is it up to us to imagine our future?
And then this glow seems weird and will indeed have a meaning on them, but which one?
The back cover intrigued me, but I asked myself why not discover this book and this author.
The style is rather unspeakable: there is, at the same time, little dialogue, and when there is, it is a bit flat. But, on the other hand, some passages are rather funny and show that this group of friends and family has no limits: everyone wants to sleep with everyone and is doing drugs together.
The glow has no explanation, or perhaps one, but it remains very vague and to the reader's appreciation (or imagination).
In specific passages, I got hooked, and then afterward, not really. I admit that sometimes I was lost in what I was reading.
On the other hand, certain emotions manage to pass when death occurs and upsets everyone. But this part is quickly forgotten even if there are some reminders afterward.
And the end casts doubt: has the author inverted first names? Is it up to us to imagine our future?
May 13, 2014
Michael Cunningham, author of The Pulitzer Prize winning The Hours, creates a story about the unseen in his current novel, The Snow Queen. Two brothers, not seen by their parents turn to each other to provide a closeness to commandeer a validation of their existence, worth. The plot is further complicated by the wife of one brother suffering over time from a terminal cancer. Bed-bound, she is seen. Carefully, she is ministered to providing her husband a sense of much sought for meaning in life, his brother too. Some dying make unpredicted recoveries, most die horrific deaths. Many experience no return of the illness, others a sad reoccurrence. Whichever way fate's dice rolls, the effects on everyone is complicated, subtle, lengthy, the fever pitch of crumbling or the ardous sojourn to transform trauma into a gateway to a fuller spectrum of life.
My difficulty with the book is that it is shy about using metaphor making the mostly exquisite wording, language, ornamental. He explains. His explanations are often precise and insightful. Moments occur that are crushingly painful. Their are twists which left the book dropped on my lap. Some twists simply were inserted without the work endeavored to earn the surprise-shock-to rise up out of the narrative's weave. This can be fun. Done once you never know if someone, something, is going to leap out the shut closet door when walking down the hallway. In the end this gadget and the choice of explanation over metaphor left the book lacking a certain heft shimmering just the other side of the line separating fiction from literature. While the story plays out with interest and at times thought provoking, the undercurrent beneath does not have the strength or possibly the intent to provide the gradual movement toward the revelatory meaning, truth, the story is attempting to impart.This is the tension in a narrative that I seek even though I understand that words cannot accurately define or portray it I cling to the belief they can deliver us to a point of arrival where we may be able to search and discover precious gems of vision not previously available.
Cunningham appears to be a talented writer capable of much more. I wondered if an editor asserted their will and sliced out what they may have considered metaphoric whimsy, for marketing purposes. I read the acknowledgements. I did this for the first time with another book I recently read and with what may be similar results. Besides congratulatory thanks to editor, copy editor, agent, friends providing ongoing emotional support, Cunningham names ten, "Other vital readers," and, "I was reminded weekly about readers' capacities for thought, and their sensitivity to nuance�" by six others. I am leaving out a number of others who joined in to provide assistance in a variety of ways.
Two things concern me, first is this art by committee? Second with all of this feedback, guidance, and knowing who from, doesn't this place these individuals, their expectations, biases, tastes, on his shoulder peering, judging, whispering in his ear, while writing even the initial drafts of the book?
I do not recommend, The Snow Queen, despite being or having been a Cunningham fan, for an earnest read. I do recommend it for the shelf containing books which veer towards literature in content and sparkling prose but have no intent of reaching that haven. This makes it an excellent book to read between or after a long list of works with greater density and meaning, for a breather.
2.7/3.0
August 12, 2016
Jesus warned that only “a wicked and adulterous generation looks for a miraculous sign,� but what if a miraculous sign flashes over your head? What are you supposed to do � look away?
That’s the question confounding Barrett Meeks, the protagonist of Michael Cunningham’s contemplative new novel, “The Snow Queen.� Barrett isn’t looking for divine reassurance as he wanders through Central Park. He’s just trying not to feel discouraged about his latest breakup � by text message (ouch). And yet there it is: “a celestial light . . . an apparition . . . translucent, a swatch of veil, star-high, no, lower than the stars, but high, higher than a spaceship hovering above the treetops.�
Cunningham’s premise is almost as old as God, who once confronted Moses in the form of a burning bush. But nowadays such annunciations tap on the door of a culture deeply skeptical of divine theatrics. Signs and wonders are simply misinterpreted natural phenomena or symptoms of psychological illness, aren’t they? Novelists Alan Lightman and Joshua Max Feldman, among others, have explored the way intimations of spirituality can disrupt the equilibrium of our rational world, but such considerations are rare. As Carlene Bauer writes in the current issue of the Virginia Quarterly Review, “The literary novel, current American edition, does not seem to be where we go to work out our relation to the numinous.�
“The Snow Queen� takes its title from one of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales, which might suggest Cunningham’s regard for the substance of things not seen. And yet a spirit of agnosticism � or at least pitiful tolerance � allows the mystery of what Barrett saw to float over this story. Like any intelligent 21st-century man, Barrett knows all about satellites and cortical migraines and the aurora borealis, but he also knows what he felt in Central Park: “As surely as he was looking up at the light, the light was looking back down at him. No. Not looking. Apprehending. . . . He felt the light’s attention.�
Cunningham has created a small group of sophisticated New Yorkers thirsty for a miracle. Barrett’s latest humiliating breakup arrives as he’s climbing down the ladder of success. Though allegedly brilliant, he has been reduced to selling clothing and living with his brother, Tyler, in a burned-out neighborhood where “even the criminals have lost their ambition.� Tyler, meanwhile, is a musician � a bartender, really � who’s determined to give up cocaine after just one more hit. He’s rushing to write the perfect wedding song for his fiancee, Beth, who’s dying of cancer. More depressing: George W. Bush is about to be reelected.
Who’s to say that God wouldn’t give this sad little family a “hint of benediction�? After all, “revelation is offered only to those too poor and lowly to be considered candidates.� Barrett sees it in the sky. Tyler feels it one morning while standing naked at the window looking down on the street:
“Outside, the snow shifts with a shift in the wind, and it seems as if some benign force, some vast invisible watcher, has known what Tyler wanted, the moment before he knew it himself � a sudden animation, a change, the gentle steady snowfall taken up and turned into fluttering sheets, an airy map of the wind currents; and yes � are you ready, Tyler? � it’s time to release the pigeons, five of them, from the liquor store roof, time to set them aflight and then (are you watching?) turn them, silvered by earthly light, counter to the windblown flakes, sail them effortlessly west into the agitated air that’s blowing the snow toward the East River (where barges will be plowing, whitened like ships of ice, through the choppy water); and yes, right, a moment later it’s time to turn the streetlights off and, simultaneously, bring a truck around the corner of Rock Street, its headlights still on and its flat silver top blinking little warning lights, garnet and ruby, that’s perfect, that’s amazing, thank you.�
Regardless of your theological position on signs and wonders, that voice, Cunningham’s inimitable style, is the real miracle of “The Snow Queen.� Sentence by sentence � and that’s just one of them above � he moves across the surface of these pages like some suave, literary god. Behold how he swoops in and out of Tyler’s point of view, breaks the fourth wall, drops ironical quips, mocks and comforts in the same phrase.
It’s remarkable, yes, but is it enough to offer salvation to this languid plot? Like good Calvinists, readers will have to take that on faith. The vicissitudes of Barrett’s love life and the high-stakes fluctuations of Beth’s health offer a little movement, but Cunningham seems determined to make sure that every momentous action takes place between the chapters rather than during them. Again and again, we’re let in only after the drama is over.
Such reservations sound sacrilegious given Cunningham’s lovely style and flashes of psychological discernment. He writes so wisely about the cruel taunting of remission and the way illness both deepens and frays romantic relationships, endowing the dying with a kind of security and purpose that healthy people crave. His portrayal of the once-blessed Meeks brothers, raised in expectation of fame and riches they’ll never attain � not even close � is full of affecting pathos.
But what’s gained by having another dim-witted Adonis wander around this novel with “his frank and uncaring beauty . . . his heedlessly perfect body�? This is the same pinup boy-toy we saw in Cunningham’s previous novel, “By Nightfall,� though he was more central to that plot. Here, as one of Barrett and Tyler’s pretty acquaintances, he’s just a catalogue hunk, and even the sexual energy inscribed on these pages looks like the faint impression left under eight sheets of carbon paper.
Thematically, too, “The Snow Queen� eventually reveals itself to be insufficiently ambitious. How many times have we already heard the depressing sermon about overeducated, underemployed New Yorkers bumping up against the disappointing limits of their lives? For all his stylistic elegance, Cunningham doesn’t offer the theological sophistication and spiritual insight that, say, Marilynne Robinson might bring to the existential questions this novel poses. And so “The Snow Queen� struggles to rise higher than its characters� grasping efforts to reach the divine. We’re left with beautifully articulated ironies and sighs.
“I keep waiting for . . . something,� Barrett tells a friend toward the end. “Something more than just us. You know, more than looking for love and wondering where to go for dinner.�
“Everybody wants that to be true,� his friend replies.
Of novels, too.
From The Washington Post:
That’s the question confounding Barrett Meeks, the protagonist of Michael Cunningham’s contemplative new novel, “The Snow Queen.� Barrett isn’t looking for divine reassurance as he wanders through Central Park. He’s just trying not to feel discouraged about his latest breakup � by text message (ouch). And yet there it is: “a celestial light . . . an apparition . . . translucent, a swatch of veil, star-high, no, lower than the stars, but high, higher than a spaceship hovering above the treetops.�
Cunningham’s premise is almost as old as God, who once confronted Moses in the form of a burning bush. But nowadays such annunciations tap on the door of a culture deeply skeptical of divine theatrics. Signs and wonders are simply misinterpreted natural phenomena or symptoms of psychological illness, aren’t they? Novelists Alan Lightman and Joshua Max Feldman, among others, have explored the way intimations of spirituality can disrupt the equilibrium of our rational world, but such considerations are rare. As Carlene Bauer writes in the current issue of the Virginia Quarterly Review, “The literary novel, current American edition, does not seem to be where we go to work out our relation to the numinous.�
“The Snow Queen� takes its title from one of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales, which might suggest Cunningham’s regard for the substance of things not seen. And yet a spirit of agnosticism � or at least pitiful tolerance � allows the mystery of what Barrett saw to float over this story. Like any intelligent 21st-century man, Barrett knows all about satellites and cortical migraines and the aurora borealis, but he also knows what he felt in Central Park: “As surely as he was looking up at the light, the light was looking back down at him. No. Not looking. Apprehending. . . . He felt the light’s attention.�
Cunningham has created a small group of sophisticated New Yorkers thirsty for a miracle. Barrett’s latest humiliating breakup arrives as he’s climbing down the ladder of success. Though allegedly brilliant, he has been reduced to selling clothing and living with his brother, Tyler, in a burned-out neighborhood where “even the criminals have lost their ambition.� Tyler, meanwhile, is a musician � a bartender, really � who’s determined to give up cocaine after just one more hit. He’s rushing to write the perfect wedding song for his fiancee, Beth, who’s dying of cancer. More depressing: George W. Bush is about to be reelected.
Who’s to say that God wouldn’t give this sad little family a “hint of benediction�? After all, “revelation is offered only to those too poor and lowly to be considered candidates.� Barrett sees it in the sky. Tyler feels it one morning while standing naked at the window looking down on the street:
“Outside, the snow shifts with a shift in the wind, and it seems as if some benign force, some vast invisible watcher, has known what Tyler wanted, the moment before he knew it himself � a sudden animation, a change, the gentle steady snowfall taken up and turned into fluttering sheets, an airy map of the wind currents; and yes � are you ready, Tyler? � it’s time to release the pigeons, five of them, from the liquor store roof, time to set them aflight and then (are you watching?) turn them, silvered by earthly light, counter to the windblown flakes, sail them effortlessly west into the agitated air that’s blowing the snow toward the East River (where barges will be plowing, whitened like ships of ice, through the choppy water); and yes, right, a moment later it’s time to turn the streetlights off and, simultaneously, bring a truck around the corner of Rock Street, its headlights still on and its flat silver top blinking little warning lights, garnet and ruby, that’s perfect, that’s amazing, thank you.�
Regardless of your theological position on signs and wonders, that voice, Cunningham’s inimitable style, is the real miracle of “The Snow Queen.� Sentence by sentence � and that’s just one of them above � he moves across the surface of these pages like some suave, literary god. Behold how he swoops in and out of Tyler’s point of view, breaks the fourth wall, drops ironical quips, mocks and comforts in the same phrase.
It’s remarkable, yes, but is it enough to offer salvation to this languid plot? Like good Calvinists, readers will have to take that on faith. The vicissitudes of Barrett’s love life and the high-stakes fluctuations of Beth’s health offer a little movement, but Cunningham seems determined to make sure that every momentous action takes place between the chapters rather than during them. Again and again, we’re let in only after the drama is over.
Such reservations sound sacrilegious given Cunningham’s lovely style and flashes of psychological discernment. He writes so wisely about the cruel taunting of remission and the way illness both deepens and frays romantic relationships, endowing the dying with a kind of security and purpose that healthy people crave. His portrayal of the once-blessed Meeks brothers, raised in expectation of fame and riches they’ll never attain � not even close � is full of affecting pathos.
But what’s gained by having another dim-witted Adonis wander around this novel with “his frank and uncaring beauty . . . his heedlessly perfect body�? This is the same pinup boy-toy we saw in Cunningham’s previous novel, “By Nightfall,� though he was more central to that plot. Here, as one of Barrett and Tyler’s pretty acquaintances, he’s just a catalogue hunk, and even the sexual energy inscribed on these pages looks like the faint impression left under eight sheets of carbon paper.
Thematically, too, “The Snow Queen� eventually reveals itself to be insufficiently ambitious. How many times have we already heard the depressing sermon about overeducated, underemployed New Yorkers bumping up against the disappointing limits of their lives? For all his stylistic elegance, Cunningham doesn’t offer the theological sophistication and spiritual insight that, say, Marilynne Robinson might bring to the existential questions this novel poses. And so “The Snow Queen� struggles to rise higher than its characters� grasping efforts to reach the divine. We’re left with beautifully articulated ironies and sighs.
“I keep waiting for . . . something,� Barrett tells a friend toward the end. “Something more than just us. You know, more than looking for love and wondering where to go for dinner.�
“Everybody wants that to be true,� his friend replies.
Of novels, too.
From The Washington Post:
Read
January 26, 2025I don't know. This was my first exposure to the writing of Michael Cunningham, and he writes like a dream. I liked his description of somebody getting a message on their phone, reading it "on a screen the size of a bar of hotel soap." And there was a nice long passage about the difficulty of the artistic process, in this case writing a song.
But an author can't just assume the audience is going to be interested in their characters, especially in a book that really only has 1.5 characters in it. I didn't dislike the main character. I didn't feel much of anything at all about him, and Cunningham provided no bridge across that particular chasm.
But an author can't just assume the audience is going to be interested in their characters, especially in a book that really only has 1.5 characters in it. I didn't dislike the main character. I didn't feel much of anything at all about him, and Cunningham provided no bridge across that particular chasm.
April 9, 2025
Cerul ti-a fãcut cu ochiul? Da. Poate cã da. Avem nevoie sã credem asta pentru cã rareori se întâmplã sã ajungem la destinația pe care am anticipat-o. Speranțele noastre eşueazã în mare parte, dar e foarte posibil sã ne fi fãcut din start speranțe greşite. Cum de am cãpãtat noi, muritorii, un asemenea obicei ciudat si pervers?
Certitudine: Universul le face cu ochiul doar cãutãtorilor obscuri, care aleg mai degrabã poteca decât drumul mare, dar au tenacitatea celor care s-au izbit deseori de uşi închise.
Elegantã şi sofisticatã este ã domnului Cunningham, capricioasã si plinã de cusururi, dar atât de hipnotizantã încât nu te mai sãturi de glaciala ei respiratie.
Certitudine: Universul le face cu ochiul doar cãutãtorilor obscuri, care aleg mai degrabã poteca decât drumul mare, dar au tenacitatea celor care s-au izbit deseori de uşi închise.
Elegantã şi sofisticatã este ã domnului Cunningham, capricioasã si plinã de cusururi, dar atât de hipnotizantã încât nu te mai sãturi de glaciala ei respiratie.
May 15, 2014
I had such a divided reaction to this book, and I'll start with my complaints so that I can leave off with the beautiful, poignant parts. The grumbling response: I am tired of books about hipsters, their crippling detachment, their drug abuse, their careful fashions, their longing for greatness. I'm looking at you, . And also, though in a goofier, happier mode, . Are all writers hipsters who live in New York or San Francisco? Is that why la vie d'hipster is such an obsessive subject in contemporary literary fiction? Or are the publishers the hipsters who recognize and market this world? In any case, I'm feeling wearied by the existential ruminations and rumpled yet impeccable rags of hipsters in contemporary fiction. So done.
Related to this complaint: the mesmerized, laudatory perspective on a hipster clothing store, its commodities compared to holy relics (really). Unrelated to this complaint: how many varieties of the word "rampaging" can appear in one novel? And does it really have adjectival forms? Must they be used so often? A third, more concerning complaint (because I do love your work, Michael Cunningham), are we revisiting worn territory here, a passionate yet dysfunctional threesome creating a home against all odds and sometimes against their own aspirations for wellness or fulfillment? I did read and love . Are we still rewriting that book, Michael Cunningham, just with an assortment of slightly altered characters? This felt very familiar.
A final complaint: can contemporary realist fiction only feel relevant if it embeds itself self-consciously in current events and alludes to the finality (and even apocalypticism) linked with those events? I'm looking at you, Colm McCann and . Ahhhh, this novel alluding to a fairy tale about winter set within the winter of our discontent, a second term with George W. Bush. In a novel that both celebrates and questions the existence of portents, how portentous!
All right, enough complaining. I really didn't like this book at the beginning, what I perceived as its arch self-consciousness, Cunningham's studied and would-be Woolfian prose. ( may still be his greatest achievement, and one of his characters flirts with becoming Septimus Smith.) But then I became absorbed by his character studies. I found the affection and bond between two quite disparate brothers very believable. I enjoyed his narrative excursions into proleptic plot unfolding about peripheral characters ("so-and-so would later marry," etc.) playful and god-like, fitting in his offhand investigations of the existence of God.
Most of all, I found powerful Cunningham's celebration of the unexpectedness and dailiness of love towards the very end of the novel. He does this beautifully in all of his work, and this is no exception. This comes as a provisional answer to what I felt was the deepest and most moving dilemma in the work, the middle-age puzzle of how to make a life meaningful, the fretting about not making "enough" of a life, what is owed to work, to compassion, to fame, what will seem "enough" in the face of inevitable extinction. The answer is, of course, nothing--both that the sacrifices made for a grander goal seem constantly insufficient, the goal itself constantly betraying its own paltriness--and that it's hard to believe that smaller things in life could accrue to meaning, even as they prove to be the most acute and lasting pleasures, even as other people matter more than the grand gesture of hoping to impose your own pattern on the stars.
See? I'm waxing poetical. I must be inspired by Mr. Cunningham. Which means I need to give him credit, since credit is clearly due. But must these reveries always be about Brooklyn hipsters, vintage clothing stores, and cocaine? Are these the only milieux that aspire to more? Surely not. And even Cunningham is mocking this somewhat (see his discussion of the life cycle of the Williamsburg hipster and also his implicit comparisons with Madame Bovary's bourgeois circumstances). But there are times when this feels a bit stilted, like a small character drama reaching for large significance, an ironic problem in a novel that's about the problem of reaching for grand significance when we may only have the prosaic to sustain us.
Related to this complaint: the mesmerized, laudatory perspective on a hipster clothing store, its commodities compared to holy relics (really). Unrelated to this complaint: how many varieties of the word "rampaging" can appear in one novel? And does it really have adjectival forms? Must they be used so often? A third, more concerning complaint (because I do love your work, Michael Cunningham), are we revisiting worn territory here, a passionate yet dysfunctional threesome creating a home against all odds and sometimes against their own aspirations for wellness or fulfillment? I did read and love . Are we still rewriting that book, Michael Cunningham, just with an assortment of slightly altered characters? This felt very familiar.
A final complaint: can contemporary realist fiction only feel relevant if it embeds itself self-consciously in current events and alludes to the finality (and even apocalypticism) linked with those events? I'm looking at you, Colm McCann and . Ahhhh, this novel alluding to a fairy tale about winter set within the winter of our discontent, a second term with George W. Bush. In a novel that both celebrates and questions the existence of portents, how portentous!
All right, enough complaining. I really didn't like this book at the beginning, what I perceived as its arch self-consciousness, Cunningham's studied and would-be Woolfian prose. ( may still be his greatest achievement, and one of his characters flirts with becoming Septimus Smith.) But then I became absorbed by his character studies. I found the affection and bond between two quite disparate brothers very believable. I enjoyed his narrative excursions into proleptic plot unfolding about peripheral characters ("so-and-so would later marry," etc.) playful and god-like, fitting in his offhand investigations of the existence of God.
Most of all, I found powerful Cunningham's celebration of the unexpectedness and dailiness of love towards the very end of the novel. He does this beautifully in all of his work, and this is no exception. This comes as a provisional answer to what I felt was the deepest and most moving dilemma in the work, the middle-age puzzle of how to make a life meaningful, the fretting about not making "enough" of a life, what is owed to work, to compassion, to fame, what will seem "enough" in the face of inevitable extinction. The answer is, of course, nothing--both that the sacrifices made for a grander goal seem constantly insufficient, the goal itself constantly betraying its own paltriness--and that it's hard to believe that smaller things in life could accrue to meaning, even as they prove to be the most acute and lasting pleasures, even as other people matter more than the grand gesture of hoping to impose your own pattern on the stars.
See? I'm waxing poetical. I must be inspired by Mr. Cunningham. Which means I need to give him credit, since credit is clearly due. But must these reveries always be about Brooklyn hipsters, vintage clothing stores, and cocaine? Are these the only milieux that aspire to more? Surely not. And even Cunningham is mocking this somewhat (see his discussion of the life cycle of the Williamsburg hipster and also his implicit comparisons with Madame Bovary's bourgeois circumstances). But there are times when this feels a bit stilted, like a small character drama reaching for large significance, an ironic problem in a novel that's about the problem of reaching for grand significance when we may only have the prosaic to sustain us.
December 17, 2020
Nu, această carte nu are legătură cu basmul omonim al lui Hans Christian Anderson, chiar dacă zăpada este prezentă, la fel și albul, dar și răceala cu care se confundă singurătatea personajelor. Albul poate fi de fapt angoasa, acel gol din sufletul fiecărui om care se intensifică la fiecare pierdere, tristețe, ori conștientizare a faptului că suntem de fapt niște făpturi în curs de îmbătrânire. Crăiasa Zăpezii nu mai este o ființă supranaturală. Ea este de fapt Singurătatea.
”Și totuși aici și-au trăit viața niște oameni, iar viitorul, chiar dacă pare a fi un pas spre mai bine, miroase a ninsoare ce stă să cadă, a peron de gară măturat de vânt, a șine solide de oțel.�
"Oamenii sunt mai mult decât crezi că sunt. Dar sunt și mai puțin. Totul e să știi să-ți alegi drumul printre cele două."
”Și totuși aici și-au trăit viața niște oameni, iar viitorul, chiar dacă pare a fi un pas spre mai bine, miroase a ninsoare ce stă să cadă, a peron de gară măturat de vânt, a șine solide de oțel.�
"Oamenii sunt mai mult decât crezi că sunt. Dar sunt și mai puțin. Totul e să știi să-ți alegi drumul printre cele două."
October 9, 2014
This novel is a perfect example of pretention. The writing is pretentious. Conversations between characters are unrealistic and reek of terrible, superficial intellectualism and philosophical insight that makes you want to gag. There is no plot. None. It's just an exercise in over-the-top descriptive drivel with the very thin thread of Beth's sickness to tie it together. I couldn't have been more disappointed with this work from a touted, multi-award winning author.
July 4, 2014
Michael Cunningham writes beautifully. His character development is incomparable. In this novel, all of his characters are unlikeable�..they are real, and they are unlikeable. Because of his ability to write so well, I didn’t enjoy the book because I didn’t like any of the characters. To me, it was a story of arrested-developed adults who are self absorbed, yet attached to each other. I was a huge fan of “The Hours�. This book I didn’t enjoy(despite his fabulous writing ability).
June 3, 2014
I mean, I guess? I get we're all searching for something beyond love and what to have for dinner, a desire for a sense of meaning, a sense of transcendence, etc. but when I finished the last page I was left wondering what this book is actually about (aside from chronicling random bits of the lives of a few lost New Yorkers). If I had to sum it up? Love is powerful. Okay, yeah. We get it, Michael.
February 13, 2025
(3.5) It was among my favourite first lines encountered last year: “A celestial light appeared to Barrett Meeks in the sky over Central Park, four days after Barrett had been mauled, once again, by love.� Barrett is gay and shares an apartment with his brother, Tyler, and Tyler’s fiancée, Beth. Beth has cancer and, though none of them has dared to hope that she will live, Barrett’s epiphany brings a supernatural optimism that will fuel them through the next few years, from one presidential election autumn (2004) to the next (2008). Meanwhile, Tyler, a stalled musician, returns to drugs to try to find inspiration for his wedding song for Beth. The other characters in the orbit of this odd love triangle of sorts are Liz, Beth and Barrett’s boss at a vintage clothing store, and Andrew, Liz’s decades-younger boyfriend. It’s a peculiar family unit that expands and contracts over the years.
Of course, Cunningham takes inspiration, thematically and linguistically, from Hans Christian Andersen’s tale about love and conversion, most obviously in an early dreamlike passage about Tyler letting snow swirl into the apartment through the open windows:
I was most captivated by the early chapters of the novel, picking it up late one night and racing to page 75, which is almost unheard of for me. The rest took me significantly longer to get through, and in the intervening five weeks or so much of the detail has evaporated. But I remember that I got Chris Adrian and Julia Glass vibes from the plot and loved the showy prose. (And several times while reading I remarked to people around me how ironic it was that these characters in a 2014 novel are so outraged about Dubya’s re-election. Just you all wait two years, and then another eight!)
I fancy going on a mini Cunningham binge this year. I plan to recommend The Hours for book club, which would be a reread for me. Otherwise, I’ve only read his travel book, Land’s End. I own a copy of Specimen Days and the library has Day, but I’d have to source all the rest secondhand. I have some great stuff ahead!
Originally published on my blog, .
Of course, Cunningham takes inspiration, thematically and linguistically, from Hans Christian Andersen’s tale about love and conversion, most obviously in an early dreamlike passage about Tyler letting snow swirl into the apartment through the open windows:
He returns to the window. If that windblown ice crystal meant to weld itself to his eye, the transformation is already complete; he can see more clearly now with the aid of this minuscule magnifying mirror�
I was most captivated by the early chapters of the novel, picking it up late one night and racing to page 75, which is almost unheard of for me. The rest took me significantly longer to get through, and in the intervening five weeks or so much of the detail has evaporated. But I remember that I got Chris Adrian and Julia Glass vibes from the plot and loved the showy prose. (And several times while reading I remarked to people around me how ironic it was that these characters in a 2014 novel are so outraged about Dubya’s re-election. Just you all wait two years, and then another eight!)
I fancy going on a mini Cunningham binge this year. I plan to recommend The Hours for book club, which would be a reread for me. Otherwise, I’ve only read his travel book, Land’s End. I own a copy of Specimen Days and the library has Day, but I’d have to source all the rest secondhand. I have some great stuff ahead!
Originally published on my blog, .
August 20, 2014
The beauty of Michael Cummingham's sentences are to savior --not devour!
Here is a sample:
"Barrett does his best to transit some kind of healing force, through the palm of his hand. Then he walks out of the sickroom, returns to the comforting normalcy of the hall, and heads to the kitchen, where Tyler is awake, where coffee has been made, where rampancy of life, even in its most rudimentary form, plays like enchanted piper; where Tyler, suitor and swain, ferocious of brow, thin but athletically tendoned legs protruding from boxer shorts, does what he can to prepare for his forthcoming marriage". (whew!).
Some authors are great storytellers ---the writing flows --We don't really think about the writing much because we are just interested in THE STORY.
I've even read some authors who are write with gorgeous prose --yet I'm not 'ALL' that invested in the story itself.
Michael Cunningham is a master at "mesmerizing writing and engaging storytelling"! He's becoming one of my favorite contemporary writers!!! "The Hours" and "By Nighfall", were also 'wonderful'. I'm not sure 'which' of the 3 books I like best. All his books have that lasting 'Tattoo-on-my-brain' memory-forever impact on me. His stories and writing bring 'me' into the rooms he is writing about.
His words seem masterfully hand picked - to trigger the 'truthful emotion. He puts into words --what others often cannot do --- fits those words to the 'experience' at hand -- creating marvelous imagery.
Here is a sample:
"Barrett does his best to transit some kind of healing force, through the palm of his hand. Then he walks out of the sickroom, returns to the comforting normalcy of the hall, and heads to the kitchen, where Tyler is awake, where coffee has been made, where rampancy of life, even in its most rudimentary form, plays like enchanted piper; where Tyler, suitor and swain, ferocious of brow, thin but athletically tendoned legs protruding from boxer shorts, does what he can to prepare for his forthcoming marriage". (whew!).
Some authors are great storytellers ---the writing flows --We don't really think about the writing much because we are just interested in THE STORY.
I've even read some authors who are write with gorgeous prose --yet I'm not 'ALL' that invested in the story itself.
Michael Cunningham is a master at "mesmerizing writing and engaging storytelling"! He's becoming one of my favorite contemporary writers!!! "The Hours" and "By Nighfall", were also 'wonderful'. I'm not sure 'which' of the 3 books I like best. All his books have that lasting 'Tattoo-on-my-brain' memory-forever impact on me. His stories and writing bring 'me' into the rooms he is writing about.
His words seem masterfully hand picked - to trigger the 'truthful emotion. He puts into words --what others often cannot do --- fits those words to the 'experience' at hand -- creating marvelous imagery.
November 2, 2022
Hillbilly Haiku Criteek
A painful sadness.
Can't fit big screen TV through
Double-wide's front door.
A painful sadness.
Can't fit big screen TV through
Double-wide's front door.
December 27, 2020
As the story opens, Barrett has received a break-up text from his latest boyfriend. While walking through the city at night in the snow, he views a pale aqua light hovering over his head. He is an atheist, but this vision awakens his spiritual curiosity. Barrett lives in an apartment in Brooklyn with his brother, Tyler, and Tyler’s fiancé, Beth, who is terminally ill. Tyler is a musician, struggling to write songs. He believes cocaine will help but becomes addicted. He gets involved with Beth’s friend Liz.
I did not particularly enjoy this book. It is filled with existential angst. The thin plot meanders and does not seem to have any driving force. The brothers are looking for clarity in their lives and appear to be getting in each other’s way. The unusual vision is not explored in any depth. I picked it up on the strength of Michael Cunningham’s The Hours, which I loved, but this book pales in comparison. I can only say it was okay.
I did not particularly enjoy this book. It is filled with existential angst. The thin plot meanders and does not seem to have any driving force. The brothers are looking for clarity in their lives and appear to be getting in each other’s way. The unusual vision is not explored in any depth. I picked it up on the strength of Michael Cunningham’s The Hours, which I loved, but this book pales in comparison. I can only say it was okay.
March 11, 2019
I'm on a mission to read all Cunningham novels now. Which should be easy, there aren't that many.
He clearly has his themes: brothers, drugs, New York City, child prodigies who grow up to be undecided (and possibly a disappointment), bitter thoughts about youth and early love. I really don't mind. He just writes so well. I'm kind of baffled at the 1 star reviews of this. Is it prententious and full of big words? Maybe sometimes and maybe a few, but nothing over the top. My only critique would be the end of the novel, which felt too much like the author trying to be profound and teach us something.
He clearly has his themes: brothers, drugs, New York City, child prodigies who grow up to be undecided (and possibly a disappointment), bitter thoughts about youth and early love. I really don't mind. He just writes so well. I'm kind of baffled at the 1 star reviews of this. Is it prententious and full of big words? Maybe sometimes and maybe a few, but nothing over the top. My only critique would be the end of the novel, which felt too much like the author trying to be profound and teach us something.
August 3, 2017
Beautiful, true� and a little boring
Michael Cunningham writes beautifully, there is no question about that. Almost every page of his new novel reads as elegantly as it looks on the page. His prose is lucid and refined, without any trace of over-elaboration; indeed, he has an endearing habit of making parenthetical remarks to himself in descriptive passages (such as "face it" or "remember that?") that gives a pleasantly informal air to the whole. You may not know these people, but feel you might, and know that if you did happen to meet you would be welcomed into their circle.
And the characters and their lives also feel real: two forty-something brothers sharing an apartment in Brooklyn with the girlfriend of one of them. Barrett, the younger, is gay and works in a vintage store in Manhattan; on the way home one night, he sees a mysterious aqua light appear in the sky over Central Park, a miracle that he keeps to himself at first, but that turns him towards a kind of religion. Tyler, his older brother, is chasing his own miracle; a musician, he is still hoping for a breakthrough as a song-writer, and takes drugs to transport him to the necessary nirvana. Meanwhile, he is going ahead with his wedding to Beth (co-owner of the store where Tyler works), even though she is in the fourth stage of cancer.
I don't really remember the Hans Andersen story of the same title that Cunningham is apparently reworking here, nor am I sure of its essential point.* Certainly, there is a lot of snow and ice imagery, literal and otherwise, and I think I see a common theme of two people (though by no means children here) living close together in an urban setting, until each finds a way to unlock something essential that had been frozen within them. Section by section, chapter by short chapter, the affairs, hopes, and delusions of these three people and their immediate friends are portrayed with wonderful reality. Further, their situation changes in slow but significant ways over the four-year span—the novel runs from the presidential elections of 2004 to those of 2008, and Cunningham makes no secret of his sympathies. But I felt very little direction or momentum as I was reading, and could easily have laid it down at any time and not bothered to pick it up again.
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*
At the time I was writing this review, I did not yet have a grand-daughter of an age to be in love with Disney's Frozen!
Michael Cunningham writes beautifully, there is no question about that. Almost every page of his new novel reads as elegantly as it looks on the page. His prose is lucid and refined, without any trace of over-elaboration; indeed, he has an endearing habit of making parenthetical remarks to himself in descriptive passages (such as "face it" or "remember that?") that gives a pleasantly informal air to the whole. You may not know these people, but feel you might, and know that if you did happen to meet you would be welcomed into their circle.
And the characters and their lives also feel real: two forty-something brothers sharing an apartment in Brooklyn with the girlfriend of one of them. Barrett, the younger, is gay and works in a vintage store in Manhattan; on the way home one night, he sees a mysterious aqua light appear in the sky over Central Park, a miracle that he keeps to himself at first, but that turns him towards a kind of religion. Tyler, his older brother, is chasing his own miracle; a musician, he is still hoping for a breakthrough as a song-writer, and takes drugs to transport him to the necessary nirvana. Meanwhile, he is going ahead with his wedding to Beth (co-owner of the store where Tyler works), even though she is in the fourth stage of cancer.
I don't really remember the Hans Andersen story of the same title that Cunningham is apparently reworking here, nor am I sure of its essential point.* Certainly, there is a lot of snow and ice imagery, literal and otherwise, and I think I see a common theme of two people (though by no means children here) living close together in an urban setting, until each finds a way to unlock something essential that had been frozen within them. Section by section, chapter by short chapter, the affairs, hopes, and delusions of these three people and their immediate friends are portrayed with wonderful reality. Further, their situation changes in slow but significant ways over the four-year span—the novel runs from the presidential elections of 2004 to those of 2008, and Cunningham makes no secret of his sympathies. But I felt very little direction or momentum as I was reading, and could easily have laid it down at any time and not bothered to pick it up again.
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At the time I was writing this review, I did not yet have a grand-daughter of an age to be in love with Disney's Frozen!
May 8, 2014
Cunningham’s new novel is a fertile character study with a minimalist plot. There’s a central premise that hovers (literally!) over the story and provides a pique of low-grade excitement. Thirty-eight year-old Barrett Meeks, a scholar and underachiever who is low on funds and works in retail at a vintage store, has recently received a break-up text from his latest boyfriend. Walking through Central Park four days later, he sees a transcendent, numinous image in the sky.
� A pale aqua light, translucent, a swatch of veil, star-high, no, lower than the stars, but high, higher than a spaceship…�
”He believed—he knew—that as surely as he was looking up at the light, the light was looking down back down at him…No. Not looking. Apprehending.�
Barrett is conflicted about the apparition—whether it is real, or imagined, or a collection of gases, or a signal of a brain injury. So he decides to keep this a secret, and not even share with his older brother, Tyler, who he is extremely close to, and lives with, (and with Tyler’s fiancé), in a progressively gentrifying neighborhood in Brooklyn.
Tyler is an unsuccessful musician and secret coke addict, but claims he has quit (he even tries to fool himself). Tyler is trying to write the perfect song for his marriage ceremony to Beth, who has terminal cancer. One thing Tyler does well is take care of her. He is also loyal to Barrett, who is in turn loyal to Beth. Barrett and Tyler have a close and unusual brotherly affinity, almost like a latent and incestuous, but chaste, love.
“They possess a certain feral knowledge of each other, excrescence and scat. …They…keep their affinities secret when they’re in company…and keep their chaste, ardent romance to themselves, as if they were a two-member sect, passing as regular citizens, waiting for the moment to act.�
The third central character is Beth, who is likely the moral center, yet her strength of character and earnest love is not as pressing to the story as it is the projection of an integrity that galvanizes Barrett and Tyler. She is their shared revelation, in a sense. And her remission signifies a change in the trio’s relationship.
“Tyler is Beth’s, now. Now that Beth has been restored to health, they’re a couple in a way they were not, when Beth was dying. The Beth who was slipping away…had been both Tyler’s and Barrett’s, their flickering saint, their runaway princess who was being reclaimed…Tyler and Barrett were her attendants. They were Team Beth.�
I do think that Cunningham, somewhat of a writer’s writer, controlled his narrative, yet I wasn’t certain of his chief premise, or whom he was attached to in this novel. If he were a lesser writer, I would have perceived this as a desultory story, with no real center. However, Cunningham periodically seemed to be a step ahead of the reader, and it was up to us to comprehend the gist.
All the characters (and there were other secondary characters that he focused on for brief interludes) seemed to be at a crossroads in their lives. And there were special connections between the two brothers that had historical poignancy. Their mother was struck by lightning on a golf course years ago—her death seeming to be strange and even too banal for her eminent presence in their lives. She had said to Barrett, in the past, that some magic had been granted to him on his birth—an inexplicable magic, and that he also needed to watch out for his older brother.
As Barrett’s gradually shares his mystical experience with others, deeper philosophical discussions ensue over its meaning. And, Barrett, who begins to attend church, more for its ambiance and collective spirituality, hides a notion that Beth’s subsequent remission is connected to his singular, visionary experience.
The author also allows us to regard what different characters are reading into each other, through italicized comments that are unspoken thoughts (that one character believes that the other actually means). This channeled a scintilla of standard neuroses that floats between all the parties, and gave the reader more insight into the characters� conjectures or nagging doubts about each other.
One thing that did not resonate with me was Barrett’s need for secrecy about his celestial vision, his fraught feelings about disclosure. It seemed that Cunningham attempted to create tension and suspense with the inevitable reveal (to Tyler, especially), but I didn’t grasp the dread or alarm that Barrett felt at confessing his experience to others. The proportion of its significance seemed larger to the author’s imagination than to this reader. I heard what he imparted—that Barrett feared revealing a supernatural experience, which was a contradiction to his secular beliefs. But I wasn’t convinced that it was organically acute.
Cunningham possesses a gift for language and a knack for conveying characters in just a few keystrokes:
“Barrett is a bigger guy, not fat…but ursine, crimson of eye and lip; ginger-furred…the prince transformed into wolf or lion, all slumbering large-pawed docility, awaiting, with avid yellow eyes, love’s first kiss.�
That, and the darting through of consequence and connection, was enough to keep me fastened to this compact novel, which progresses from 2004 to 2008. The story? It did not lucidly coalesce, but it is for each reader to decide its weight.
� A pale aqua light, translucent, a swatch of veil, star-high, no, lower than the stars, but high, higher than a spaceship…�
”He believed—he knew—that as surely as he was looking up at the light, the light was looking down back down at him…No. Not looking. Apprehending.�
Barrett is conflicted about the apparition—whether it is real, or imagined, or a collection of gases, or a signal of a brain injury. So he decides to keep this a secret, and not even share with his older brother, Tyler, who he is extremely close to, and lives with, (and with Tyler’s fiancé), in a progressively gentrifying neighborhood in Brooklyn.
Tyler is an unsuccessful musician and secret coke addict, but claims he has quit (he even tries to fool himself). Tyler is trying to write the perfect song for his marriage ceremony to Beth, who has terminal cancer. One thing Tyler does well is take care of her. He is also loyal to Barrett, who is in turn loyal to Beth. Barrett and Tyler have a close and unusual brotherly affinity, almost like a latent and incestuous, but chaste, love.
“They possess a certain feral knowledge of each other, excrescence and scat. …They…keep their affinities secret when they’re in company…and keep their chaste, ardent romance to themselves, as if they were a two-member sect, passing as regular citizens, waiting for the moment to act.�
The third central character is Beth, who is likely the moral center, yet her strength of character and earnest love is not as pressing to the story as it is the projection of an integrity that galvanizes Barrett and Tyler. She is their shared revelation, in a sense. And her remission signifies a change in the trio’s relationship.
“Tyler is Beth’s, now. Now that Beth has been restored to health, they’re a couple in a way they were not, when Beth was dying. The Beth who was slipping away…had been both Tyler’s and Barrett’s, their flickering saint, their runaway princess who was being reclaimed…Tyler and Barrett were her attendants. They were Team Beth.�
I do think that Cunningham, somewhat of a writer’s writer, controlled his narrative, yet I wasn’t certain of his chief premise, or whom he was attached to in this novel. If he were a lesser writer, I would have perceived this as a desultory story, with no real center. However, Cunningham periodically seemed to be a step ahead of the reader, and it was up to us to comprehend the gist.
All the characters (and there were other secondary characters that he focused on for brief interludes) seemed to be at a crossroads in their lives. And there were special connections between the two brothers that had historical poignancy. Their mother was struck by lightning on a golf course years ago—her death seeming to be strange and even too banal for her eminent presence in their lives. She had said to Barrett, in the past, that some magic had been granted to him on his birth—an inexplicable magic, and that he also needed to watch out for his older brother.
As Barrett’s gradually shares his mystical experience with others, deeper philosophical discussions ensue over its meaning. And, Barrett, who begins to attend church, more for its ambiance and collective spirituality, hides a notion that Beth’s subsequent remission is connected to his singular, visionary experience.
The author also allows us to regard what different characters are reading into each other, through italicized comments that are unspoken thoughts (that one character believes that the other actually means). This channeled a scintilla of standard neuroses that floats between all the parties, and gave the reader more insight into the characters� conjectures or nagging doubts about each other.
One thing that did not resonate with me was Barrett’s need for secrecy about his celestial vision, his fraught feelings about disclosure. It seemed that Cunningham attempted to create tension and suspense with the inevitable reveal (to Tyler, especially), but I didn’t grasp the dread or alarm that Barrett felt at confessing his experience to others. The proportion of its significance seemed larger to the author’s imagination than to this reader. I heard what he imparted—that Barrett feared revealing a supernatural experience, which was a contradiction to his secular beliefs. But I wasn’t convinced that it was organically acute.
Cunningham possesses a gift for language and a knack for conveying characters in just a few keystrokes:
“Barrett is a bigger guy, not fat…but ursine, crimson of eye and lip; ginger-furred…the prince transformed into wolf or lion, all slumbering large-pawed docility, awaiting, with avid yellow eyes, love’s first kiss.�
That, and the darting through of consequence and connection, was enough to keep me fastened to this compact novel, which progresses from 2004 to 2008. The story? It did not lucidly coalesce, but it is for each reader to decide its weight.
February 10, 2016
Обичам Кънингам и неговите объркани, измъчвани от екзистенциални кризи и оплетени в странни връзки чудаци.
И да, тази книга е по-слаба от "Дом на края на света" или "Дни образци". Действието е фокусирано почти изцяло във вътрешния свят на героите, което вероятно ще се стори тегаво и може би претенциозно за някой, който за пръв път подхваща книга на този автор.
И въпреки това - дори слабите книги на добър автор са по-добри от силните на слаб писач.
И да, тази книга е по-слаба от "Дом на края на света" или "Дни образци". Действието е фокусирано почти изцяло във вътрешния свят на героите, което вероятно ще се стори тегаво и може би претенциозно за някой, който за пръв път подхваща книга на този автор.
И въпреки това - дори слабите книги на добър автор са по-добри от силните на слаб писач.
June 20, 2017
Dopalo mi se čitanje, onako kako mi se dopadnu romani koje trajno zavolim, što je osećaj koji je u suprotnosti sa gomilom primedbi koje imam na sam tekst. I gde uopšte piše da knjiga mora da bude opasno dobra da bi vam se opasno uvukla pod kožu. Kaningem je vredan čitanja u svim verzijama.
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