to review the book in autumn

[bluegargantua]

I've just finished reading Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany.

I liked it, but I can't recommend it to everyone. And I may not be able to recommend it to anyone unless you're in the right frame of mind to read it. I will say that in terms of it's erotic content, it's streets ahead of The Story of O, but it's not really that kind of book.

What it is is nebulous. People talk, stuff happens, and yet only the most tenuous themes form anything resembling a plot. On the surface, a man who can't remember his name visits the city of Bellona, which has been devastated by some sort of cataclysm. The skies are think with clouds, fires burn constantly, and people basically live by scrounging. It's also a place where time and space aren't as firmly fixed as one would like. So the man wanders into town, is given the name of Kid (he looks younger than he is) and promptly fills his days and nights as best he can.

And if you think that's what it's about, you're going to be really disappointed. You're going to want answers and resolutions and the book will distract you with one new thing after another without ever really answering your questions. Clearly, it will drive a lot of readers nuts. I'm not entirely sure why I was so taken with it as I was, but perhaps it just caught me at the right moment.

Anyway, I read it and decided I enjoyed the infinite mirrors. So I sat down

Comments

[sben.livejournal.com]

I think your review pretty well matches my thoughts.

[desiringsubject.livejournal.com]

I heard Samuel Delaney speak at Tufts about 2 months ago. I adored him beyond all belief. Is it the same one? (No time for google)

[desiringsubject.livejournal.com]

Okay, yes, it is the same one, and yes, I did misspell it, though wikipedia tells me this is quite common!

He is an incredibly engaging speaker, not the least of which reason is that he found a way to proposition college-age boys (men?) in a way that somehow didn't feel socially inappropriate in a lecture.

Also, for 65ish, he's way hot.

Also, he's had more sex than anyone ever.

The Queer Studies intro class at my school had to read Times Square Red, Times Square Blue which I want to read. Also he read from a forthcoming book that sounds wonderful. Also, he read from The Motion of Light on Water (Which, if he had read the subtitle out loud too, I might have learned that he wrote sci fi!) and that was ... hott. Just sayin'

I didn't know he wrote sci fi. Just like me, eh?

[methanopyrus.livejournal.com]

Ok, it seems this is one of his vintage books, seems unusual that it has sexual content because I have read or tried to read at least two of his early novels and found them nebulous though containing intersting ideas and no sex. I would read Dhalgren now to compare the sexual content with that in his 1990's book "the mad man" which is sadly out of print and packed with tons of gay male sex between the protagonist and homeless men.