dhalgren

THE SUN HAS GROWN DEADLY ...

THE WORLD HAS GONE MAD, SOCIETY HAS
PERISHED, SAVAGERY RULES
OVER ALL. ALL THAT WAS KNOWN
IS OVER, ALL THAT WAS FAMILIAR IS
STRANGE AND TERRIBLE. TODAY
AND YESTERDAY COLLIDE WITH TOMORROW.
IN THESE DYING DAYS OF EARTH,
A YOUNG DRIFTER ENTERS THE CITY

http://blogs.walkerart.org/design/files/2008/11/dhalgren_front.jpg

possibly some actual thought about the book another time, but: i just had a dhalgren-influenced dream, except instead of an american city in the midwest it was a mid-size east anglian town like the one i grew up in. i was joining some kind of volunteer police force to help with street crime. there were weird semi-supernatural things happening. actually i was playing half life 2 yesterday, so i think it borrowed some of the post-apocalyptic city graphics from that. anyway, after avoiding a gang of roaming scorpions i went back to the volunteer police force people and suddenly it turned into a standard real-world job-app situation, "i'd just like to give you some feedback on your interview," etc.; then i woke up.

By contrast, fellow writers such as Philip K. Dick and Harlan Ellison hated the novel. When the book appeared, Ellison in the L. A. Times (Sunday, February 23, 1975, p. 64) wrote: "I must be honest. I gave up after 361 pages. I could not permit myself to be gulled or bored any further." In an interview 27 years later, he said: "When Dhalgren came out, I thought it was awful, still do ... I ... threw it against a wall." Dick called Dhalgren "a terrible book" that "should have been marketed as trash. ... I just started reading it and said this is the worst trash I've ever read. And I threw it away."

I went to look at the other two Delany threads - that cover was described but I didn't pay much notice, goddam what a thing of beauty! I'll hunt and hunt for that..

Those comments above...I wonder if its because Delany's sentences strike one as more 'literary' than pulp-like. So Harlan gave up at THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY ONE PAGES, huh? So odd that the exact page is given.

the dick one, in all fairness, is probably because he genuinely didn't get past the scene in which two unnamed characters have sex and one inexplicably turns into a tree

Funny, I was just reading about this a few days ago. The Bantam text is supposed to have a bunch of errors.

I like the Bantam cover to Triton better. Hava a look and you'll see why.

I've tried to read this twice now and haven't been able to get past the first hundred pages. I just find it such heavy-going for some reason. I'm a big fan of both Delaney's other work like Babel-17 and other "dense" SF authors like Gene Wolfe, so I don't know what gives really. I think I might try it again soon.

the dick one, in all fairness, is probably because he genuinely didn't get past the scene in which two unnamed characters have sex and one inexplicably turns into a tree

This is as far as I got on my first go-through as well...

dick's characters always be turnin' into trees for fully explicable reasons.

it's not really dense sf. it's dense something else which enjoys the odd sf trope.

plus also the odd high fantasy trope: there's something leiberish or conanish about the kid's coming to the city and being granted all these artifacts of power: talisman, weapon, spellbook . . .

although obviously it's really a western

anyone got any ideas about what's going on in the last section of this?

Not sure what you're asking. The circle closes/the cycle repeats, with a little overlap so we can see the circular structure. The city pushes Kidd out and invites the next sucker/hero in.

more the order of the apocalyptic sections / why lanya* beats up and possibly kills john** / why jack*** thanks her for this / whether it was john who shot paul fenster****, i guess. and other stuff, but most of that (the scratched leg, the red eyeballs) i'm pretty sure there's no real explanation to be made of.

*the hippy girlfriend
**the leader of the commune
***the army deserter who can't adjust to bellona
****the (ex-?) Civil Rights activist

who is carrying the notebook the last time it is seen, would be another one

Bellona = Fort Myers, Florida

Downtown Fort Myers condo has 32 stories, and one lonely tale
Condo can get spooky for tower's only family

....They’re the only ones using a well-appointed clubhouse, but they can’t watch the big plasma TV.

“We haven’t found the remote controls,” Victor said.

Pause for a moment anywhere in the building during the day and the silence is deafening.

At night, Vangelakos said, they often hear people on the grounds or even inside the building itself. It’s not hard to break in one of the many entrances.

Once, late at night, “Somebody banged on our door,” Vanelakos said.

It wouldn’t have been hard to find the person in the otherwise darkened building.
“At night,” he said, “you can see our TV from the street.”

Especially popular for intruders is the swimming pool, Vangelakos said. They heard people there one night “and the next day all our chairs were in the pool.”

How many people will be breaking in there now?

Hope none of those kids plays near the elevators.

board outing xpost

I seriously wish I could go there.

would anybody like to book club this?

haha i've been rereading triton for ~ 6 wks and still stalled in the middle of valley of the nest of spiders which i started in aug '12 but sure

Triton was smooth sailing for me as was The Mad Man and Neveryon but I've never tried Dhalgren. Club format might be the only way I'd do it.

i was thinking the other day how much i want to read this again. i'm down.

triton is dope. read it 5-6 times, still don't think i fully have a handle on the whole thing

I suppose unknowability is a big theme in dhalgren, triton and stars n my pocket

I've never book-clubbed a novel before, but count me in.

Haha this is a masochistic but brilliant idea.

OK

i've read this too recently to be ready for another go yet but i will happily eavesdrop on the discussions

Might be up for this, I have a copy I never really made a dent in, but first I have to pause a little and consider how little progress I made with
ILX Book Club - Ezra Pound: The Cantos
and especially
Vladimir Nabokov: Ada or Ardor (I Love Book Club #4, starts 26 September)

would anybody like to book club this?

― the late great, Wednesday, November 6, 2013 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes plz!

my copy of dhalgren is a slightly more recent british edition than the 'classic' version above (tho' it looks like the text has not been reset from the first printing). it claims on the front that 'more than 1,000,000 copies sold' (really????) and has praiseblurbs on the back from penthouse, the libertarian review and umberto eco!

am currently in between prousts so why not the fuck give dhalgren a go

I recently got a copy. I'm game.

"prism, mirror, lens"

is this a metaphor for what writers do or something else

this book looks dope lol

Might be up for this, I have a copy I never really made a dent in, but first I have to pause a little and consider how little progress I made with
ILX Book Club - Ezra Pound: The Cantos
and especially
Vladimir Nabokov: Ada or Ardor (I Love Book Club #4, starts 26 September)

― Blecch Dreieinigkeitsmoses (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, November 6, 2013 9:21 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

both those books suck though

i remember none of the plot points i mentioned in that post upthread

Oh yeah, forgot about that (xp)

"prism, mirror, lens"

is this a metaphor for what writers do or something else

i read like 2/3 of this, lost it, then finished it a year-ish later (?) but didn't know what was going on anymore, so i might be down. i've been looking for triton during my most recent few book store visits, idk.

delany's sex scenes are gross imo

i got a copy of this. when does the book club start?

got this on my nightstand and nearly done w/WOLF HALL

what's the book club involve?

the self same vn as the op

it's already started

book club involves posting to this thread your thoughts and reactions as you read along

http://web.mit.edu/jscheib/Public/bellona/Binder409.pdf

dhalgren online

"be glad you're not just a character scrawled in the margins of somebody else's lost notebook: you'd be deadly dull."

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!

apollo & daphne?

why does he have only one shoe

actually if I recall correctly the main character in nova only has one shoe

And the main character in stars in my pocket also has messed up hands. delany has weird fetishes!

Shall we do this in the new year? What's a good breakdown and I'll post a thread round mid-jan?

Hey Shakey, there is no articulate resonance. The common problem, I suppose, is to have more to say than vocabulary and syntax can bear. That is why I am hunting in these desiccated streets. The smoke hides the sky's variety, stains consciousness, covers the holocaust with something safe and insubstantial. Knowwhatimean?

Got my copy from good ol' inter-library loan - lets see if PKD was right.

My thinking now goes something like: we'll never finish as a collective, so lets do about 3-4 parts (at 350-400 pages) and then a final oh-whoever-reads-through-the-rest and want to add more is invited to do so?

How about starting this on Mid-Jan? Post a thread then - the worst that can happen is no one answers/takes this on. It will be 'hilarious'.

I'm in for whatever happens. One hope I have for this is to use it as a training session in close reading, something I've always been an abject failure at. (Which is funny, considering Delany has always been one of my favorite authors.)

my ancient copy self destructed so i got the new ugly tpb version. gonna bring it with me over xmas holidays, looking forward to revisiting this novel that i loved as a young feckless autodidact. always goes well.

maybe i'll join, i do have an unread copy of this on my bookshelf. my strong hunch is that i won't be into it but who knows

Great! Monday 13th January is the date for your diaries.

If I can get this for free I'm in.

Inter-library loans. Can't say it enough :)

Took over a month the last time I tried that. Also Lambeth libraries have 3*Delany, 0*Dhalgren. Hopefully the internets will provide an epub though.

The last section has some very specific formatting requirements meant to convey the sense of multiple passages written into a notebook, possibly or possibly not by different authors. I don't know enough about epubs to know whether they can handle that sort of thing.

From the sound of things I won't get that far.

My local borough has no Dhalgren so they got one from Wandsworth lib.

finished re-reading my six month old reread of triton, now just to finish through the valley, only been reading that for a year and a half, then i'll get on this dhalgren thing, how's everyone else doing

I'm not at the mo as my copy was recalled back (wonder if it was an ilxor).

If someone wants to start the thread sometime otherwise I'll get round to it.

I read Dhalgren for the first time with a group last year, so I probably won't be taking part in the thread, but I'll just mention the wide-ranging Paris Review interview with Delany from a few years ago:

http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6088/the-art-of-fiction-no-210-samuel-r-delany

Fredric Busch's observations on publishing Dhalgren are also worth reading, particularly since Delany offers corrections to Busch's account in the comments section:

http://www.thewaythefutureblogs.com/2011/01/chip-delany-part-2-the-miracle-of-dhalgren/

A weird typo above: by Fredric Busch I meant Frederik Pohl.

that is a weird typo, you should get a larger phone

or a better analyst

i'm ready to go when you all are

what do you think of "triton" thomp? i think it might be my second-favorite delany.

it's my favourite after 'mad man' probably; idk, it reminded me to Think About Things when i read it first time round; this time round it felt more uncomfortably close i guess bcz more life-experience to try and connect with the narrative stuff and reconcile with the theoretical stuff. -- that's not very interesting, is it? i'll think about it. i do think (like all his best stuff!) it actually is stronger at what it's doing for delany's failings; like he does a great job of not just building his project around his strengths but designing it such that his not-quite-there and overdetermined-feeling characterisation/dialogue/description seem an essential part of his affect

i was thinking of proposing a feb 14 start date for dhalgren, but mainly just because it was convenient for me to do so

book club, this time for real?

yeah i'm in

just bought the ebook, hope the formatting is up to scratch.

What about the audiobook?

Is this the thread or do we need a new one bc I’m liable to start tnite

i was unsure, there may already be one

A friend of our family, a 17-year-old girl, asked us all what our favorite novels were. I said this one and she asked to borrow it. I tried to warn her away from it but she insisted, so she's got one of my 2 copies. She got about 250 pages in pretty much lost interest.

i mean huge credit to her getting 250 pages in

I have a copy and have read like ten pages. i'm in.

I’m in. (famous last words, pvmic etc.)

just bought the ebook, hope the formatting is up to scratch.

― what if bod was one of us (ledge), Tuesday, March 26, 2019 8:53 AM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol yeah i wish, though it's not horrible as those things go. quite a few very silly spacing/pagebreak errors throughout though, and one paragraph in the final chapter is repeated twice and i had to check it against my print copy, as things were kind of unraveling by that point anyway

anyway, best book i've ever read

its good

[ernest newboy voice] i couldn't possibly tell you if it's good or not

Brad, I really liked your substack essay on this

https://hologramofthesenses.substack.com/p/escalator-over-the-hill

Met Chip over the weekend because we were booked to read together. Honor of my life, he tickled my shoulder and took lots of pictures of the audience's hands and postures? Then he read a damning review of 'Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders,' then a chapter from that book. It was excellent.

Amazing!

Cool! I think ex-ILX0r Casuistry may have met him once as well, iirc.

Oh that's so nice! I've noticed he frequently describes his characters' hands so that one doesn't surprise me. I emailed with him about a blurb once when I worked in publishing but that was as close as I got

aww this is so wonderful

my old college lit professor is writing his biography and i couldn't be more thrilled :)

Very cool. I thought about ilxor love for him while we were sitting waiting for his Uber home. He lives only ten minutes away from me.

awww that rules

I will never not love this book. I read it for the first time in my early teens. That was probably a great time and an awful time to read it. It made a powerful impression on me, probably as much as any novel ever has, in terms of shaping my ideas of what fiction, and life itself, could be. Returning to it in my middle age was a revelation, an almost unique experience of telescoping time.

thinking about a reread.

Official publication date is January 1975, but copies were in bookstores 50 years ago this month.

i haven't been able to read fiction for a while, but the x number of pages of this i read... i think of them a lot. my life feels a lot like the first x number of pages of dhalgren without the sex.

i also think about this book all the time.

One day I will actually read

Re-reading Nova at the moment but I gotta tackle this one eventually