Dhalgren

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant in 1976
Review: i first read Dhalgren in 1976. I have come to...I was 16. I didn't know it was best covered under magical realism. But, 25 years later that makes sense. It captured my adolescent disorientation and terror quite thoroughly and remains my favorite of thousands.

Rating:
Summary: Passing Time in Bellona
Review: After having passed quite a bit of time in Bellona (Delany's city of dreadful night), I have a hard time believing Dhalgren to be a science fiction novel at all. Why? Because it's a good book. Perhaps it's a great book. I find it comparable in difficulty and reward to Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow." It's more literary than most of the sci-fi genre, which may explain why so many sci-fi readers reject it. I think it strives to be Proustian, indirectly through the influence of another Frenchman, Michel Butor, and it tries to be Joycean more directly, through structural imitation of "Finnegans Wake." Here is Butor, circa 1960, in a passage linking themes in Proust to themes in Dhalgren: "Thus each day, evoking other days like harmonics, transforms the appearance of the past, and while certain periods come into the light otheres formerly illuminated tend to grow dim, and to lie silent and unknown until with the passage of time fresh echoes come to awaken them." At the risk of dwelling too long on Delany's influences, I think Delany reaches back to Butor as Butor reaches back to Proust.

What is Dhalgren about? First it's about Time -- cyclical time, repetition, echoes of what's already taken place, temporal disorientation, loss of memory. Second, it's about Fear and Panic -- fear of losing everthing that you value, everthing that makes your life appear substantial and real. As in this passage: "Were the clouds in the sky suddenly to organize themselves into ferocious animals and then descend upon the landscape devouring everything in their path, were the surfaces of the streets suddenly to burst into flames...." Actually those aren't Delany's words, though the passage might have been lifted right out of Dhalgren. (They are John D. Caputo's words, lifted out of "Radical Hermeneutics.") Third, Dhalgren is about sex. Delany likes writing pornography, and Dhalgren is in part a pornographic novel. In 1973, when Dhalgren was first published, the term "depression" had yet to attain its current vogue. But it would be dishonest to write about Dhalgren without mentioning the sense of mental oppression that pervades the novel. This sense is so pervasive that it could easily furnish the key for unlocking Dhalgren's elusive meaning, as well as the best clue to precisely what sort of catastrophe afflicted Bellona.

Why should you read Dhalgren? Because it stands up well in the company of Pynchon, Gaddis, Proust, Butor, and James (B.V.) Thomson. Because it may expand your literary horizons. Because you may get substantial pleasure from reading it. But if you prefer nice linear novels, where effect follows cause, and clear meaning floats proud upon the surface, in plain view as a water-lily upon the Vivonne, then by all means don't go to Bellona, and do not read Dhalgren.

Rating:
Summary: The pros and cons of reading this legendary book
Review: I just finished Dhalgren a few hours ago and I am still thinking it through, so maybe this review is a bit premature, but here goes:

I'd heard about this book for ages, so I was excited when it got reissued recently. Being a big Pynchon/Joyce fan, I have much patience and love for the so-called Big Difficult Novel. Not being a big SF fan, I was more intrigued by the book's titanic reputation as a surreal masterwork. However, right now I disagree with the notion (from previous reviewers) that this book is an absolute love or an absolute hate, as there is so much in it to recommend, as well as some basic things to criticize. Hence, my three stars.

Well, in so many ways this book is certainly fantastic. It has imagery I've never read anywhere else, and having grown up in a formerly industrial New England city that is only now coming out of it's crumbling, chaotic doldrums, I related to many images of Bellona. Overall, I think the book is a grand project of metafiction, portraiture of mental illness, or some inexplicable religious/apocalyptic mystery. The fact that it works on all those levels makes me admire the novel more. I did not need anything explicitly explained, as I liked feeling the confusion and whirl of ideas that the main character feels. (If you've seen the movie "Memento," the experience is similar.)

What I did not admire was the fact that the book was easily 200 pages too long. For example, I'm hardly squeamish about descriptions of sex, but after dozens and dozens of them...well, like any cheap pornography, it gets kind of numbingly dull--which may be the point, but hey, I got bored. Furthermore, many scenes of gang life absolutely serve no purpose but are merely mundane--and while that may be the point too, it leaves the reader (or maybe just me) feeling like such writing was flabby and flat. So even if these certain elements served a point--for metafiction, for depiction of mental illness--they still come off as bad reading. While cutting 200 pages would rob the reader of some fantastic scenes and images, I really think that a shorter work would have made this haunting novel even more powerful than it is. Therefore, be careful who you recommend the book to, not because of the sex scenes or anything, but because some people may find it too much of a slog.

That being said, my mind is still racing through all the possibilities and characters and images of the novel (the red eyes, the shifting streets, the frighteningly delusional Richards family's attempts at middle-class order), and it's quite refreshing to read something that makes me think hard. I think the book also influenced some of my dreams, which was not always pleasant, but showed how effective much of the book is. So hey, maybe if I were to write this review a week from now, I might give it four stars.

Rating:
Summary: The Discordant City
Review: In the opening pages, as the half-shod, half-barefoot drifter who comes to be known as Kid (he cannot remember his given name) approaches Bellona, he thinks, 'Very few suspect the existence of this city. It is as if not only the media but the laws of perspective themselves have redesigned knowledge and perception to pass it by. Rumor says there is practically no power there. Neither television cameras nor on-the-spot broadcasts function: that such a catastrophe as this should be opaque, and therefore dull, to the electric nation! It is a city of inner discordances and retinal distortions.'

The nature of the disaster that has crippled communication and stripped the city's population down to about a thousand is never articulated although there are intimations aplenty. Once inside, Kid discovers the city ... or whatever has wreaked devastation upon it--is capricious: a building in pristine condition might stand next to one tilted on its foundation and gutted by fire. During what is supposed to be day, the light is gray, the sky and the tops of buildings are hidden by cloud and by smoke that drifts lethargically like fine mist. Ensconced in a perpetual twilight, Bellona is evasive, presenting not the straight edges and clean lines of Euclidean geometry, but the hazy flux at the heart of quantum mechanics.

In a notebook that he picks up on his first night in Bellona, Kid (presumably) writes: 'There is no articulate resonance ... 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. It protects from greater flame. It indicates fire, but obscures the source.'

Delany's mostly abandoned, half-wrecked city is meticulously laid out, detailed down to the rivets holding up street signs ... hard to pin down Bellona may be, but arbitrary it is not. As Delany once explained in a long letter, 'Our landscape, entirely true for any urban environment ... is made up totally of emblems of former human actions. From the sky (overcast because of the industrial effect or the greenhouse phenomenon), to each tree or glass blade in the city parks (the trees are there because someone put them there, or because someone left them there while clearing away others), the landscape is a dense interlocked web of the detritus of haphazard human action and/or intentional human undertaking.'

By the time you get used to living in Bellona, to the two moons that appear in its sky, you are no longer the same person. Reverend Amy, the only church leader left in the city, states in one of her typically concept-loaded sermons, 'Oh my poor, inaccurate hands and eyes! Don't you know that once you have transgressed that boundary, every atom, the interior of every point of reality, has shifted its relation to every other you've left behind, shaken and jangled within the field of time, so that if you cross back, you return to a very different space than the one you left? You have crossed the river to come to this city? Do you really think you can cross back to world where a blue sky goes violet in the evening, buttered over with the light of a single, silver moon?'

'Dhalgren' is, along with William Gaddis's 'The Recognitions' and Julio Cortazar's 'Hopscotch,' one of the few contemporary works of genuine genius. I've read it three times now and yes, it literally changed my life ... I have never crossed back over. Needless to say, I can't recommend it highly enough. However, readers ... 'Dhalgren' fans especially---should also be aware of Delany's '1984', a collection of letters in which some fascinating details about the construction of 'Dhalgren' come to light ... locations in San Francisco and New York on which Delany based descriptions as well as answers to some of the numerous enigmas enshrouded in the narrative. Your bookshelf shouldn't be without either one.

Rating:
Summary: Delany is a great writer, but this book is not
Review: I can appreciate the enjoyment of a good writer creating a dizzying array of stylish passages but in his earlier works, Delany managed to do that and create intricate, interesting stories. A novel like Nova is a perfect example, one that is a true masterpiece of science fiction. In Dhalgren, though, the effort is not so much in the reading, but in the caring. I never cared for any of the characters or the situations. It just never managed to create any momentum. By the end of each chapter, all I could think of is when its going to get interesting. It never did. This is not to say that Delany is not a great writer. The reverse is true. He is a very gifted writer. Some of the most memorable passages I have ever read come directly from him. If you want to read Delany at his best, read Nova or Driftglass or Babel-17 or Triton. They are magnificent works. It seems that Dhalgren, long and ponderous, is meant for the pseudo-intellectual who never wants any answers to the questions. There are no exactitudes in Dhalgren, only a swaying logic born in that world and understood in that world. Not in ours. In great works of fancy, like Lord of the Rings, this is perfectly acceptable. It simply does not work in Dhalgren. Another thing. This is a long novel. Do yourself a favor. Use that time to read other great novels. It would be time well spent, much as I hate to be critical of Delany.

Rating:
Summary: I come to wound....
Review: Actually, I dont come to wound but to praise!! This is one of those books I remember discovering in the mid 1970's and devouring it almost in one reading. Believe me, not an easy thing as it is a long book. However, I found it enthralling. I was taken with the characters who reminded me in later years of punk rocks early denizens. These are not peace loving hippies!! The story is cyclical with no beginning and no end and who needs them. Mr. Delaney is one heck of an author who has drawn on life experience and all nighters with friends around the coffeetable to write an exceptional tale of social interaction and angst. His characters are well developed as they must be in this tale or it would fall flat. IT DOES NOT FAIL!! I have reread this book many times and always enjoy it. To get some background after reading this try The Heavenly Breakfast by Mr. Delaney.

Rating:
Summary: A fascinating, enigmatic journey
Review: Delaney has a great gift of describing highly exotic (not to mention erotic) situations, a skill that comes to full bloom in "Stars in my Pocket". In this book, his style is much more elliptic but nonetheless entrancing. (Amazon's review is correct in that the first chapter is a bit of a struggle, but things get much more lucid from there.) Once I plunged fully in, it was difficult for me to get back out. Some questions are indeed answered, but (as with Gene Wolf) don't expect everything to resolve neatly. Because the prose is piecemeal, the book is enjoyable more in bits than as a whole.

One bit that I enjoy is that once Kid is ready to leave the city I am too, and history repeats itself a little as he encounters the next person going in. Also, I like it when the book's namesake is (sort of) revealed, after I had spent so much time wondering if Kid himself was Dhalgren. The sexual thing is stretched a bit thin (as in "Stars"), so I love it when Fireball finally asks Kid if he thinks with nothing but his pecker.

As to the nature of the city itself, well, time and space indeed play tricks. I'm definitely reminded of Joyce's Dublin in "Ulysses", which although crystalline during the day begins to melt at night. In Bellona, however, day and night are more elusive concepts. The nature of the "cataclysm" is never revealed, but I don't really agree with the theory that the characters are trapped in a story and interact with the author. Rather, I believe that the city itself has developed a consciousness (cf. the city's dream in the "Sandman" series, which may have been inspired by this book) which can interact to a certain extent with its dwellers, and that the cataclysm is actually its awakening.

Rating:
Summary: Uniquely ambiguous
Review: Dalany's underground favorite is a strange treat for any reader up to its 900 pages of chewy, ambiguous narrative. "Dhalgren" is less a novel than an experiment in technique, much like the cut-up efforts of William Burroughs. Superficially, "Dhalgren" tells the story of an amnesiac protagonist who finds an identity of sorts amidst the corrupt and tantalizingly beautiful ruins of a fictional city that has isolated itself from the rest of the United States.

Like the prose itself, Delany's city is restless and deliberately undefined, the nature of its cataclysm never divulged. Meanwhile, Delany explores sexuality, race and fame with rare candor. We learn to accept Delany's experimental necropolis as the enigma it is. "Dhalgren" is a gem, as personal as it is strange and easily the best work by Delany I've read.

Rating:
Summary: Stranger in a Familiar Land
Review: I approached this book many times before I finished it-- at the ages of 13, 15, 17, and finally, 19. No book has done more to shape my perception of the way language can work in tandem with or independently of plot. Those who approach Dhalgren for the plot will be disappointed. Those who approach Dhalgren for a rollicking good science fiction tale will be disappointed. Those who approach Dhalgren with the idea that written language should be compact, linear, and stark against the page will be disappointed. However, those who come to this book with an open mind will never forget it. In this post-modern world, we as a culture have become obsessed with the idea of a central identity. As we begin to identify ourselves according to groups and relations, we lose that essential grasp on self-identity-- and that, I think, is the central struggle in Dhalgren. How do we find ourselves in a world that makes no sense? Following The Kidd is like following a road-map through the human psyche. Dreams and reality blend and coalesce to form the world The Kidd lives in. Delany, a master of the written word, combines narration, stream of consciousness, and some techniques that likely do not have a name in order to serve as our tour-guide through this realm. I came to Dhalgren expecting a good science fiction read-- I came away with brand new eyes through which to view literature. I recommend this book to anyone who loves a good story, who isn't afraid to think and imagine those details the author does not provide, and, perhaps most importantly, is in love with the language. For that is the true beauty of Dhalgren, sleeping inside the words and howling through the desert, screaming for a name.

Rating:
Summary: 800+ pages looooooong
Review: The novel opens with a fragment of a sentence. Which was my first clue: what exactly is the message that the author is trying to convey in this emormous piece of work, where the end of the novel becomes the start of the novel? Bellona is a nearly deserted city in the US, destroyed by ??? and still burning. The few inhabitants live aimlessly. The outside world has no interest to claim Bellona back from disaster and the reader may wonder why one would choose to remain in this desolute place. Is this the best they can do? Do they deem themselves undesirable to the outside world? Do they find the "rules" in the outside world unacceptable? The is no government in Bellona but even Bellona has its rules and protocols that the locals are familiar with.

This is not a piece of fiction for the reader who wants all questions answered and a plot laid out carefully. The novel is unstructured. Though the writing is descriptive and thought-provoking, it is repetitive. And very dated -- all about the 70's cultural revolution. But it is intriguing, try it if you have the time.