A classic I return to every few years

I am required to go back to this book every few years. The first book by Delany I ever read was Babel-17 when I was in high school. I enjoyed it. I and several high school friends also read Einstein Intersection and were blown away. One step closer to fanboy. Shortly after high school it seemed like every time I went to the drug store or supermarket the book rack had a copy of Dhalgren. This gigantic book with a strange cover. I finally broke down and bought it and was immediately hooked.

It’s interesting coming back to the book after several years. The book is overtly sexual. And not just sexual but polyamorous with what ends up being a threesome among the main character Kidd, a woman named Lanya, and a gang member named Denny. I think that was a partial draw, but the book in general with its setting in a mysterious city of Bellona and the odd interaction in the entire city kept me sailing through what, at that time, was the longest book I’d ever read.

It’s important to state that the book makes no real sense. It’s as psychedelic a book as you might get from the era (it was first published in 1975). I worried that I might be missing something or was too dense to understand some subtext. I was relieved, then, that the latest edition I read included an introduction by William Gibson, no illiterate regarding science fiction, in which he said that as much as he loved the book he didn’t understand it. The book is an enigma, It has a plot, carries along that plot. But what happened in Bellona? No one knows. It’s a city with its own individual apocalypse that doesn’t seemed to have gone beyond the city’s borders. The inhabitants are drawn from different places as if the city demanded their presence. They also seem to have difficulty leaving, or at least of finding their way out. Within the city limits there are codes but no laws. People scrounge for food but no one goes hungry. It’s a dangerous place and yet there’s a newspaper, a higher society, and some semblance of being a city but with no true government. Sexuality is casual and random, but Kidd’s threesome has familial affection for each other.

Kidd is a mystery throughout the book. Arriving in the city with amnesia after an apparent stay in a mental hospital. He finds a partially filled notebook and begins writing poetry on the blank pages. Almost as suddenly he stops writing but a book of his poems manages to get published. He takes work with a family in which the wife, at least, seems to be in denial about what’s happening around her, trying to live a normal life despite the strange noises outside her apartment. Even the name of the book is a mystery, with one fleeting reference to a man with the surname Dhalgren on a list of names.

After finishing the book I became a Delany addict, tearing through all the books I could find. (I’ve seen similar obsessions with Frank Herbert fans.) But I don’t think until I read Aye, and Gomorrah: And Other Stories that I got a grip about what I loved in Delany and sought out in other science fiction or fiction in general: a sense of freedom and a traveler’s eye. I don’t think one really understands their surroundings until they leave them for awhile. And while travelling or experiencing another country (or another world) one gets perspective on what has been so entwined with you that it becomes invisible. The new world, too, seems brighter. Every small detail has meaning and consequence that have been lost in the things you leave behind. This is wonder. This is magic. Delany’s writings have that sense of wonder and magic while still managing to have taken on some of the deeper themes in literature.

32 people found this helpful

Exquisite, Brilliant, Evocative...until 2nd half

The first 400 pages or so might as well be a different book altogether... The entire ambience of mental post-apocalypse is stewing mistily and anxiously forward in saavy and original metaphor up until after the disturbing encounter with "George Harrison" and the departure of Lania. Once past the meeting of Kidd in-house with Newboy, however, the book begins to degrade into almost insufferable banality... whereas previously, banality had been juiced through with foreboding, arresting verbal figures and arch but subtle social and psychological commentary, now it's just methodical description of extremely uneventful transactions, sexual encounters without great import or integration into the discovery or sensibility of the characters, random thefts and walking about... in short the book itself performs the rise and fall of the late 60s/ early 70s counterculture, from seduction to elation to decadence, then degeneration, then meaningless lost ambling...

3 people found this helpful

Not for me

I lasted through the first three hours and just had to give up. Not the type of story nor the characters of which I prefer. Performance was great as always with this narrator. But the story itself goes into areas of which I do not like. Will not listen to again.

3 people found this helpful

Great book, made more accessible by a great reader

This review is mostly about Rudnicki as narrator.

Dhalgren is an experimental novel in every way--form, genre, ethics, erotics, tone, temporal structure, you name it. No matter who voices this book, it will challenge a lot of readers. But honestly, I think Rudnicki gives first timers a lot of help. Rudnicki is a "heavy" reader, slow and careful. But in passage after passage, he helps cue the listener to multiple levels of meaning. Honestly, this is one of the best enhancements of a difficult novel by an intelligent narrator; five stars aren't enough for what Rudnicki accomplishes here.

Note: Delany plays with typescript and page design in a few places in Dhalgren, and there's no way Rudnicki can really "voice" those things. So if you want the full experience of every single passage, especially in the last section of the book, you'll have to get a paper copy (the Vintage one is fine). But, that aside, there's nothing lacking here.

3 people found this helpful

Yeasayers say yes. Naysayers say no.

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes. It is experimental literature that has worn the test of time. If we shall fall for the fallacy of credentialism, Umberto Eco, Theodore Sturgeon, David Bowie, endorse this delicate fragile, imperfect yet bold unabashed and honest work.If it ain't for you then you don't have a place in Bellona.Go somewhere else.As for the rest of us, you are welcome here.Look, you'll know right away if this is not for you. Don't expect anything from Dhalgren. It is more suggestive than expressive. If you expect anything, be prepared for disappointment.However, if you take it as it comes, if you say yes, you are in for a treat. This is something unlike anything that came before it.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Dhalgren?

Sex with trees, the banality of prose. The beauty of it.

What about Stefan Rudnicki’s performance did you like?

His deep cadence plays well with the essence of this peculiar and noteworth work..

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

What you see is incomparable to what you think.

Any additional comments?

This is a landmark work that while imperfect, its contrivances suggests so much it must not be overlooked.All you have to do it let it.

23 people found this helpful

Not for the faint, n words abound pederasty too.

A difficult read, full of blase violence, pederasty, and ends where comfort intersects with horror. it was powerful, sickening, and prescient. bit also the first time I've encountered pansexuality actually shown in literature.

2 people found this helpful

Not for casual readers

Would you try another book from Samuel R. Delany and/or Stefan Rudnicki?

Samuel R Delany's Sci-Fi books are great. However Dhalgren is not really a sci-fi book. It is an exploration of experimental prose and poetry. Don't get me wrong, there are moments of genius in the chaos.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

There are a handful of powerful scenes in the book that are highly realistic. In fact, it is believed that some of the content has been adapted from Delany's own personal experiences. This would not be surprising.The weakest aspect of Dhalgren is it's length. If the book was cut in half, it would be more mainstream.

Any additional comments?

Overall Dhalgren is worth your time if you are a general lover of the written word, who is looking for something a little bit different, maybe even slightly insane.

7 people found this helpful

An enduring classic or the Emperor's new clothes?

Any additional comments?

Dhalgren is one of those books where I was left wondering if it was a “literary marvel and a groundbreaking work of American magical realism.” or a literary version of the emperor’s new clothes. Based on hundreds of glowing reviews and its placement high on most must-read sci-fi lists, there are many who believe this is a classic. One reader in my discussion group said “It's enough to me that odd and interesting events happen, characters have interesting conversations/insights, and there are occasional hot sex scenes.”

I’m not so sure.

Weighing in at over 800 pages, much of what happens takes place in Bellona, a city devastated by some unknown calamity and follows the wanderings, adventures, discussions and passionate encounters of a homeless young man who cannot remember his name and assumes the moniker Kidd, or Kid depending where you are in the book. While Bellona and the people Kidd encounters are interesting, the book is essentially plotless with Delaney teasing readers frequently with inexplicable events and possibly profound insights that flutter just outside of the reader’s understanding.

Written in the mid-1970s , Dhalgren shares the aimlessness and lack of purpose that permeated that decade between the sexual revolution and the AIDS epidemic, when physical passion replaced the passion engendered by a sense of purpose. The conversations about such still-debated topics as race, gender and sexuality may have been groundbreaking and original when written but now seem to be shallow and selfish. Maybe the most profound thing Delaney says is his statement on page 685 that “balling a couple of dozen people in one night is merely a prerequisite for understanding anything worth knowing.”
William Gibson was known to say that Dhalgren is a riddle never meant to be solved. Maybe it is, like Russia, a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. Or maybe, like several of the denizens of Bellona, the Emperor has no clothes. Who’s to say?

17 people found this helpful

Magnum opus

This novel is unique. I say that having read lots of novels. Delany takes us to a fictional city where something has happened. No one knows exactly what has happened. The laws of physics are not as applicable here as elsewhere. The main character is already struggling with his own perception of reality, and when you add the circumstances of the "autumnal city" to the mix, things get really bizarre. If you are looking for a linear plot, look elsewhere. If you don't mind having your brains scrambled a bit, and finding yourself amazed at the final pages, go for it. If you don't think you like SF, don't worry. This is SF, but it is so far removed from the traditional conventions of SF that lots of SF people trashed this book when it came out. Yet it is his most popular book, and with good reason. It is probably his most remarkable book, but he is a remarkable writer, so it's hard to say.

1 person found this helpful

Beautiful nothing

Beautifully written piece of work that goes nowhere and says nothing. Very boring to get through and unsatisfying to finish.

1 person found this helpful