Return to Nevèrÿon (Return to Nevèrÿon, #4)

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Return to Nevèrÿon (Return to Nevèrÿon #4)

3.93 of 5 stars 3.93 · rating details · 165 ratings · 7 reviews

In his four-volume series Return to Neveryeon, Hugo and Nebula award-winner Samuel R. Delany appropriated the conceits of sword-and-sorcery fantasy to explore his characteristic themes of language, power, gender, and the nature of civilization. Wesleyan University Press has reissued the long-unavailable Neveryeonvolumes in trade paperback.
The eleven stories, novellas, and...more

Paperback, 293 pages

Published April 25th 1994 by Wesleyan (first published November 1987)

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Sep 07, 2011 edward rathke rated it 4 of 5 stars

A fitting ending, bringing us back to where this all started, literally, by repeating the initial tale in the series.

Again, very concerned with language and power, but so much more.

This series is just beyond brilliant to me. It certainly isn't for everyone, but if you're interested in the way language shapes and constructs and orders civilizations and peoples and where power comes from, the forms it takes, and deep, erudite plunges into the psychology, not only of sex, but of desire, of lust,...more A fitting ending, bringing us back to where this all started, literally, by repeating the initial tale in the series.

Again, very concerned with language and power, but so much more.

This series is just beyond brilliant to me. It certainly isn't for everyone, but if you're interested in the way language shapes and constructs and orders civilizations and peoples and where power comes from, the forms it takes, and deep, erudite plunges into the psychology, not only of sex, but of desire, of lust, then this is for you.

The series is a hall of mirrors, infinitely reflecting itself, and, in this way, it is ever-expanding, partly because it doesn't end. While the series very clearly deals with certain characters, it is not so much about those characters as it is about the nature of language and narratives. That's not to say we don't feel connected to the characters. Nothing could be further from the truth, really. It's engrossing, not only for its ideas [which are monumental and numerous], but for the sheer pleasure it takes in telling its stories, in giving us these characters, who are drawn meticulously. These are powerful stories in their own right, but, more than that, they're beautiful. But then when combined with the ideas present: it's similar to Dostoevsky despite being so obviously different from him in every imaginable way. I think the comparison's useful. Dostoevsky was a writer of profound ideas, and that same kind of brilliant mind is behind these stories, though maybe more academic, and certainly more playful and lighter in tone.

The series is a constant critique and exploration of itself, too, with the stories deconstructing one another, commenting on one another, even completely undercutting and subverting each other. And, really, it is a retelling of the world we live in now, and so Neveryon is our mirror that we look into, watching our reflection fragment and deconstruct and reconstruct itself endlessly.

It's truly an amazing literary feat, to do so much philosophically while remaining entertaining. Though, to be fair, these are not the kind of stories that will excite you with action and adventure and daring [though there is that here, too]. More than that, they are very real stories about very real people doing very real things in a world that's almost real but feels, somehow, realer.

Too, these stories, individually, are much less than them combined. So while one story or the other may miss for you, the overall effect is dazzling. It's for this reason that I've refrained from giving the books five stars, individually. Now that I'm finished and the whole shape is in my head [or at least the small amount I'm able to keep there], it becomes so much more. The stories are good by themselves, but, together, man, they're truly just something else entirely. And it's important to count every page of these books together, from the quotes that introduce each story, to the appendices and afterwords and acknowledgements, which are, oddly enough, just as much a part of the overall narrative of the series [which, I mean, even though it's a reflection of our world, it also exists in our world, so the lines really start breaking down to the point that the reflection becomes what the object is, and vice versa: a mirror is a reflection but it is also a mirror] because they all add up, all form a greater whole, something that reaches towards an almost perfect novel, despite, essentially, being a collection of eleven stories over four books.

Highly recommended. (less)

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Oct 09, 2009 Cécile Cristofari rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction-fantasy

The circle's closed, and now I can give my definitive impression: Delany is a genius. This series is a masterpiece. I gave a big sigh of reliefs when I reached the last page, but I still find it absolutely awesome, and now I am going to wash my brain off with some Buffy the Vampire Slayer cause if I spend one more second thinking I'm going to burn out.

The only negative thing I could say is, perhaps, if you are just looking for a nice fun book and you don't want to think to much, you may just be...more The circle's closed, and now I can give my definitive impression: Delany is a genius. This series is a masterpiece. I gave a big sigh of reliefs when I reached the last page, but I still find it absolutely awesome, and now I am going to wash my brain off with some Buffy the Vampire Slayer cause if I spend one more second thinking I'm going to burn out.

The only negative thing I could say is, perhaps, if you are just looking for a nice fun book and you don't want to think to much, you may just be bored to death. This is not one of those books like The Lord of the Rings that have a bit of everytthing for everyone, adventure for adventure-lovers, a nice world, and yes, some literature for those who like it. According to the author, it's a very long treaty in semiotics and semiology (and no, I still haven't found out whatever the Modular Calculus was... but I will, one day). I would add on poetry, sociology, history and how to stretch the architecture of a story to its limits. It is all that, and a novel at the same time, although you really have to enjoy thinking on all those things if you don't want to start nodding around chapter 2.

The third volume took the reader back to his own world, with some brutality I must say. The fourth book gently lulls him back to the novellistic illusion. We meet Gorgik the Liberator again, after he has completed his quest, the go back in time to a character we had only glimpsed (indeed, I'm just assuming it's the same character, as it is not explicitly said), and then just when we expect closure, just when we have read an umpteenth version of the Libertor's tale with yet another point of view, and we are expecting something along the lines of "but now our tale is over, so let's just stop talking about it" (in the form of Gorgik's death or anything), we come across an exact repetition of The Tale of Gorgik, the very first part of the first book of the series. After the painful trip between Neveryon and New York in the first volume, this time we are gently dragged back to the beginning of the tale, and we are even spared the pain of seeing it end, while at the same time, Delany makes his point better than ever that it is only a tale (how else can a life go back to its own beginning when it comes to its end?).

For me this is the ultimate demonstration of the power of storytelling. Delany kept telling me for four volumes that this was only a story and I should start thinking of the problems of meaning and signs instead of taking it literally, and still I cared for the story. All right, I did get a little bored at times, espectially at the beginning when I didn't know what to expect, but at the end I was at the same time thinking of all the fine points Delany was making and getting deeply engaged in the story he was telling me. Postmodernists got it wrong, I'm afraid: you cannot prevent people from getting enthralled in fiction, however repeatedly you point out that none of this is real. At least this makes me more than ever optimistic about the future of fantasy. Too bad this series is not more widely read!(less)

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Aug 12, 2011 John rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: my-books

I came across the first book in the Return to Neveryon series (Tales of Neveryon) at random in a small bookstore in Stratford-upon-Avon in England. It looked interesting, so I bought it and read it on the flight back to the States. This novel sparked a love affair with the writings of Samuel R. Delany - both fiction and non-fiction, across multiple genres - that continues to this day.

One of the best reasons to read the series, though, are the appendices in each book in which he shows us the insp...more

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Nov 02, 2011 megan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: on-writing, on-reading, queer, scifi

this one was not as immediately pleasurable to read as the others, but as the final volume it puts the series as a whole in new light as the astoundingly meticulously well-constructed world system it is. not that we didn't know that already. the last tale? i don't want to spoil it! chip, you are a sly one.

plus the appendix theorizes the entire series in relation to semiotics, the problem of gender in relation to social-power-relations and language, the history of the novel, and other stuff in m...more

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Feb 04, 2011 Erik Graff rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Delany fans

Recommended to Erik by: no one

Shelves: sf

This is the fourth and final volume of the Neveryon series. Although characteristically intelligent and well-written, I probably didn't enjoy it as much as I would have if I'd read them in sequence.

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Aug 13, 2008 Lollo rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

well, i only read half of it actually. i just couldn't get into it, sadly. perhaps i will try some of his others or just be satisfied with his autobiography.

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Jun 23, 2008 Pikapaula rated it 5 of 5 stars

Smart, dense, yet readable science fiction/fantasy. Samuel Delaney is a total genius.

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About Samuel R. Delany

Samuel Ray Delany, also known as "Chip," is an award-winning American science fiction author. He was born to a prominent black family on April 1, 1942, and raised in Harlem. His mother, Margaret Carey Boyd Delany, was a library clerk in the New York Public Library system. His father, Samuel Ray Delany, Senior, ran a successful Harlem undertaking establishment, Levy & Delany Funeral Home, on 7t...more Samuel Ray Delany, also known as "Chip," is an award-winning American science fiction author. He was born to a prominent black family on April 1, 1942, and raised in Harlem. His mother, Margaret Carey Boyd Delany, was a library clerk in the New York Public Library system. His father, Samuel Ray Delany, Senior, ran a successful Harlem undertaking establishment, Levy & Delany Funeral Home, on 7th Avenue, between 1938 and his death in 1960. The family lived in the top two floors of the three-story private house between five- and six-story Harlem apartment buildings. Delany's aunts were Sadie and Bessie Delany; Delany used some of their adventures as the basis for the adventures of his characters Elsie and Corry in the opening novella Atlantis: Model 1924 in his book of largely autobiographical stories Atlantis: Three Tales.

Delany attended the Dalton School and the Bronx High School of Science, during which he was selected to attend Camp Rising Sun, the Louis August Jonas Foundation's international summer scholarship program. Delany and poet Marilyn Hacker met in high school, and were married in 1961. Their marriage lasted nineteen years. They had a daughter, Iva Hacker-Delany (b. 1974), who spent a decade working in theater in New York City.

Delany was a published science fiction author by the age of 20. He published nine well-regarded science fiction novels between 1962 and 1968, as well as several prize-winning short stories (collected in Driftglass [1971] and more recently in Aye, and Gomorrah, and other stories [2002]). His eleventh and most popular novel, Dhalgren, was published in 1975. His main literary project through the late 1970s and 1980s was the Return to Nevèrÿon series, the overall title of the four volumes and also the title of the fourth and final book.

Delany has published several autobiographical/semi-autobiographical accounts of his life as a black, gay, and highly dyslexic writer, including his Hugo award winning autobiography, The Motion of Light in Water.

Since 1988, Delany has been a professor at several universities. This includes eleven years as a professor of comparative literature at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, a year and a half as an English professor at the University at Buffalo. He then moved to the English Department of Temple University in 2001, where he has been teaching since. He has had several visiting guest professorships before and during these same years. He has also published several books of criticism, interviews, and essays. In one of his non-fiction books, Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (1999), he draws on personal experience to examine the relationship between the effort to redevelop Times Square and the public sex lives of working-class men, gay and straight, in New York City.

In 2007, Delany was the subject of a documentary film, The Polymath, or, The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman. The film debuted on April 25 at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival.(less)

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