Dhalgren in On Paths Unknown

Feb 22, 2013 Jonathan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, learning-to-listen

The Tunnel
Gravity’s Rainbow/Mason & Dixon
The Recognitions/JR
The Public Burning
Take Five
Women and Men/Lookout Cartridge
Miss Macintosh My Darling
Take it or leave it
Dhalgren

If the above list means anything to you, then so should the inclusion of this deeply impressive, deeply ambitious, deeply experimental text. It is big, transgressive, meta-fictional, and intelligent. It also loops round on itself like the Wake (and loops again internally or, at least, reaches back and forward with many-te ...more

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Aug 19, 2009 Nate D rated it it was amazing

Shelves: dystopiary, post-modernism, 70s-delerium, read-in-2009, favorites

Revision.

This might turn out to be one of those reviews I write over and over.

Perhaps such a novel -- equal parts fine-focused lens, social/personal mirror, and harshly distorting prism -- just demands this endless rethinking.

So what is Dhalgren?

It is a deft cultural analysis, part perfectly current, part more dated 60s/70s scrutiny that is nonetheless perceptive and interesting.

It is a probing of time and perception laid out in dilating asymptotic fade contracting sudden into action. Or perhaps ...more

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Jul 09, 2016 Jonfaith rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: speculativelyspeaking

I am limited, finite and fixed. I am in terror of the infinity before me, having come through the one behind bringing no knowledge I can take on.

What an odd, warped achievement. Delany provides us a reimagined Ellisonian treatise on Invisibility and Impermanence. He paints a city of possibility and then wipes his creation into a blotchy blur. This is Bellona. Delany also eviscerates the idea of the homo faber.

While the depicted poet lacks a shoe, it is hands which reign in Dhalgren. They are mo ...more

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Jan 24, 2019 Tracy added it · review of another edition

Shelves: abandoned-books

Ok I tried. Life is too short. This book is 900 pages long and at 40% through it nothing has happened. Kidd gets stoned, he has a lot of sex he starts writing poetry. The city had been burning for weeks. Why are there two moons? Where does the food and alcohol appear from? Why would anyone stay in this city? It’s confusing and uneventful. The racist, misogynistic and archaic language is off putting. I am quite aware that Samuel Delaney is black and gay. I suppose the language would have been les ...more

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Aug 27, 2011 Aloha marked it as to-read-1

Shelves: a-ebooks, a-own, a-paper-book, z-delany-samuel-r, genre-dark-sci-fi, c-sf-masterworks

The paperback came in. In comparison to the official eBook with the paperback, there is a loss of formatting as far as how the blocks of words are arranged. But this isn't noticeable until towards the end of the book. I think if you want the complete and accurate experience, then get the paperback. I'm going to do both the eBook and the paperback, since I'm not a fan of the inflexible paper type. ...more

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