Dhalgren

This is a brilliant, beautifully written book, I read it in 2014. It is not dated (yet), nor nostalgic. It's still a profound vision of humanity, relationships, class, sexuality etc . . .

From the wildly differing reviews, it's obvious Dhalgren isn't for everybody. Although it is by a classic SF writer, this book marks the time when Delany ceases to confine himself to classic SF and uses his skill to explore other themes he is interested in, themes I'd guess are very personal to him - he does so with a vengeance. It's great an SF writer can branch out like this, to produce staggering pieces of fiction on a par or better than those in the literary sector. It makes the field of SF so strong in its diversity, though perhaps unpredictable for the reader. It's fun to have authors like PK Dick, AC Clarke, Olaf Stapledon at the core, but then you get other SF writers stretching that core like Heinlein, Doris Lessing, + individual books such as Stand on Zanzibar etc.

Once I start a book, I have to finish. I was put off by the reviews of Dhalgren. I didn't read it for years, ignored its call for decades; I was lead to believe the book would be a difficult tome and I'd feel chained to it. It got more daunting as I continually failed to pick it up. I can honestly say this is one of the easiest and most enjoyable books I have read. There is a poetic beginning to the book which lasts about ten pages; it's a bit like walking through a dark swamp. I think Delany does this because he wants you to emerge into the other world of Bellona as from a dream (and it works well - though I'm glad it wasn't longer than those few pages). Once you've got out of the dream swamp Delany is very explicit, you are in Bellona, the detail is incredible and there isn't a wasted word. I would definitely not want this book to be shorter (it's too fun being immersed in such a real alter-reality). [ . . . and that's why it's SF: because it is another reality.]

The dreaminess vanishes and you are welcomed to the cinders of Bellona, a US city where people are left to fend for themselves. That is basically what Delany wants to explore: how people would interact in a situation entirely cut off from our normal, structured routines, the drudgery of 9-5 work, matters of state, there is no money, somehow the shops replenish themselves . . . strange things happen, but that seems to be more on the periphery - of central concern are the dynamics between the characters, characters who are so alive.

So, Bellona's particular manifestation of Anarchy, an absence of endorsed rules or structures, forces a character to figure out how they fit and who they are - beyond just a name. The story follows amnesiac 'Kid', coming out of the dream not knowing who he is, remembering a bit of time in a psychiatric hospital and making his way through Bellona a journey of self discovery. It is as though Bellona's rubble mirrors Kid's character. [And then when Kid is less confused about who he is, it's time to leave. Bellona showing no promise of changing, will always be a wreck, with unpredictable extra moons . . .]

There are other things about the structure of the book, it's a circular novel, Kid picks up a book of poetry which he continues to write, and through which he might be constructing himself. I don't think you are supposed to fully understand it, again, it's part of the construct that enables Delany to explore a 'lost individual' and their process of becoming more whole. I hope I'm not making the book sound over-complicated: perhaps the structure is, there is definitely a brilliant mind behind it. Through the structure Delany is able to compare some radical life choices that are in opposition, a traditional family, untraditional family groupings where anything goes (!!!), a stable relationship, rival gangs . . . the sexuality in the book is described explicitly and it's ground-breaking for such a book (especially SF?). And we don't need to mention when it was written, it's still ground-breaking given it's context.

I am deliberately avoiding describing particular scenes as it detracts from the joy of discovering them, but they are ripe in this book, as is the humour. There are a couple laugh out loud bits. Then, it has to be mentioned, the sex in Dhalgren; it could no doubt inspire a dissertation. It's kind of amazing how Delany got away with it when it was published. Was I asleep? I didn't hear any controversy about this book (if I had, I would have read it sooner). Did the book avoid controversy simply because of its SF cloak? (Well done, if so.) One thing (amongst others) that saves the descriptions of sex is that it's 100% honest - rare to find. Anybody trying to ban the book, would have to reveal themselves as a blatant repressor, yet another idiot who wants to put a fist to our ears and mouth. Though the sex is sometimes shocking, Delany doesn't cross the border into exploitation; he demonstrates a great ability in his sexual descriptions and careful placement of each scene. The sex scenes are intrinsic to the fabrication of the characters, and as one of the central concerns of the book is individual identity, they are important. On a wider political level, beyond the book, the scenes are important in a world so sexually mixed up.

People have discussed how Dhalgren should be classified - SF or not? It's a difficult question. In a way, it might be better for the book if it weren't recognised as SF: we all know how the label of SF can kill a book to the wider audience. Equally, as is apparent by some of the bad reviews the book is getting here: some SF fans feel let down with Dhalgren, that there isn't more of an SF theme. It's interesting to me that this book isn't talked about more, and outside of 'cult interest'. It deserves a wider readership. Partly the problem is it's unclassifiable nature. I'd guess, that one of Delany's aims is to thwart confines of classification, force us to question / answer what identifies something as what it is, break (down) rules, stretch our perception of the purpose of writing. Ultimately, I'm glad that Dhalgren stands proud within the classification of SF, it demonstrates that SF is packed with a strong range of titles, tackling universal issues on par or perhaps better than other genres.

Well, I partly apologise for this review. I wanted to try to tear away some of the mythology surrounding the book and cry out it's a ripping yarn of an individual finding his way through a world on the brink, which it is!!! [But no, it doesn't have a conventional 'story'.] I'd sit with the book for hours at a time, getting through the book, chunks at a time, and with intense pleasure. Because the book is so long, Delany, with a magician's ease, also manages to convey a whole lot more. No doubt this book isn't for everyone. Also no doubt: MANY MORE PEOPLE SHOULD BE READING THIS BOOK.

a behemoth. Certainly there are much longer novels out there, but rarely does one see a creature matching this degree of size and power. Dhalgren is the first novel that I’ve read that manages to effectively transform the reading process itself into an experience of culture. In other words, Delany’s construction and style make this a metanovel where the reading of it, in all its nonstandard ways, creates the sensations of Dhalgren’s characters and settings a reality in the reader. Just as ‘The Kid’ enters into the bizarrely incomprehensible city of Bellona, so goes the reader into a hazy experience of uncertainty and wonder that catalyzes introspection and revelation. Now granted, not everyone is going to find this to be a good thing. If you only care about entertainment and story, don’t bother, but if you appreciate something more, this is a city you should enter, an experience of which you should partake.

Dhalgren is apocalyptic. Typically this genre within science fiction uses the popular definition of the word, to convey disaster, or post-disaster. In Dhalgren Bellona has gone through some sort of disaster, but the remainder of the world is said to be fine. Bellona is isolated in its trauma. Delany does not use this genre to explore post-apocalyptic action, such as the contrasts of human decency or barbarism that come in response to a loss of civilization. Instead he is using it to explore the concept of apocalypse in its original sense: a revealing. Within the novel itself isolated Bellona provides the environment for the unreliable, point-of-view protagonist to discover himself. ‘The Kid’ is an amnesiac - of sorts - with a mental history suggesting much of what he sees and records may be incorrect. Though he never determines who exactly he is, he does go through revelations regarding his nature. Delany seems to link this process of apocalypse intimately with the culture of art and community, of creativity and the act of creating to explore with others this business of existence and living. Lost in Bellona, “The Kid” becomes the leader of a gang, an influential poet, and an excellent recorder of the details of living in this weird city. Simultaneously Dhalgren is a revelation to the reader: the unveiling of a period of history, of a counter culture. Like any good apocalyptic literature, Bellona is a symbol for a time that has largely passed, but that does not make the novel dated, for its themes are universal. Though I wasn’t born until after the era of culture this novel manifests, I suspect that reading Dhalgren is a fair approximation without a time machine on hand.

Dhalgren is inspirational, either for adoration or derision, or sometimes both. It is easy to see why the novel is beloved by those like William Gibson, who writes a lovely introduction to this edition. Yet, other critics hate this novel with zeal. If it’s not your cup of tea, it’s easy to see how it could infuriate you. The opening and closing portions of the novel are the most daunting, so I wouldn’t suggest giving up on this until you reach the third chapter and still find it unreadable. If by that point you are interested it is worth continuing. Yet, Dhalgren isn’t a perfect novel (or metanovel even). It has its own proper issues. By the last chapters all points have been covered really, and it begins to weigh as excessively written. Given how quickly the first publication of Dhalgren was rushed out (with numerous errors that later had to be fixed – and couldn’t have been easy to find considering how much intentional errors/incomprehensible bits there are) one wishes that an editor would have taken a sterner red marker to the manuscript.
Dhalgren is literature, only minimally science fiction, and in keeping with its focus on detail over ‘big picture’ there are some rather frank depictions of sexuality in its myriad forms. I recommend looking over other reviews and checking it out for yourself. It is a bit too filled with extraneous bits for me to want to reread in its entirety again (as Gibson has), but that’s the nice thing about an e-book where I don’t feel bad about highlighting and snipping out bits of the text. (I received an electronic copy of this from Open Road Media through NetGalley.)

Dhalgren is special; I will not forget the experience of stumbling through its pages, lost on the ever-shifting streets of Bellona, entranced by the mysterious wonders writ upon the skies in moments of bright clarity amid hazy gray fogs.

Dhalgren is

This is a brilliant, beautifully written book, I read it in 2014. It is not dated (yet), nor nostalgic. It's still a profound vision of humanity, relationships, class, sexuality etc . . .

From the wildly differing reviews, it's obvious Dhalgren isn't for everybody. Although it is by a classic SF writer, this book marks the time when Delany ceases to confine himself to classic SF and uses his skill to explore other themes he is interested in, themes I'd guess are very personal to him - he does so with a vengeance. It's great an SF writer can branch out like this, to produce staggering pieces of fiction on a par or better than those in the literary sector. It makes the field of SF so strong in its diversity, though perhaps unpredictable for the reader. It's fun to have authors like PK Dick, AC Clarke, Olaf Stapledon at the core, but then you get other SF writers stretching that core like Heinlein, Doris Lessing, + individual books such as Stand on Zanzibar etc.

Once I start a book, I have to finish. I was put off by the reviews of Dhalgren. I didn't read it for years, ignored its call for decades; I was lead to believe the book would be a difficult tome and I'd feel chained to it. It got more daunting as I continually failed to pick it up. I can honestly say this is one of the easiest and most enjoyable books I have read. There is a poetic beginning to the book which lasts about ten pages; it's a bit like walking through a dark swamp. I think Delany does this because he wants you to emerge into the other world of Bellona as from a dream (and it works well - though I'm glad it wasn't longer than those few pages). Once you've got out of the dream swamp Delany is very explicit, you are in Bellona, the detail is incredible and there isn't a wasted word. I would definitely not want this book to be shorter (it's too fun being immersed in such a real alter-reality). [ . . . and that's why it's SF: because it is another reality.]

The dreaminess vanishes and you are welcomed to the cinders of Bellona, a US city where people are left to fend for themselves. That is basically what Delany wants to explore: how people would interact in a situation entirely cut off from our normal, structured routines, the drudgery of 9-5 work, matters of state, there is no money, somehow the shops replenish themselves . . . strange things happen, but that seems to be more on the periphery - of central concern are the dynamics between the characters, characters who are so alive.

So, Bellona's particular manifestation of Anarchy, an absence of endorsed rules or structures, forces a character to figure out how they fit and who they are - beyond just a name. The story follows amnesiac 'Kid', coming out of the dream not knowing who he is, remembering a bit of time in a psychiatric hospital and making his way through Bellona a journey of self discovery. It is as though Bellona's rubble mirrors Kid's character. [And then when Kid is less confused about who he is, it's time to leave. Bellona showing no promise of changing, will always be a wreck, with unpredictable extra moons . . .]

There are other things about the structure of the book, it's a circular novel, Kid picks up a book of poetry which he continues to write, and through which he might be constructing himself. I don't think you are supposed to fully understand it, again, it's part of the construct that enables Delany to explore a 'lost individual' and their process of becoming more whole. I hope I'm not making the book sound over-complicated: perhaps the structure is, there is definitely a brilliant mind behind it. Through the structure Delany is able to compare some radical life choices that are in opposition, a traditional family, untraditional family groupings where anything goes (!!!), a stable relationship, rival gangs . . . the sexuality in the book is described explicitly and it's ground-breaking for such a book (especially SF?). And we don't need to mention when it was written, it's still ground-breaking given it's context.

I am deliberately avoiding describing particular scenes as it detracts from the joy of discovering them, but they are ripe in this book, as is the humour. There are a couple laugh out loud bits. Then, it has to be mentioned, the sex in Dhalgren; it could no doubt inspire a dissertation. It's kind of amazing how Delany got away with it when it was published. Was I asleep? I didn't hear any controversy about this book (if I had, I would have read it sooner). Did the book avoid controversy simply because of its SF cloak? (Well done, if so.) One thing (amongst others) that saves the descriptions of sex is that it's 100% honest - rare to find. Anybody trying to ban the book, would have to reveal themselves as a blatant repressor, yet another idiot who wants to put a fist to our ears and mouth. Though the sex is sometimes shocking, Delany doesn't cross the border into exploitation; he demonstrates a great ability in his sexual descriptions and careful placement of each scene. The sex scenes are intrinsic to the fabrication of the characters, and as one of the central concerns of the book is individual identity, they are important. On a wider political level, beyond the book, the scenes are important in a world so sexually mixed up.

People have discussed how Dhalgren should be classified - SF or not? It's a difficult question. In a way, it might be better for the book if it weren't recognised as SF: we all know how the label of SF can kill a book to the wider audience. Equally, as is apparent by some of the bad reviews the book is getting here: some SF fans feel let down with Dhalgren, that there isn't more of an SF theme. It's interesting to me that this book isn't talked about more, and outside of 'cult interest'. It deserves a wider readership. Partly the problem is it's unclassifiable nature. I'd guess, that one of Delany's aims is to thwart confines of classification, force us to question / answer what identifies something as what it is, break (down) rules, stretch our perception of the purpose of writing. Ultimately, I'm glad that Dhalgren stands proud within the classification of SF, it demonstrates that SF is packed with a strong range of titles, tackling universal issues on par or perhaps better than other genres.

Well, I partly apologise for this review. I wanted to try to tear away some of the mythology surrounding the book and cry out it's a ripping yarn of an individual finding his way through a world on the brink, which it is!!! [But no, it doesn't have a conventional 'story'.] I'd sit with the book for hours at a time, getting through the book, chunks at a time, and with intense pleasure. Because the book is so long, Delany, with a magician's ease, also manages to convey a whole lot more. No doubt this book isn't for everyone. Also no doubt: MANY MORE PEOPLE SHOULD BE READING THIS BOOK.

It's been several years since I happened upon, and read, this book, and I keep meaning to revisit it. At the time it was completely unique, descriptive complex, evocative ... and it's obviously memorable. Also not for the squeamish. Others may write long and complicated reviews, but I'm pretty sure I couldn't have articulated much about this book even right after I read it. I could respond to certain prompts, or talk about my favorite aspects or moments, but to describe the overall work, well, I couldn't do it then, so maybe now that I'm older and wiser I could grasp it more fully.

I like shiny souvenirs, even in books, so my favorite part of this work is the weapon called an orchid. I don't even know if they're real. I don't think they were meant to be used as weapons, either; more an element of style.

Some of the visceral stuff stays with me as well, I'm afraid, but I can handle it. I'd rather strange details of that sort than hostile, violence-related themes where the plots are about as deep as a "Hulk smash" storyline. If you're intrigued, get it from the library, or download a sample, and give it a shot. What do you have to lose? It's epic. It might not be your kind of epic, but you never know until you try.

Dhalgren by Samuel Delaney

Dhalgren is a weird case for me, because when I was first reading it and people asked me how it was, I would say, "I really like it, but I'm not sure I would recommend it." It's a very punk novel, in a post-apocalyptic and forgotten city called Bellona, with a poetic and sex-loving wanderer simply named The Kid as the protagonist. The point of view varies from past to present, from first to third tense seemingly at random; punctuation and complete sentences aren't a constant occurrence. It's like nothing I've ever read. It stuck with me long after I'd finished it in a way most books do not, and I came to realize that the reason I liked it so much was this: if I were to live in any bohemian anarchic society, this is the one I would choose. If you want to work you can; if not, you don't. If you want to be part of a gang, they'll welcome you; if you want to pretend life still goes on as normal, move into a vacant apartment. When you want to get laid, there's always someone there for you; if you just want to hang out with friends, they're already there. It follows the life of a free-living writer without getting bogged down in drugs like so many similar novels predictably do. It's creative and different and downright weird. But if you're turned off by detailed and nontraditional sex scenes, this book is not for you. And don't expect all the freaky stuff that happens in Bellona to have a neat and tidy explanation. It doesn't. Dhalgren is straight up something way different and fun for the adventurous. It's definitely a unique read.

"Dhalgren" is a work about many things: sex, sexuality, drugs, life, friendship, money, materialism, religion, stability, class, race, etc. Like most Utopian works it eliminates personal property as a factor so that the characters can explore their natures uninhibited by financial constraints. From hippiedom to youth gangs to neo-feudalism to middle class-ness the novel explores the formation of society under lawless conditions and without resource boundaries.

However, the question it deals most squarely with is art and its relationship to the human mind and society. Lanya, a central character speaks directly to this topic in the following speech:

"About art. And psychiatry. They're both self-perpetuating systems. Like religion. All three of them promise you a sense of inner worth and meaning, and spend a lot of time telling you about the suffering you have to go through to achieve it. As soon as you get a problem in any one of them, the solution it gives is always to go deeper into the same system. They're all in rather uneasy truce with one another in what's actually a mortal war. Like all self-reinforcing systems. At best, each is trying to encompass the other two and define them as sub-groups. You know: religion and art are both forms of madness and madness is the realm of psychiatry. Or, art is the study and praise of man and man's ideals, so therefore a religious experience becomes just a brutalized aesthetic response and psychiatry is just another tool for the artist to observe man and render his portraits more accurately. And the religious attitude I guess is that the other two are only useful as long as they promote the good life. At worst, they all try to destroy one another."

But ultimately Delany concentrates his efforts into the meaning of literature and it relationships to the writer, the reader, the industry, the critics, and finally society in general. This is not only done through dialogue between the characters but also through the structure and flow of the novel. The reader is driven into the state of mind of the primary character and his struggle to understand the creative condition.

It took me thirty years to start and finish this book but I will forever be grateful that I hung on to my copy since 1979...

I have read this perplexing book maybe four times now.

I bought it in '76 when it was first available in the UK in an American edition, which was good because at 900+ pages the glue commonly used by UK publishers would be powder by now.

The book is a first person narrative by a young man who may be insane or may have slipped into the Twilight Zone bigtime. He stumbles through the days and nights in the disaster-struck city of Bellona becoming in the course of things a published poet.

Cynthia Ward thinks she's nailed the "meaning" of this book and maybe she's right, but I've never once finished the damn thing and been left feeling I knew what it was I'd just had done to me. It's like a drug. I don't understand it but I have to keep coming back for more.

Others warn that this isn't a "usual" Delany book but I disagree. Delany's standard set-dressing is all over this thing: he just sets fire to each piece before he lets you see it is all.

The book is certainly about the creative process. All the really interesting characters, the "good guys" if you will (some of whom are unspeakably vile people) are involved in some way, shape or form in creation of something.

Maybe Cynthia Ward has the right of it. I'm not sure it's as cut-and-dried as all that though.

Recommended.

Described by William Gibson as "a riddle that was never meant to be solved" and "science fiction without either the science part or the fast-moving plot", Dhalgren is first and foremost a difficult novel.

At close to 800 pages, it towers above the reader, offering very little in terms of cheap thrills or the kind of rewards one might legitimately expect from a novel. No background, no explanation about anything, no conventional ending, except for a circular and largely symbolic "new beginning".

The main character is an amnesiac, possibly deranged hobo called "the Kid". He's one of the many characters who end up in Bellona, a bombed-out city in the Midwest where both time and physics behave strangely. No real explanation about what happened to Bellona in the first place is ever provided, we are merely informed that "in the rest of the country things are normal".

The Kid falls in with a gang of Hell's Angels look-alikes called "Scorpions", he falls in love with an equally strange girl, writes some poetry, deals with the local deus ex machina (the kind of character who, in gothic tales, might have presided over the village, living in a creepy castle) and...has a lot of kinky sex, of which the pages of Dhalgren are soaked.

As a metaphor of the '60s, Dhalgren has its own merits and the writing is beautiful, provided you have a thing for modernist techniques. As most books this long...it could easily do with about 200 pages less but this is a minor criticism.

A difficult novel, as I wrote. If you have enough patience, it will also prove quite rewarding.

Where to begin? For 200 pages, DHALGREN is just about the best dystopian novel I've ever read. It's beautiful, enlightening and the underlying mystery is pressing down the back of your neck like a ghost. Reading does not get any better than this. At least not for me.

But then, the novel shifts into a more abstract territory and I don't do so well there. Once Kid settles in Bellona and becomes a part of the social scene, the oppressing mystery takes the backseat to DHALGREN's reflexive ambitions about the writing process. It's not bad. There is not a single page of this novel that's not enjoyable, but I felt a little lost at not seizing the meanginfulness of everything.

I can recognize this is a very important work of science fiction. Bellona is a superb, tormented creation, but it beat me and my straightforward, earnest writing habits. I was down for the count by the time it ended.

This book is somewhat of an enigma. The best comparison I can think of is that reading this is like looking at a piece of modern art. Everyone in the group will get something different out of it and the longer you examine it, the less sense it will make in some ways and the clearer the picture will become in others.

This story has beautiful passages and the writing is expert, but to tell the truth--I thought much of it was slow moving and kind of boring. I would put this in the category of experimental and say that some people will love it more than anything else they have ever read--others, like me, will evaluate it as they read and wonder what the author was thinking.

I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it. I like stories that have clearly defined purpose and a cast of characters that support that purpose. There are many excellent Delany novels out there--this one wasn't my favourite.

This review is based on a complimentary copy from Netgalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

Bellona is a city in Midwestern America that has been completely isolated by some unspecified catastrophe. Kid is a man with a history of mental illnesses and no memory of his own name who looks significantly younger than his age. In the novel, he comes to Bellona and slowly adapts to life there, exploring, in detail, the various social castes occupied and coping mechanisms used by the inhabitants of the isolated, post-apocalyptic city where time passes differently for different people and two moons appear through the perpetual cloudcover. He discovers a half-filled notebook that mimics the novel itself in many ways, and begins to fill its pages first with poetry, and then with a journal of his life in Bellona. Intensely detailed and with a slow-moving plot, Dhalgren is largely impenetrable novel with almost no scientific aspects (despite being in the science-fiction genre), but is an interesting investigation into the roles of story, narrator, protagonist, and writer within fictional works. I found this novel disappointing and I don't recommend it, but I also wouldn't steer away an interested reader, because the text does have something to offer.

I believe that my major disappointment with Dhalgren was the lack of science. The novel is billed as sci-fi and is written by a sci-fi author, but the text is primarily an unsolved mystery: Kid becomes increasingly immersed in the irregular events that make Bellona so strange, including the unusual, non-linear passage of time, the hugely oversized sun, and the complete lack of radio signals throughout the town, but he never discovers what causes them. The novel is a puzzle without a solution, and so there is no room for the science-fiction explanations that I would expect in a novel from the genre. The lack of science makes the novel feel more fantastical or surreal than sci-fi, which wasn't what I was expecting and continued to be a disappointment throughout the novel. The unsolved nature of the novel may also make it unsatisfying of even frustrating for some readers: the text comes to no definite conclusion. Indeed, the last sentence is a fragment that loops back the sentence fragment that begins the novel.

The combination of the non-linear, confused timeline and the incredibly detailed writing make the book both lengthy and dense. The plot is loosely-constructed and slow moving--not much happens in the course of the novel, but what does happen is described on a daily basis, action for action, the detail. Reading about what Kid wears and eats, when he washes, who he makes love to, how he moves about town... can get repetitive and frustratingly dull.

Those caveats aside, the novel does provide a detailed, in-world investigation of the roles of text, protagonist/narrator, and writer. The exploration of these themes is not theoretical so much as it is a practical part of Kid's life in Bellona. His discovery of the notebook and the poems and journal entries that he writes, as well as the text of the novel itself and the identities of Kid as author and Delany as author, all interweave, work independently, borrow from each other, and question the underlying identity and nature of all of these roles. Like the mystery of Bellona, the nature of text and authorship is never fully resolved, but the question is given detailed, thorough investigation and provides a wealth of food for through for the reader. It is the saving grace of this difficult and frustrating novel, and I recommend Dhalgren for that purpose only: it is a interesting investigation of the nature of authorship, but not a sci-fi novel nor an enjoyable or satisfying read. I think this book is best for serious, dedicated readers, and don't strongly recommend it either way.

This book is... exactly what I had hoped it would be, and yet nothing I could ever imagine on my own. It's monolithic, dense, labyrinthine and all the other go-to descriptors that pop up on the back cover, but it's also incredibly human. Ultimately it's a tale of outsiders, fringe cultures living on the edge of normal society. Delany was bouncing around the country while he wrote this, living in communes during the long, slow afterburn of the summer of love... this is post-hippie culture exploding into literary brilliance. If you're expecting a sci-fi epic: look elsewhere. The SF elements are tangential at best, though they do make for a fascinating backdrop. If you're looking for answers: look elsewhere. All you'll find are ruminations, confusion, wandering plotlines, and more questions. Which is basically the point. I loved it... you might too, if you approach it with an open mind and do your best to set aside expectations.

Suffice it to say: this was my first Delany novel... and I've read at least 15 more since, and I'm working on hunting down the rest. No one writes like him, and this is his finest work.

I read this book...several decades ago. I still have my thumbworn paperback copy on my bookshelf. Images from the book flash through my mind regularly. (A few times a year; I'm not obsessed) I remember very little of the narrative, a bit more of the characters but the tone and feel of the novel, and those images, stay with me still.

A few years ago I tried to re-reading Dhalgren. I got about a quarter of the way through and put it down. It didn't move me and, like an old love and Frankenstein's monster, I thought it best to let it lie and enjoy the memories.

I think that's good advice for any prospective readers. Go one hundred pages in. If you don't get it, put it down.

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.

I have been reading Science Fiction since I was about 6 or 7 years old. My first books were presents from my grandmother - Tom Swift, Jr. - which I read voraciously. Since then I have read a LOT of SF; SF as in Science/Speculative Fiction. This book is right at the top of the Best list with few others.* I think I've read this about 4 times, possibly 5, over the course of 10 years beginning with the original edition. The first few times I read I just tried to understand where Delany was going. Everything I'd read before was so tight; so concise; so, well, perfect. I mean, the guy is totally brilliant - what was I missing? It was only until the penultimate reading that I discovered The Key. A key that I have never heard mentioned in any of the comments or reviews I've read. I've tried for years to talk myself out of it, but on the dawn of a New Year, I'm emboldened to share.

SPOILER ALERT - if you haven't read the book, stop reading this NOW. Buy it. Read it. And then come back here.

Ironically enough, math-challenged me became rather adept in topology in Junior High (aka Middle School). The notion of Möbius strips and Klein bottles and doughnuts transforming into umbrellas and such was fascinating. The click of the Key happened when I realized that the last sentence of the novel overlapped the first. It ends at the beginning. The Kid's notebook, too, overlaps at beginning and end. This process is reinforced throughout the novel. "Hey", I thought, "What else does that"? Of course, the Möbius strip - a strip of paper with a half twist connected end-to-end on which one can trace a pencil line and eventually arrives at the starting point without lifting the tip off the paper.

The Kid engages with The City organically, moving seamlessly from one cultural milieu to another. He's an outsider and an insider. He's hired hand to a family and then integral to it. He's a victim of a gang and then it's leader. He's a complete nobody and and then a member of the "aristocracy". He travels the entire gamut of the society Delany has constructed in The City; living a lie and eventually becoming it. His sexuality illustrates the one-side-then-the-other structure of the book as he, again seamlessly, transitions from any of the potential modes of sexual expression.

Other reviewers have described the plot line as "labyrinthine", "wandering", "a waste of time". Except for the "waste of time" crack, the sentiments are rather accurate. Until you have The Key. The Key helps us understand that Delany - in his immaculate genius (yes I am a groveling Fan) - is taking us on a highly structured and incredibly astute journey through a made-up society in which we are able to experience, through The Kid, every single element of that society; close-up and afar.

What other novel can you name is structured around a topological/mathematical construct? As I said, I've read a LOT of SF, and I can't think of a one. (The torus in Ringworld doesn't count!)

Plus it''s got some rowdy sex.

If you happen upon this rambling dissertation and have read the book before, I encourage you to have at it again with the Key in mind. If you haven't, perhaps this will help as you travel the path.

Be sure to stash your Orchid at the door.

* Dune, Left Hand of Darkness, Dangerous Visions, Neuromancer are some others.

Is time real or illusion? What about identity? Am I really myself, or am I made up of the thoughts others have of me? Is the story of my life the important bits, or the bits between? So many questions, and Dhalgren asks them all, while not handing you any answers. This is what great fiction does. This is a very meaty book, the kind that needs to be read, re-read, and studied to be understood. Not a light read in any sense of the word.

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.

This is an almost impossible work to judge. I read the reviews from people that I value highly, such as Umberto Eco, and hesitate to disagree, but I must. I look on this book on several levels: the quality of the writing itself, the premise of the work, and the subject of the work. The details have been exhaustively investigated by others more qualified then me.
First, the quality of the writing is absolutely first rate. No question. No one could fault the author on this point.
Second, the premise of the book. Many people have speculated on it, so I throw in my own: what hapens to humans when both society and science itself desert them at the same time, and neither offers any kind of firm foundation? The answer is a lot closer to William Golding's "Lord of the Flies" then Rousseau's noble savage. There is plenty of savagry here, but very liitle that is noble.
Finally, the subject of the work itself. Here, I find myself looking out through the prism of my own perspective, as well as the authors title for the first chapter. The author is a gay black male. So be it. t Given that, the book is filled with sado-masochistic homo-erotic material. There is is an extensive monolgue by the black character George about how the white female he raped "really wanted it", and how rape is justified when the female "really wants it." While the author has perfect right to write such material, I also have the right to be uninterested and disgusted by it. It rapidly became repetative and intrusive, not to mention downright unpleasant. I realise the author was around 30 years old when he composed it, and it needs to be filtered through that persepective, but sooner or later it becomes just plain boring. I mean, enough is enough already.
So, I read the whole book back in the 70's. Took about four days, and I didn't understand 90% of it. I've tried twice in the past two years years, but just can't get past page 200. It isn't worth the effort. If you want to read a similar work about the end of reality, just as well written, lyric in quality as the Kidd seems to be striving for, I sugggest "The Crystal World", but J G Ballard. Only about 190 pages to boot. Much more thought provoking in addition.
Ultimately an overblown incredibly wordy piece of work leading nowhere.
Consider "Catch-22" if you need something about the same theme.

Dhalgren bears some superficial resemblance to science fiction, but it's after something much more ambitious than most SF. Delany constructs a bisexual protagonist, of mixed race, who suffers patches of amnesia (he cannot recall his own name) and who lives in an unstable, shifting city-- through this character Delany questions all the ways identity normally is built. Race, sexual identity, memories, place -- Delany seeks to call attention to these things as liquid, not fixed. In turn, this calls the stories we tell about ourselves into question, and the book frequently challenges the very premise of narrative structure as a way to represent the world accurately. (This has the potent effect of using what initially appear to be flaws in the novel as points in the book's overall argument.) Things start off slow, but by the book's final section the book's elegant construction becomes plain: everything begins to resonate with everything else, leaving you slack-jawed and wowed. A major work, erotic, nuanced, and brilliant: as thorough an exploration of the human condition as any I've ever read.

As William Gibson's foreword states, Dhalgren is for those who are comfortable with literature that challenges comprehension. I'd go further: you need to embrace ambiguity, frustration, and disorientation to earn your way through Dhalgren. This was my first sustained engagement with Delany and I'm glad I made the 800-page trip. Prior to reading Dhalgren, my only Delany encounter came with "Aye, and Gomorrah," a great short story from the 1960s. I also knew and was intrigued by his identities, all of which he explodes into countless fascinating fragments: African American person, Omnisexual being, Science Fiction scribe who redefines and resists the genre with every page he writes), and much, much more. What's this book about? Lots of things, events, and people, a chiaroscuro of the 1960s and its devastating, liberating impact on writing, living, acts of rebellious lovemaking and violence with which Delany's characters define themselves in a storyscape that doesn't follow the rules of literary convention. Again, I don't fully understand the book or its creator, who lives up to the overused titles of Genius and Artist. No matter. I will return to Dhalgren and the city of Bellona, and search out more Delany, to read some of the finest scenes of sexuality in late twentieth century fiction.

A masterpiece without time or space, broad as the earth itself... but not to my taste. Storytelling without climax; no crests or troughs; solid 800+ pages of life without temporal or spacial consistency. It's an odd and inspirational one: if this was written, published and well-liked then it may just be possible for anyone to do the same!

Parts of the book were readable, very readable as a matter of fact. I naive though in trying to pin down the time and place, but proved to be a unfruitful mind exercise. Best I could could do was (time- about 1980) and (place- around Ohio). Perhaps these questions were meant not to be answered, but it's human nature to try to make sense of things... and that is where many people see the fallacy in Dhalgren: it can't be applied to us.

I read Dhlagren when it was first published (I was a teenager then and very much into Dune and Battlefield Earth). It was a bit of a mind bender. So much so, I had to reread it, several times. And I loved it every time. It is still haunting. I understand that the audio version will be available in a month -- it's already on my wish list! I can't wait to rediscover it (it's been a good 30 years since I read it last).

Like the labyrinthine city of Bellona, Dhalgren is no small feat to wander through. The reader will face sensory overload and disorientation, as they navigate the cataclysm-torn city of Bellona through the eyes and narration of the Kid. A poet, a ruffian, a former mental patient and sexual libertine, the Kid is the unreliable narrator par excellence. He is a man searching for his name, which he has forgotten, and which we learn cannot possibly give us a sense of identity. Indeed, this is one of the main themes of the novel- that language is pathologically incapable of capturing the true essence of experience. Furthermore, due to the nature of the setting, and the Kid’s unreliability, we are led to doubt that experience at its most basic sensory level can be trusted. Unlike a novel such as 1Q84, which deals with parallel realities in terms of an original and a copy, Dhalgren is a novel which instead implies any experience of reality, and the expression of that experience in language, is necessarily parallel to any other experience. That is, experience and expression are singularities which can be either individual or communally shared. Even considering that the world exterior to Bellona is unaffected by the cataclysm, it cannot be said that Bellona is held up as a site for comparison to some order which still persists. Bellona is the immanent city which is open only unto itself. It could be objected that, given highways and forests surround the city, land obviously leads elsewhere, it must be recognized that due to the circular nature of the novel, the experience of wandering through the ruins of Bellona can be considered only in the context of the cataclysm that occurred there rather than in terms of any national or global context.

to wound the autumnal city.
So howled out for the world to give him a name.
The in-dark answered with wind.
Waiting here, away from the terrifying weaponry, out of the halls
of vapor and light, beyond holland and into the hills, I have come to

I just finished "Dhalgren" for the second time. Listen: It's not for everyone. I mean, if you're looking for a tight, linear story in which every loose end is resolved, this isn't the novel for you.

Fortunately, there are literally thousands of other novels like that out there. There's only one "Dhalgren," though, and you need to approach it that way: It's not like other stories, and it wasn't meant to be. It *is* quote-unquote literary science fiction. In fact, it's more like an 800-page poem than a novel in the conventional sense. And as a result, it takes some work to read. Hey, so do Proust and Joyce, but people keep saying you should read *them*.

The beauty of "Dhalgren" is that instead of being about extraordinary events taking place in the ordinary world, it's about ordinary events taking place in an extraordinary world -- and it works. Some people might pick nits with that description, because some extraordinary things do happen in the book -- mostly astronomical things -- but they're more or less accepted as part of the bargain of being in Bellona. For the most part, the narrative drifts from scene to scene very organically, very unaffectedly, evoking the bizarre sense of everyday life in a postapocalyptic wasteland. (It's no surprise that the Kid, the book's protagonist, is trying so hard to write a poem in the rhythm of natural speech.)

The whole enterprise is so audacious that it would fall apart if, again, it didn't *work*. In Delany's hands, it does. Resonances fade in and out; when the Kid has a moment of déjà vu, so do you. The philosophizing on art is purely delightful. (Ernest Newboy's comments on poetry and poets ought to be required reading in any lit-crit course.) There's a great bit in there about a comma, of all things. And the final passages are haunting, heartbreaking.

Some people will tell you it's a book about being inside a novel. And no, it's not a spoiler if I mention that, because while you can make a strong case for that reading, "Dhalgren" does not permit itself to be pinned down so easily. Go into it for the first time with whatever preconceptions you want, and it will defy them and leave you with plenty to mull over, or just plenty to feel.

Capsulizing my reaction to this book is difficult, as I find compelling reasons both to love it and to hate it. Delany certainly has a better technique than any other author of science fiction. He can write with precision to evoke a mood or a sensory impression, and with imprecision to provoke thought. For example, the initial description of a character or place often omits a detail, allowing the reader to fill in the blank. Delany then clarifies the description later, forcing the reader to question why he or she chose to envision a particular race, gender, color, or other attribute for that character or place. There are many interesting scenes in the first 650 pages. I can also offer unreserved praise for the final chapter, which brilliantly mixes incomplete notebook pages with text and later commentary.
But, but, but -- much of the text is pointless. For example, a multi-page description of a recording session reads more like a creative writing class exercise than actual literature, and certainly proves Elvis Costello's observation that writing about music is like dancing about architecture -- uninformative and pretentious. Descriptions of the decaying city are initially interesting but they become dull with repetition. The characters' endless philosophizing is obscure, and often trite. This and other verbiage makes much of the book tough going, and buries key elements of the story line.
Finally, Dhalgren should not be seen as science fiction. The only new technologies are peripheral to the plot, and there are no societal developments to differentiate Dhalgren from the world of the late 1960s. Rather, the book is more a ham-handed magical realism, with the city of Bellona a bloated, pornographic Macondo.

In my humble opinion "Dhalgren" is one of the finest pieces of modern epic fiction ever written. I first read this work some 19 years ago, on a friend's referral when I was an English major in college, and frankly it changed my life - it just shattered any previous concepts I had about the creative process of writing (& reading, for that matter). I have never read anything like it before or since - I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the prose - almost as though every page was a piece of stream-of-consciousness blank verse - soaked in super-real imagery the likes of which are simply mind-boggling. "Dhalgren" is a work that is steeped in questions - most of them left up to the reader's imagination - so if you're the type of reader who must leave "no stone unturned" in terms of resolving such enigmas, you'd probably be disappointed in this work. On the other hand, if you want to take your mind on a trip and simply wallow in some of the finest, most surrealistic imagery ever composed in the English language (not to mention some of the most iconoclastic writing techniques), then you would dig this book (if you're like me and are fascinated with words and their often beautiful, ominous and breath-taking capabilities, you will find this a great read). There are so many layers to this story, so many ways to appreciate this work, it is hard to encapsulate them all here. If I can formulate a fragment of an idea based on the title of the first chapter ("Prism, Mirror, Lens"), it is as though you are viewing this landscape - this forgotten city, wounded by some inexplicable catastrophy - through a prism, your vision being splintered into a dozen distorted views of the same thing -the fabric of time is in a constant state of flux, and, as in a dreamstate, you can not quite put your finger on the pulse of what is reality. It is almost as though, upon completion of the first reading, you can go back to this novel and re-read it (or portions thereof) completly out of sequence and gain further insight into its characters and events - the text itself seems to "work" completly out of sync with itself, if you will. All in all, a fantastic & thought-provoking journey, an enigma rooted in a not-too-far-out reality, a mind-game, a beautifully disturbing dream for the adventurous reader who might prefer something other than the standard "sci-fi" fare. I have often thought that, in the right hands, this story could work as an epic, provocative motion picture, but ultimately, I think this masterpiece is best left to blossom in the mind of the reader, for the rest of their lives (and it will, believe me).

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.

DHALGREN, by Samuel R. Delany

"to wound the autumnal city.
So howled out for the world to give him a name.
The in-dark answered with wind"

Thus begins a sprawling, 700+pg surrealistic odyssey depicting one man's journey into a city cut off from the rest of the world by an undisclosed "reality storm" that has isolated major cities from each other, and disrupted the very fabric of time + space, so that at certain times, certain streets in Bellona (the fictional city which is, at heart, the protagonist of the book as much as The Kid is) shift and change, are no longer named the same, turn in different directions, and become otherwise non-negotiable and dangerous to walk about upon.
What makes Delany's novel so compelling is that the author brings us along with our protagonist (who can't remember his name, and hence is only known as "The Kid") on his journey of self-discovery as he gets to know the inhabitants of the city of Bellona. As he discovers his penchant for writing poetry, we are taken along on a painstaking (and yes, "Joycean") tour-de-force examining the most close-up details of his experience, down to how and why he chooses certain words over others in the composition of his poetry. It is a sort of decomposition that reflects the inherent chaotic nature of the raging elemental, molecular storm going on that no one has the least clue as to its properties or significanse. A massive disaster novel whose intimate setting is the human heart and the communicative process -- DHALGREN has changed generations of readers who were unwittingly hooked in from page one, and dragged through a splintering, visionary excursion into an inner, violent world of self-realization. It is the novel that exposed me to the viral force of Samuel Delany -- perhaps our most learned (and certainly amongst our most talented) man of letters. To read Delany is to take the ultimate challenge in confrontational, symbolic meaning in fiction. He razes contemporary structures of language & reconstructs them into pristine, crystal clear passages of prose that may perplex at first glance, but if merely concentrated upon, will unfurl within the mind's eye devastatingly focused ideas.
But as William Gibson suggests in his introduction to the new oversize edition of Dhalgren, "I distrust few things more deeply than acts of literary explication", I will therefore say no more, so that in the end, it remains up to you, dear reader, to take that brave first step into the leaf-swirled surrounds of the city of Bellona. If and when you do -- remember that you are not going in alone.

Despite its literary-critical pretensions, Dhalgren for me is primarily a very sensuous and sensual book. [Insert snide reference to the 'gratuitous sex' here]. 800 pages of (mostly) foreplay? Perhaps. Enchantment broadens and deepens as you read, the disorientation is delicious and vertiginous, and then the moments of disenchantment strike quickly and shrink the world back to something mundane and presumably 'right-sized.' I suppose that's the literary equivalent of the male orgasm, ha.

Dhalgren didn't make me think any earth-moving thoughts. It just felt really nice and strange to disappear into for a while. I tend to think back on some of the high-modernist and postmodern novels I used to dig with some distaste at this point. If I never read another compulsively self-reflexive work of fiction I won't regret it. Talk about nausea. But I still think of Dhalgren fondly. The discursive element is woven into the text artfully and doesn't hijack the narrative. There are probably less than 13 books i've lived in more fully.

I doubt I could enjoy re-reading it today. (For one thing my brain has been rewired by all the short-form reading I do online, and I honestly can't imagine tackling an 800-page novel - a sad affair). But more than that, 12 years ago when I read this the 60's were still relevent (at least for me). The consensus seems to be that they no longer are.

As for the sex, get over it.

Dhalgren takes place in a city after an unexplained catastrophe. Government, law enforcement, medical care and education have all collapsed. There is no work. Money is useless. Looting is rampant. Gangs roam the streets.

Into this post-apocalyptic scenario comes the novel's protagonist, the mysterious and charismatic Kid. He meets a girl named Lanya, and they have mind-blowing sex. Then, during the post-coital bliss, Kid asks, "Hey...do you have any birth control stuff?" (107)

Wait a minute. Society lies in ruins. You can't see daylight through the smoke from all the burning buildings. Even walking outside presents a mortal danger. But this, this is what he's worried about? Fortunately, it turns out that Lanya is already on the pill. And here I thought that all the conveniences of civilization had perished in the flames; how nice that this one just happened to survive.

Further inspection reveals that the dangerous ruined city is not really that dangerous. Consider the "orchid," the weapon of choice for the gang. Many paragraphs are devoted to this weapon, but it is almost never used. Sure, in 800 pages you can find a couple of times where somebody cuts somebody. But that's nothing compared to the number of times the book describes the orchid's peculiar shape, its potential danger, and the way it mysteriously appears on Kid's arm or belt even though he doesn't remember putting it there (53, 83).

What about the gang? Well, you know they're tough because they swear a lot and engage in wild orgies. They have stylish names like Nightmare, Dragon Lady, Devastation and Cathedral. Sometimes they break into buildings and fight people. But, in 800 pages, they don't do much of that, compared to the swearing and the orgies. They're cool, but not scary.

Where am I going with this? Kid writes poetry for most of the book; at one point, someone tells him that the city "provides...the decor which allows the poems to...take place." (289) That fits the book itself. The entire setting is decor, constructed in order to allow Kid to be cool and mysterious.

Essentially, the city is the ideal playground for well-read, rebellious young people who take pride in their marginal or alternative aesthetic tastes. There's no authority. If you want something, just take it from an abandoned store. You don't need to work, you can do anything you want. Total liberation. But at the same time, there's no danger. Well, there is (otherwise it wouldn't be as cool), but it's always at a safe distance. There's nothing truly messy to deal with, you don't even run the risk of getting your girlfriend pregnant. You get a cool weapon to wear on your wrist, but you don't need to worry about being killed in a street fight.

Better yet, the city bar gives all the booze away for free. The local bohemians meet there for weighty discussions. In any halfway convincing apocalypse, they'd be dead, and booze would be a scarce and valuable commodity.

The gang provides street cred. These tough guys are full of admiration and obedience toward Kid. The sensitive, well-read poet, who doesn't fit in anywhere, somehow turns out to be a born leader in the streets. "People think of us as energetic, active, violent." (761) He goes on to explain that, really now, their lives are boring. Such invincible, self-effacing cool.

You never get to read Kid's poetry, but there are countless scenes of Kid writing it. You read about him crossing out a word, or rewriting a line, or changing the title, or lengthily discussing his work (159-164, 351-356) with critics. You might not learn much about most characters in the book, but when it comes to this topic, every tiny detail is laboriously recorded. It doesn't matter what's in the poems; the mere presence of creative impulses is supposed to be enough to justify the protagonist. That's why, when another poet criticizes Kid's work, this shocks and wounds Kid more than any other experience in the whole book.

Washing is an odd fixation. Kid takes a bath, leading to the following play-by-play: "He let the water out, and ran more over his feet, rubbing the gritty skin from his insteps...He soaked and soaped his hair, rubbed his arms and chest with the bar..." (139) A couple of chapters later, there's another washing scene: "At the sink he wet his fists and ground them in his armpits. Again and again he wiped his neck...He put his foot in the bowl...He wet and rubbed his legs to the thigh, then began the other foot." (313) The bath is dragged out to a whole page. In this way, minor details are grossly overwritten. Long words and sentences tortuously drag out essentially trivial statements: "Then he remembered, amidst his auto-pontifications, there were two other people who would have to agree with him before he could even suspect such meanderings correct." (419)

This kind of navel-gazing abounds, but there's no empathy. Tellingly, the one time the book attempts a character study (the Richards family), it produces a caricature. There is a very simplistic, overbearing message: look at the way this pathetic middle-class family clings to its middle-class rituals and routines, for lack of the courage necessary to face reality! But the fact is, the only reason why the protagonists are courageous enough to face reality is because the book's reality has had all real hardship magically removed.

This is why I can't get into the book's depiction of chaos: it's not really chaotic. If you wanted to write about what happened if society were to collapse, you'd have to do away with the conveniences that enable your preternaturally cool characters to be so cool. Then you'd have a very different story, whose protagonist would probably not write poems. The city in Dhalgren, however, is a place to go slumming.

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.

I recently read the original paperback edition of this book. It doesn't even qualify as SciFi. There is nothing futuristic about it. The cover of my old edition suggests the sun going nova and the earth about to die, but there is no mention of this in the book.
The entire book revolves around a main character, "Kidd" or "the kid" who can't remember his name. He enters a city that seems to have been partially destroyed by fire, but this isn't really discussed. The sky is always overcast or hazy and nobody can ever see the sky except on two brief occaissions. One night it clears and those who look think they see two moons, but nobody is really sure. One morning the sky is clear and the sun appears gigantic in size, but nobody knows what that means.
Most of the inhabitants have fled the city. Those who remain live aimlessly. When the outside world is mentioned, everything is said to be normal, but there is no contact except when somebody new arrives. Mysteriously, the utilities continue to function, although erratically, but there don't seem to be any phones. People scavenge for food and other necessities, but no one worries that they will run out.
There are a few places in the book where the text is simply senseless; just words strung together that are meaningless. There is no plot, just a sort of rambling series of episodes that don't go anywhere. The last part of the book is dominated by sexual interludes shared by "the Kid" and his girlfriend and boyfriend as a threesome.
If aimless drivel is what you like, go for it. Otherwise, I would recommend avoiding this stinker.

SF in the 70's was characterized by Lifestyle SF (as termed by Brian Aldiss) as opposed to Hard scientific SF for example. Dhalgren was simply the best among the lifestyle genre. Samuel Delany's rendering of characters paints a large canvass full of subtle ambiguities and surreal landscapes of a ruined city, Bellona, that defies rationale but engages the reader's emotion, making him or her participate in its creation. It's a book about waking and dreaming, about counter culture society and about the possibilities of language and how you mold the world with it and vice versa. What strikes you most is the use of words and style to evoke nameless complex emotions. Let me give you an example, a passage in Dhalgren:
' How jealous I am of those I have known, afraid to sleep for dreaming. I fear those moments before sleep when words tear from the nervous matrix and like sparks, light what responses they may. That fragmented vision, seductive with joy and terror, robs rest of itself. Gratefully sunk in nightmare, where at least the anxious brain freed from knowing its own decay can flesh those skeletal epiphanies with visual or aural coherence, if not rationale: better those landscapes where terror is experienced as terror and rage as rage than this, where either is merely a pain in the gut or a throb above the eye, where a nerve spasm in the shin crumbles a city of bone, where a twitch in the eyelid detonates both the sun and the heart. ' (chapter 4, p. 342)
This passage typifies the book in general. A tour de force of visual and literary imagination that waxes poetic often in painfully unsettling and disturbing ways. Complex characterization, no plot apparently - but here lies it's strength for it is composed of layers upon layers of varied experiences, past and future mixing together, memory loss (the protagonist) and circularity, (the book's end is the beginning). Dhalgren belongs to the group of novels that typefies 20th century miasma like Joyce's Ulysses, Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow or Herbert's Dune. I've read the book 12 years ago and still Bellona's images visit my dreamscape from time to time. Dhalgren is a Masterpiece in any genre.

Samuel Delany's Dhalgren is generally considered a science fiction novel, but, in a real sense, it's more of a fantasy than science fiction- hard or not, and it is not a particularly good piece of sci fi, set in the then-near future of the late 1970s. Instead, it is a weird amalgam of the worst of High Modernism and proto-Post-Modernism. No, Delany's a bit better of a wordsmith than the dregs that have spanned the decades from Donald Barthelme to David Foster Wallace, but he's not a master, nor a `poet', nor anything of that grandeur that his apologists declaim. As for his storytelling abilities, the actual `story' of Dhalgren is rather inert and bogged down in the naïve sexual politics of the Vietnam War era. As such, the 801 page book, first published in 1974 by Bantam Books, feels even more outdated than an earlier classic of the post-Apocalyptic genre: I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson, which was published over two decades earlier.

Dhalgren is both a post-apocalyptic and dystopian novel that is divided into seven sections. The first, Prism, Mirror, Lens, starts with an amnesiac wandering just outside of the fictive city of Bellona, a post-Apocalyptic hellhole the geographic dead center of the nation. He meets a sexy woman with a scar on her leg and they have sex- it's a random sex act that is repeated many times during the course of this anomic work. Then they hide in a cave, and find a chain made of the titular elements. He then looks for his sex partner and sees her becoming a tree, and takes off for Bellona. On the way he meets Tak Loufer, who calls him The Kid. This is a hint of the low level of the writing and sets the expectations for the reader at a low level. Only in bad sci fi novels do such character names exist. Later on we find out that other characters are name Tarzan and The Ripper (ala Jack). Tak shows Kid around the weird blighted city, including violent scorpion gangs whose disguise themselves with hologram projectors. Kid hears of a weird newspaper publisher called Roger Calkins, who is an enigma. At a commune, Kid meets Lanya Colson, who becomes his lover. Already one can see sex and drugs has a greater influence than that of science on this book....Aside from bad writing as this there are the endless descriptions, such as that of a recording session, or the pretentious arts dialogues that reveal just how vapid the characters and their author are. Yes, like the crap that is Finnegans Work (the rantings of a syphilitic) or that of Infinite Jest (the imposture of a fraud), Dhalgren has its apologists who will claim that the book is really about the experience of living inside a novel the characters are unaware of, or a sci fi autobiography of Delany- sort of a fantastical Remembrance Of Things Past- Marcel Proust on acid, or an exploration of mental illness from the inside out. Yet, not a single of these often claimed posits can be convincingly upheld by the text of the work itself. Dhalgren is really a novella shamelessly bloated with preening and forced magical realist lard.

But, worst of all, it's a work devoid of such qualities as irony and humor, which are almost essential to the greatest of literature, and most of all real intellectual depth. Works of depth are actively about things, although their art is how those `things' are represented. Dhalgren is positively arid, and one can only wonder what an underrated sci fi humorist as Kurt Vonnegut could have done with the trite concept this novel foists. Then, again, considering the brilliance and outrageousness of such masterpieces like Slaughterhouse-Five and Galapagos, I doubt he would have even been enraptured by such stale ideas. As this book was recommended to me, I hoped that I would encounter the first published work of science fiction that was truly great literature first- in the way that Huckleberry Finn, Moby-Dick, or A Tree Grows In Brooklyn are. Vonnegut's works are literature first, with sci fi tinges, and Asimov's Foundation trilogy puts sci fi so far in front that, despite its greatness, it can rarely be perceived as literature foremost. Unfortunately, all I read was yet another vastly overhyped work that was in need of a rigorous editing to bring its few good ideas and sections to the fore. Would that that reality was only a fantasy.

Dhalgren is the Moby Dick of SciFi/Fantasy. It is not an easy, casual read. I first read this book almost thirty years ago, and couldn't stop thinking about it for the next decade. Many of my present attitudes about life can be traced back to scenes from Dhalgren.

The story is rife with symbolism, probably not all intentional, definitely ambiguous, and with different interpretations for different readers (or even for the same reader at different times). You've heard people say about a book, "I just couldn't put it down!" Well, I HAD to put Dhalgren down many times to think about what I had just read. Then, when I picked it up again I might read the same passages differently (there's more than one way to read Dhalgren, as you'll see if you make it to the middle of the book). This is a rich and poetic piece of American Literature, and definitely not for someone looking for some quick and easy escapism, though its readers will escape much farther than do the readers of Clancy or Brown.

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.

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.

Dhalgren is the Moby Dick of SciFi/Fantasy. It is not an easy, casual read. I first read this book almost thirty years ago, and couldn't stop thinking about it for the next decade. Many of my present attitudes about life can be traced back to scenes from Dhalgren.

The story is rife with symbolism, probably not all intentional, definitely ambiguous, and with different interpretations for different readers (or even for the same reader at different times). You've heard people say about a book, "I just couldn't put it down!" Well, I HAD to put Dhalgren down many times to think about what I had just read. Then, when I picked it up again I might read the same passages differently (there's more than one way to read Dhalgren, as you'll see if you make it to the middle of the book). This is a rich and poetic piece of American Literature, and definitely not for someone looking for some quick and easy escapism, though its readers will escape much farther than do the readers of Clancy or Brown.

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.

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.

I am obsessed with Delany, and I probably always will be. I still bite my fingernails because of him. I first read Dhalgren at 19, while living in Philadelphia, living in a city for the first time, no plans, no goals, no ambitions. I was in my own Bellona, squatting with fellow scorpions, having the magical edges of my reality dictated to me by this incredible book. Dhalgren is real in a way that most of my life hasn't been, and when I feel nostalgia, what I miss is the psychotopographies of Bellona as laid out in Dhalgren. It is the greatest novel about a city ever written; any one of the Surrealists (Breton especially) would slit his throat to write a book half as good, but wouldn't have the balls to stomach the finished result. People who have not read Dhalgren are inferior to those of us who have, but there is a clear remedy for this. Read the book. And read Heavenly Breakfast too, so you can see where Delany first walked into Bellona.

DHALGREN is its own reward. Not every likes it; even fewer people seem to even GET it... But in a world where science fiction is so frequently absent from any discussion of "serious" fiction, DHALGREN stands tall as truly extraordinary fiction. If you think science fiction has robots, spaceships, aliens, or "humor"... this is not the book for you.

I just finished rereading Dahlgren for the first time in 25 years. Man, have I changed! I had a much different reading experience at the age of 45 than I did at the age of 20! A couple of the reviews here are (almost) helpful; but I empathically feel that the prospective buyer may wish to know a little bit more. In short, if you are genuinely intelligent, then you will enjoy this novel; if you go through life pretending to be intelligent, then you will hate it (you will probably become very ANGRY). Forget the fact that this novel does NOT have a plot (in the ordinary sense)! Delany's brilliant writing has created some of the most memorable and believable characters in the history of science fiction! I know of few other writers (read that: "artists") who've so successfully created an experience that places the reader inside the mind of mentally ill person. Brilliant! The entire novel takes place inside of a surreal city where inexplicable things happen: do not try explaining the inexplicable; you will only frustrate yourself. (The setting reminds me a little of Tarkovski's "Stalker.") Now a little history lesson: Samuel R. (aka, "Chip") Delany (nephew of the famous Delany Sisters, I hear) burst upon the science fiction scene in the early sixties and quickly became (arguably) the best science fiction writer in America. Delany could CREATE more original ideas in ten pages than other sci-fi writers could produce in an entire novel! (Read his short stories in the Driftglass collection if you want proof!) When I was reading his books back in the late sixties and early seventies, I got this notion that he was out in the world LIVING life, while other sci-fi writers were hiding away from the world (escaping into their loner self-delusions). Scores of lesser writers have made whole careers from copying Delany's original ideas and style; but Delany is The First, The Original. Read him! If you are new to Delany, then I highly recommend that you read several of his other works BEFORE you read Dahlgren. Delany won back-to-back Nebula Awards for Babel-17 and The Einstein Intersection. Read them! He should have won a third Nebula for Nova (at least it was nominated for a Hugo; but they probably felt it was someone else's turn to win). Read it! In "The Fall of the Towers" trilogy (written between 1961 and 1964), Delany has a plot element involving soldiers who are unknowingly fighting a war in virtual reality (20 years before Gibson's Neuromancer and 30 years before the Matrix!). And now for Dahlgren. After reaching the top of his profession as a sci-fi writer in 1968 (at the tender age of only 26!), Delany seemed to turn his back on sci-fi. Although he has denied this in interviews, I have a notion that Delany wanted to become a writer of Great Literature, not just a writer in the lesser genre of sci-fi. (I personally believe that Delany was frustrated that his writing talents had exceeded the reading talents of the sci-fi fans.) And then came Dahlgren. Dahlgren begins and ends in the same style as Joyce's Finnegan's Wake (the end cycles us back to the beginning); perhaps this is Delany's way of telling us something about this novel. As other reviewers have mentioned, Dahlgren does not have a common plot; nothing is explained; there is no resolution. In my mind, this novel is entirely abstract: don't look for crystalline explanations; look for the METAPHOR! Also, this is NOT really a sci-fi book; it is Delany telling you about scenes from his real life (I believe). If you have read Delany's autobiographical book Heavenly Breakfast, then you might suspect that Dahlgren was drawn from Delany's journals from 1969 to 1973. Eighty percent of this novel could easily have been published as a period-piece from that era. In Dahlgren, we are not so much reading about the main character (a native American half-bread named The Kidd) as we are reading about Delany himself (an urban bisexual black man living in a 70s commune with a bunch of characters whose sole purpose in life is getting balled and high). In one scene in the novel, Kidd looks in a mirror and sees not his own reflection, but the image of his creator (the author, that is). And then there is the famous notebook that The Kidd finds at the beginning of the novel: a notebook (obvious dropped by the author who invented Kidd!) that describes incidents in Kidd's life before they happen. (Reminds me of Breakfast of Champions.) And who the HELL is William Dahlgren! ;-) My only complaint: Delany needed his own version of Ezra Pound to convince him to edit this novel. I get the feeling that Delany was unwilling or unable to throw the least scrap of writing onto the cutting room floor! Sometime, plot elements seem to be invented ENTIRELY to glue together unrelated writing exercises! But, what am I saying! Delany is The Master!

Seriously. Reading Dhalgren is like watching El Topo. Over and over and over again.

There are many things to dislike about Dhalgren: the laughable sex scenes ("the joined meat of their mouths came alive"), the 70s-era "hey man, I dig ... y'know" dialogue, the haphazard array of thumbnail-sketched characters (Who is Frank, at the party on page 618, and why does the kid want his opinion? Flip, flip, flip. Oh right, he's the guy the kid talked to at the bar for four pages around ~285 and who was never mentioned again!), the agonizingly long and painfully obvious parody of what Delaney thinks is the middle class lifestyle, the occasional chronicling of a character's bowel movements ... but what really makes the book insufferable is its naivete.

To be sure, the book is a product of its time. There was a tendency in works of late 60s and early 70s (authors like HST and Mailer nonwithstanding) to under-estimate the potential of people for violence and cruelty, and to over-estimate their capacity for tolerance and community. Dhalgren reads like a hippy dream of a society without government: a street gang that just wants to keep to itself and get high, the obsolescence of money, equal access to goods and property, and everyone you meet is pretty much "okay". Even the violence is watered-down: the kid resolves most situations by TALKING IN ALL CAPS, only occasionally employing a head-slap or a shove (and even then, usually to his own people). There seems to be more violence, on the block I live, in one month than there is in the entirety of the city Bellona over the course of the novel.

Things are not all bad, however; there is a lot to like in Dhalgren. The city itself, isolated in time and space, and its effect on those who enter it (do they obsess over money? sex? their bourgeois ways?); there is a sense that Delaney is examining, on some level, how different types of people will react to absolute freedom. The development (or revealing) of character over time -- virtually no character remains unchanged throughout the course of the novel. The unreliable narration (is time really moving at different rates for different people? or is it just a mentally unstable narrator prone to memory lapses? no mystery there) and the fragmenting of the story as the book draws to a close. Quite a lot of potential here.

Dhalgren is comprised of seven sections, of varying quality:

"Prism, Mirror, Lens" : The reader's introduction to the novel, and the kid's introduction to Bellona. A very enticing introduction, and full of promise -- if one can ignore the silly opening scene with the dryad.

"The Ruins of Morning" : The kid hangs out in a bar, gets a girlfriend, and starts writing. Neither here nor there. Oh, right, there are two moons at some point, or the characters are just really trashed.

"House of the Axe" : The kid does some manual labour for a beaver-cleaver type family that lives upstairs from people that turn out to be gang members. More poetry writing. Someone gets the shaft. Easily the most tedious section of the novel; it should have been edited down to half its length.

"In the Time of the Plague" : The kid wanders around the city, falls in with the street gang, and has his poetry published. Snore. Why does this take so many pages to tell? Lots of inconsequential events and scenes.

"Creatures of Light and Darkness" : The kid joins the street gang, an astronaut comes to town. Nothing much happens. Again, this section could be half its length and not suffer. Oh, and the sun gets all huge and red or something... or everyone is trashed.

"Palimpset" : The inaccessible town mayor (who is number 1? you are number 6!) throws a party for the kid. The kid enters a warehouse full of all of the unexplained stuff in the city (the street gang's light projectors, the optical chains, etc). Far, far too long and pointless.

"The Anathemata: A Plague Journal" : The word 'Dhalgren' appears, finally! (I don't count the occurrence in the list of names, as it is merely one name among many, and not even the name of the kid). The kid finally finds the monastery. finally meets the mayor, finally remembers some of his name. There is some sort of a riot, and everyone freaks out and causes property damage with the attendant loss of life. Lots of fragmented narrative and some typographical tricks. Everything kinda ties together, the end catches up to the beginning (and changes gender). Easily the best section of the novel: stripped down to this and 'Prism, Mirror, Lens', the novel would be much more interesting (though admittedly less of a journey).

Dhalgren ends with an invitation to read it again. While I'm sure that it will hold up well to a second reading, and that a second reading will clear up many mysteries and uncertainties, I must respectfully decline the invitation. There simply does not seem to be much reward for the effort involved: Dhalgren has little to say, really, and ultimately re-reading Dhalgren will only give one more insight into ... reading Dhalgren.

A friend asked, Does this get worth reading at some point? I read about a third before tossing it aside in frustration.
If you mean, does it start to have a conventional plot, then no, not really. If you mean, do things more interesting than helping some delusional middle Americans move to a different apartment start happening, then yes.
The book is more like poetry in some ways than an ordinary novel. Partly because the style and the wording (the purely writerly aspects) make up a significant portion of why I found it to be a worthwhile read (and, in fact, one of my favorite books). But also because it has a lot of subtle layers of hidden meaning. It is in no way a cyberpunk or SF action adventure. Rather, it is an existential exploration of some of the currents running through our own, real world. Race relaions, inter-racial sex and sexual domination and power issues, repressed desires, the meaning of freedom (from one's own mental walls as well as from laws and social oppression), gender, homosexuality and bisexuality, drugs, madness, delusion (both the delusions of the insane and those that can come from pervasive social agreements/tendancies to think a particular way or fail to see certian things), the difference between what is real and what is believed or percieved.
By the way, I started on it and stopped at various points twice before I read it all the way through. It's not easy, especially before you figure out that it's not aiming to be a typical post apocalyptic adventure, and that it doesn't have any of the same storytelling goals of such a tale.

I'm suprised that after reading all the other reviews, no one mentions how central race is to this book, especially given Delany's decision, as a black author, to deliberately write about the black characters from the perspective of an outsider.
There is a lot going on in the book, but for me, the central conceit seemed very clear (SPOILERS FOLLOW), although brilliantly unorthodox:
The disaster that creates Bellona (a post-apocalyptic city) is the coming together of two equal and opposite forces - a black man (George) and a white girl (not a woman-- June). Each has an stereotypical aspect: George is the sexually insatiatiable rampaging black rapist, June the helplessly vulnerable innocent white victim. But each has a more hidden aspect that runs counter-stereotype. George is a hero who saves children from a burning building, while June is a hypocrite who murders her own brother to cover over her appetites.
They come together in an act that appears to be rape, but which may actually be an piece of playacting created for the pleasure of the participants. This transgression is what warps time and space in Bellona, setting off a series of events in which a white sniper kills black children, the black residents riot and burn the city, anarchy sets in and people flee, armed gangs take over the streets, middle-class residents take refuge in fortresses of delusion, June stalks George in a combination of attraction and repulsion and the entire cycle repeats over and over, endlessly.
In this way the book is a psychological portrait, not only of the Kid --a racially and sexually ambigious artist --but also of the American city --a racially and sexually-obsessed powder keg --during a certain moment in history.

Dahlgren is one of those novels that simply begs to be read over and over in order to try and get a gasp on what is happening to the characters and surroundings in this psuedo sci-fi study. Being a multiple myself, I sometimes wonder why it took me four readings to realise that the main character does indeed exibit all the signs of being himself a Multiple. Through the first couple of reads the various plots seem to jump... quite at random... from one state to another; much as a late James Joyce novel such as "Finigans Wake" does... the novel does in fact seem to have no true beginning or end, it just loops continuously. This style, while quite interesting, still does not explain the various plots and their seemingly unconnected jumps and twists. If however, the reader begins the book carrying the thought that the main character is indeed a Multiple, then all those strange plot twists and seemingly unconnected characters begin to make perhaps a shred of sense. The main character is Multi, and switches between different alternate identities (alters) quite at random, and just like myself and my own system of alters, each percieves the world in a totally different light. Each sees things that the others cannot; thus, the reality of one alter bears very little resemblance to that of another. The constantly changing and intermixing plots in Dahlgren reflect this Multiplicity in it's base form, and when I read the novel as a "system"... a different alter dealing with each plot change... the novel takes on an entirely different look and feel. The seeming lack of continuity disappears totally, and the novel resolves itself into one single, well intertwined plot involving a city in the midst of slow destruction. There is still no real beginning or end to the story, but I believe that Delaney wrote this way on purpose as an examination of the slow decay of any large urban center in this age. I do realise that as an alter, my own perception of this novel is, by it's very nature, totally different from that of a Monomind and so it must be. Perhaps I am totally wrong here, and it is that very Multiplicity that makes me so, but that is the only way any of us can see the novel, now that this theory has pushed it's way into our system. I grant you this is a theory from way out in left field, but I also believe that it is one that should perhaps be explored the next time you pick up the novel to read it through yet again...