Dhalgren

By: Samuel R. Delany

Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki

Length: 34 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

In Dhalgren, perhaps one of the most profound and best-selling science fiction novels of all time, Samuel R. Delany has produced a novel that rivals the best American fiction of the 1970s.

Bellona is a city at the dead center of the United States. Something has happened there...the population has fled. Madmen and criminals wander the streets. Strange portents appear in the cloud-covered sky. And into this disaster zone comes a young man - a poet, a lover, and an adventurer - known only as the Kid.

Tackling questions of race, gender, and sexuality, Dhalgren is a literary marvel and a groundbreaking work of American magical realism.

©1975 Samuel R. Delany (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

A great book

This is a thoughtful and great piece of literature. I don't typically like stories with explicit sex and vulgar language in it. I don't know why but Samuel Delany and William S. Burroughs are exceptions for me. It is as though those parts of their books blend in with the.parts I focus on and enjoy.

Absolutely enthralling and insane.

The writing style, subject matter, characters and setting create a vision of confusing beauty and palpable terror. A precious gem and my new all time favorite novel

Excruciatingly Boring

I kept hoping it would get better. Even the graphic sex within the first 5 minutes was uninteresting. 1 hour in and I have no idea what this is about. I can’t take another.

Great book, made more accessible by a great reader

This review is mostly about Rudnicki as narrator.

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

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

The Most Disturbing, Enlightening Novel

Dhalgren is different than any book I have ever read. When it was first recommended to me, that friend told me, " This book turns everything you know on its head." That description was absolutely spot on. Delaney shows us, to an unbelievable extent, what is truly possible with language. From his poetic prose, to his vivid, explicit description of a society in the throes of social anarchy/mutual aid... Delaney astounds. This modern myth challenged me to the core - psychologically, philosophically, and morally. Hades is alive and real in the heart of America and the mind of our young Hermes, which we come to know affectionately as "the Kid".

Not for casual readers

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

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

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

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

Any additional comments?

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

Interminable!<br />

The most alienated and alienating thing I have ever read. Boring, pretentious, chaotic and filled with explicit sex devoid of feeling. I wouldn't call it science fiction, but I would say it's an artifact of the sixties whose appeal will be pretty limited.

A classic I return to every few years

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

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

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

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

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

The Human Story Always Captures the Reader

I find the depth of character emersive. The level of detail is astounding. One could make a movie, but you would lose the ordinary motovations of the characters. I'm not keen on the perverse as sodomy pervades the book. I think it provides a bleak normal the characters must accept to stay alive since sodomy appears to be a currency as does sex. Most stories have people running away from their bad circumstances, but these young people appear more willing to adapt to it. One has to wonder what has happened to the rest of the world. Dalgren is a deeper look into people than Ben Bova's "City of Darkness", which I enjoyed grearly. I'm sure I wil listen again!

Magnum opus

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