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Book Review: Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany
Jun. 21st, 2007 01:51 pmTitle: Dhalgren
Author: Samuel R. Delany
Published: New York: Bantam Books, 1974
Page Count: 879
Total Page Count: 34,353
Text Number: 98
Read For: my own enjoyment
Short review: 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.
( Long review. )
Review posted here at Amazon.com.
Author: Samuel R. Delany
Published: New York: Bantam Books, 1974
Page Count: 879
Total Page Count: 34,353
Text Number: 98
Read For: my own enjoyment
Short review: 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.
( Long review. )
Review posted here at Amazon.com.
