Some Thoughts on Dhalgren

 

Yesterday, I finished Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany. Here are a few thoughts.

 

Delany wrote the novel between 1969 and 1972. That was a period of sexual experimentation for some. This is an important point to remember. There's a lot of sex in this book. Curiously, there are not many descriptions of desire, passion, or satisfaction. For the Greeks, EROS could be defined as a desire capable of being satisfied.

 

Emily Temple listed Dhalgren as one of the 50 greatest apocalyptic novels and described the book in these words:

 

Is it actually a post-apocalypse through which our one-shoed protagonist drifts? Or are we dealing with a different reality entirely? Either way, it has the feeling of a land gone to seed, with bombed-out, disconnected cities, enormous red suns, inexplicable, endless fires. And either way, it is one of the weird greats, a widely influential and difficult—even impenetrable—cult classic.

 

Most apocalyptic novels have a plot that usually has a hero on a quest. Not this book. I'm not even sure it has a plot.

 

Dhalgren has its devoted fans. I do not think I am one of them. I would say a book worth reading instead if you want a glimpse into the mind of Samuel R. Delany is The Motion of Light in Water.

 

Any book that has 500 pages is a long book. This one has 802 pages. Somewhere around page 650 the narrative becomes jumbled and the reader is expected to move backward and forward. Sometimes I could only tell I was in the right place because I was reading the audiobook at the same time as the kindle version. Reading this book requires stamina and patience. 

 

 

I think what Roger Ebert wrote about the movie Papillon fifty years ago might apply to Dhalgren:

 

Sophia Loren was once in a movie named “The Pride and the Passion,” which involved hauling an enormous cannon halfway across Europe through deep mud. By the time they heaved the cannon into position, I had long since stopped caring, and even had a little difficulty remembering why they were doing it in the first place. The movie had expended enormous energy without cause.

 

“Papillon” is a movie like that: an expensive, exhaustive, 150-miute odyssey that doesn’t so much conclude as cross the finish line and collapse. It has been outfitted with expensive stars and a glossy production, but it doesn’t really make us care. When Steve McQueen finally escapes from Devil’s Island we’re happy more for ourselves than for him: Finally we can leave, too.