Comments on: Trippy SF book from the 70s

Question: Trippy SF book from the 70s

Dag Maggot — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 15:39:25 -0800

I'm trying to remember the name of a trippy science fiction book from the 70s, I think.

I read it about 10 years ago, as a dog eared paperback in Thailand, where no other reading material was available. It was about this kind of traveler guy, who goes to this town inhabited by sort of post-apocolypse hippies. I think they take a lot of drugs. The prose is written in a very poetic style. At night, something weird would happen in the town. Strange neon-lit animals in the shape of scorpions and spiders would come to the town, and the inhabitants would ... maybe ride them? I'm a bit fuzzy on the details as you can see. I have the idea that the name of the book was the name of this town. It was a fairly thick paperback, probably 400+ pages.

By: matildaben

matildaben — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 16:08:06 -0800

Dhalgren?

By: Justinian

Justinian — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 16:10:58 -0800

Could be Dhalgren.

1974. 800+ pages.

By: camworld

camworld — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 17:00:35 -0800

Sounds like Dhalgren by Samuel Delaney. It's a very hard book to read but you'll be glad you did, if you get through it all.

By: camworld

camworld — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 17:03:16 -0800

Coincidentally I was turned onto this book by an English professor (in the early 1990s) who used to spend 3-4 months of every year in Thailand. I wonder if the copy you read was one he left behind.

By: meehawl

meehawl — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 17:32:15 -0800

I have come to wound the autumnal city...

Another book in a similar vein although mercifully much shorter is Brian Aldiss's Barefoot in the Head.

By: mwhybark

mwhybark — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 18:53:42 -0800

Dhalgren is never clearly sourced in the book; the city's name is Bellona. I read somewhere that perhaps Dhalgren is the amnesiac protagonist's lost name.

By: mkhall

mkhall — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 19:29:31 -0800

Another vote for it being Dhalgren, one of my all-time favorite books.

By: Dag Maggot

Dag Maggot — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 19:47:28 -0800

Yes, I think that Dhalgren it is. What a strange book it was. Now I can reread it. Thanks all.

By: Dag Maggot

Dag Maggot — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 19:50:35 -0800

Wow - great link mwhybark. Interesting article comparing Dhalgren to Katrina ravaged NO.

By: hototogisu

hototogisu — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 20:29:55 -0800

*maybe sort of spoilers, if you haven't read it yet or are worried about a minor detail in this slab of a book*

Dhalgren is the last name of a person on a list of names that Kid finds, right? I think the first name was William. Plus, Kid finds himself repeating it over and over once, eh?

I've been planning on getting that first line tattooed on my arm for a while now...

By: pyramid termite

pyramid termite — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 23:02:08 -0800

spoilers? ... i've read that book several times and still haven't figured out enough of a plot to have spoilers in it ... that's not a criticism, by the way, it's a good book

rudolph wurlitzer's "nog" was somewhat similar in tone if you can find a copy ...

By: JJ86

JJ86 — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 06:20:43 -0800

All of Delaney's work is great. Check out Aye and Gomorrah, a colection of his short stories for excellent reading and re-reading. He is one of a handful of science fiction authors who transcends the genre. Dhalgren is a difficult read and pretty hard to make sense of in a traditional narrative sense but it gnaws at you like few books can.

By: jokeefe

jokeefe — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 10:40:30 -0800

Yeah, seconding the comment about leetting go of any expectations of traditional narrative: there are incidents, but little plot, and certainly none of the usual setups/signposts/climaxes/resolutions found in standard narrative. (Those that do exist are generally dropped in purposely to confound those expectations.) Read it for the language, the imagery, the meditations on the urban and the modern and social dislocations. Don't wait for explanations, resolutions, or a final decoding of meaning. And enjoy.

Oh, and there's lots of sex, too.

By: mkhall

mkhall — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 17:38:44 -0800

Lots and lots of sex, in many permutations.

A couple of years ago I heard Chip Delaney read the first section at the Miami Book Fair. The poetic cadence of his reading gave me a lot of insight into his own thoughts on the book.

By: ikkyu2

ikkyu2 — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 21:30:55 -0800

His name's spelled 'Delany', not Delaney, by the way.

One of my all-time favorite books.

By: meehawl

meehawl — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 06:48:53 -0800

Delany's Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand is also wonderful: classic, enormous space opera with lashings of hot sub-dom gay sex. It's like Heinlein, only without the denial.