Writelife

Trying to explain Dhalgren

October 15th, 2005 by Bill

I received an e-mail in reference to my post Strange things found in my reading list. They basically wanted to know what it was about Samuel R. Delany’s Dhalgren I liked. The best I was able to come up with, was this:

You know, over the years I’ve tried explaining the book and why I like it but have never had much luck. In the edition I currently have, there’s an introduction by William Gibson where he says of the book, “I have never understood it.” He goes on to say he doesn’t think it’s a book that’s supposed to be understood. (And I have never understood it either.)

But I like it. Partly because I like the way Delaney writes. But mainly because for me the book is about disorientation. It’s a world where everything is upside down, no social or cultural assumptions work, and some people adapt and some don’t. I think that’s partly why the main character never truly knows what his name is and why the novel begins and ends almost in midstream.

I kind of think of it this way: An Oilers-Canucks game. Bertuzzi suddenly bends over, picks the puck up in his hands, skates to the Oiler net and tosses it in. The referee calls it a goal. It counts, the Canucks win.

Well, that’s totally against anything we know about hockey and how it’s played. Yet suddenly, that’s the world you’re in. To me, that’s kind of what Dhalgren is like. The thing is, the book continues through this world, the characters (or players) eventually adapt to it … and so on.

That’s not a particularly good explanation. One day I may blog my assessment of Dhalgren to see if I do any better. But I know from his later books that the theme of disorientation, and a world fragmenting into more and more cultural and social groups, each with their own assumptions, is something Delany explored quite a bit.

Anyway … that’s the best I can come up with.