I have been reading a lot lately and have done a few mini-reviews over on my circumlunar gopher hole¹. I had not actively read sci-fi in 15 or 20 years and over the last year have read a lot of great stuff. I was searching for a new book to read and stumbled upon "Dhalgren"² by Samuel R. Delany. I was unfamiliar with the author and the book, but it sounded intriguing.

I am just barely a few chapters in and let me tell you: this is a book of hallucinatory craziness. I do not understand the vast majority of what is going on... but it is still somehow compelling and I keep wanting to wade in its mysteries. The author is apparently very dyslexic and the main character is possibly schizophrenic and the book reads like the combination of the two.... but clearly by someone brilliant. It reminded me in some ways of "The Waves" by Virginia Woolf in how experimental it is and in how to enjoy it you really just have to adjust your brain to it and give yourself over to its rhythms. The wikipedia compares it to "Ulysses" by James Joyce and my wife said it sounded like Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow". It is definitely dense with words and seeming incoherence. It featured a great foreward/introduction by William Gibson, who is apparently quite the admirer of the book.

I'll write more on it as I get further in, if I can make it through (I am really enjoying it, but am always on the edge of it being too much/too strange). Has anyone out there read it? Let me know what you thought ( either via response or e-mail < sloum AT rawtext.club > ).

1. sloum's circumlunar phlog (gopher)

2. Dhalgren @ wikipedia (www)