Review: Dhalgren

Dahlgren by Samuel Delany

Title: Dhalgren
Author: Samuel R. Delany
Published: 2010
ISBN-13: 9780375706684
Publisher: Vintage Books
Publishers’ BlurbBellona is a city at the dead center of the United States. Something has happened there … The population has fled. Madmen and criminals wander the streets. Strange portents appear in the cloud-covered sky. Into this disaster zone comes a young man—poet, lover, and adventurer—known only as the Kid.

Tackling questions of race, gender, and sexuality, Dhalgren is a literary marvel and groundbreaking work of American magical realism.

Dhalgren is supposed to be one of Delany’s classics. He got praise for being post-(something). 400 pages in, I gave up because the sex is just too much. The section I was reading was nothing but graphic sex for almost 40 pages.

I knew going in I wouldn’t understand a lot of what was happening because it was experimental, and I think reading Kerouac prepared me for that.

So yeah, I hit the DNF wall. I don’t want to wade through all that just to see what’s on the other side.

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