So is it worth reading? How is it stylistically?

>>9212192
also
>inb4 pedophile
okay, got it, how's the book though?

>>9212194
any takers? or did I use dry up all the possible thoughts that /lit/ has about it when I said inb4 pedophile?

reading babel 17 now

kind of interesting because of all the language biz

i am surprised how much ted chiang was influenced by it

Well Bloom liked it so I guess we have to too.

Personally I loved it, it's pretty fragmentary. I think he said stylistically the plot was supposed to be similar in structure to a mobius strip? Keep in mind it was also inspired by a mental breakdown he had where he kept seeing a ruined city. I really enjoyed the parts that touched on the difficulty of communication verbal and written between people.

"And I cried about all the things people cannot understand when other people say them - I cried over the miracle that they could understand anything at all. I cried for all the things I had said to other people that had been misunderstood because I, not knowing, had said them wrong. I cried with joy about those times when someone and I had nodded together, grinning over an understanding, real or wished for."

Also there's some good gay sex if you're into that.

>>9212192
I liked the book. It's insistently and ultimately personal. If you want something more cosmic than being 20-something Sam Delany you'll need to go elsewhere.

For me the breaks with convention succeeded in producing a more intimate and unique communication. For others, maybe it just looks flabby and self-indulgent.

>>9212192
It's Sci fi so it's shit prose and shit style

>>9212192
It is a structurally strange book that feels like a ruined city. Once you get 400 pages in its like you had an experience in all stratas of society in a destroyed city. The racial commentary is some of the smartest stuff I've ever read on the subject (besides the great Baldwin). Delany is my favorite writer. He has more ability than Pynchon. He could demonstrate emotion and write really dense prose in an almost cinematic way. Plus his structural experiments aren't difficult to follow in fact it feels naturally fragmented. I seriously never had more fun reading a book ever. I read it within two weeks. My roommates were away on a cruise and I was working short closing shifts at Chipotle. Every day I would come home from work and read 50-100 pages and feel inundated with a world. After the 4th day I felt so close to the main character. Maybe it was because I was trying to write poetry and understood the writing process that was revealed in the novel... maybe it was because I just finished The Savage Detectives for the second time... I don't know Dhalgren really felt like a game changer in my life. That turned out more like a blog entry but I am posting it anyways.

>>9214346
Ha, I read dhalgren in 20 minute chunks before my restaurant shift, in the coffee shop next door, and I felt like I was living in Bellona those 2 months. Anyway op it is a very frustrating book but a rewarding experience, I envy you reading it the first time.

>>9213950

Playing spot the faggot who hasn't actually read the book was easy today

>>9212192
The Teaching Company just came out with a lecture about it.

http://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/great-utopian-and-dystopian-works-of-literature.html

Course seems pretty pleb and female though.

>>9214916
>great-utopian-and-dystopian-works-of-literature
You think?

I'm surprised Best Girl Gregory Sadler hasn't done some meme-tier worldbuilding vid on Bellona though. Then again he did GRRM so...

OP here, thanks for the great posts, guys. Was expecting just memes, but I think I'll give this book a shot.

>>9213862
Babel-17 is the opposite end of the universe to Dhalgren.

the first was written as an attempt at classical SF informed by the author being a gay poet with the Whorf-Sapir theory as the mcguffin.

Dhalgren was an excuse to indulge his fetish for sucking off bikers.

>>9215709
and he hasn't stopped since, though you forgot to mention homeless bums. A new delany ... with even more dick cheese than before. bleh

>>9213911

Harold Bloom? When did he say he liked it?

>>9216152
i try not to bring up "Hogg" in these discussions because the threads seem to get killed shortly afterwards. i wonder why?

>>9216183
I bought Hogg thinking it couldn't be too bad but the first twenty pages were more extreme than I thought it would be. I put it away for a later date when my decadence and depravity had thickened. However I am not too adverse to the sex Dhalgren. I really want to read his 800 page porno Valley of the Spiders or something like that. I might just buy thst when I get my next paycheck.

>>9216852
i pirated it thinking "is he going to try to out-do De Sade?" but it was just boring. the characters had no depth, and the shitting and pissing and rape and cussin' just went on and on and then it stopped. i can only imagine he was trolling.