Feel This Book

I'd vote for Triton, myself. --Then, I've yet to read Dhalgren. (Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand is amazing, though. Maybe not right out of the gate, but oh my God.)

Babel-17 is a good one. The new edition is sold with Empire Star, which I also like a lot, though it's really different from everything else of his I've read. (It's more accessible than a lot of his stuff, but may not really give a good impression of what he's like on its own.)

But I have to say, of all the Delany I've read, Triton would be the LAST book I'd recommend to someone reading him for the first time. It's an incredibly frustrating read in a lot of ways. Looking at it now (I've read it a couple of times and re-skimmed it another 2 or 3 times for a paper--come to think of it I'm kind of weirdly fixated on it), I think it's a great piece of work. But when you first read it, unless maybe you know what to expect (which would kind of ruin it) it can be really annoying. First off, almost nothing happens for the first 3/4 of the book, and the last 1/4 isn't that eventful either. And Bron is an incredibly annoying character. Most of the book is taken up with his/her incredibly inconsistent, fatuous, self-aggrandizing rationalizations. On one hand, it's an interesting study of a pathological mind managing to exist in a society with almost no repression. On the other hand, it can be really taxing spending that much time listening to the ramblings of that mind. I almost stopped reading it about 2/3 through the first time. If I hadn't had a certain amount of faith in Delany based on the other stuff of his I'd read, I don't know if I would have gone the distance.

I have to admit, though, I still haven't read Dhalgren either, though I own it...

So yeah, Babel-17 all the way.

But Susan, I really related to Bron when I read Tri--

I mean, yes, what an effed-up character.

I'd forgotten how slow going the book was the first time through; the re-read was way more enjoyable, but I guess for someone encountering Delany's work for the first time, that ain't such a good suggestion. Thanks.

Kip, between the two of you I'm starting to think I'm the only one who even attempted to summit Mt. Dhalgren. And I died halfway up, and the sherpas ate my corpse.

I've read Dhalgren. A few times. I read it at kind of a hitch-stop, with lots of breaks to surface for air, but for me it's like the richest, fillingest, tastiest 25-course gourmet meal you could ever imagine. It's a gluttonous read, and I love it.

Oh, right, Hopkinson, like you know anything about written SF. . .

I'll give Dhalgren another try. Or at least try to finish the last, especially fragmented chapter(s). But you have to admit, it's probably not the best first exposure to Delany's work.

Ok, you don't have to admit. Or agree, actually. That phrase just rolled off the fingers. I should work on not doing that.

I really am going to read Dhalgren one of these days! Really! I haven't actually tried yet. I got it for Christmas but since then all my reading has either been about knitting or for this danged paper, which is also the reason I've read Triton so many danged times.

If you haven't read Dhalgren by the time I finish the paper and can move on to other books, I'll do a read-along with you, if you want. You know, moral support and all that.

Well, yeah: Triton has those--faults? But the world is so odd, and engaging, and delightful (and then I left high school and went to college and figured out what he was on about) and you come at it from such a different angle than "standard" (if one can use such a word) SF and the sneaking suspicion of what he's up to with Bron that slowly, slowly blossoms into oh my God he really means it! is so--funny?--that you overlook what is, essentially, a really long and rather cruel shaggy-dog story. (Well. Not so much. But.) --Which is to say it was the first Delany I ever read, and it was a kick to the head for a high school kid with enough grounding in the genre to see where he was running circles around it, and on that level it works really well. So.

While we're on about him, if you haven't read his criticism--Jewel-Hinged Jaw, Shorter Views, Longer Views, etc.--you're really missing out; the library will, of course, be glad to help.

I think Dhalgren *was* the first Delany novel I ever read. But yeah, something like Babel 17 or the Neveryona books would probably be more accessible.

Nalo, met someone at the reading yesterday who also said Dhalgren was the first of Delany's work they'd read. I say to you what I said to them:

"Damn, you're hardcore."

Then again, there were people there who'd read The Mad Man and Hogg. I so felt like a poseur. . .

Think Babel-17 was the first novel I read. Or one of the Neveryon books; I should remember this stuff. And I'm not even sure about suggesting those as first exposures, at least the last(?) one where the short story/novella blends into journal entries blends into. . . gods, I need more coffee.

How about the Fall of the Towers trilogy? Although I guess since I know I read them, but remember pretty much nada, that's an indication that maybe not so much. . .

Dunno that the Towers trilogy is emblematic of the writer he was to become. It's very early work, isn't it? But _Eintein Intersection_ might also be another good one with which to start.

I think it's more hardcore to have read Hogg cover to cover than Dhalgren.

-nalo