It's in 7 parts, so maybe one week each? Except the last section is quite a bit longer and more complex, so maybe 2 weeks for it plus summing-up? 8 weeks total. Is that too long?― WilliamC, Monday, November 25, 2013 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― WilliamC, Monday, November 25, 2013 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Yes! I'd say a month, or 5 weeks at a push.
Ordered a copy from my library today - once I get it I'll have a browse and think on this..
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 26 November 2013 15:50 (ten years ago) link
I'll never keep up. I could do 1 part a month for sure but 1 part a week? Maybe when I was 22.
― Pressgang Wolf (Jon Lewis), Tuesday, 26 November 2013 17:02 (ten years ago) link
i vote for sixteen weeks
― the late great, Tuesday, 26 November 2013 20:13 (ten years ago) link
PKD was right about this one
― Ayn Rand Akbar (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 27 November 2013 03:39 (ten years ago) link
What about Harlan Ellison@?
― Skatalite of Dub (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 27 November 2013 03:52 (ten years ago) link
Hey Shakey, there is no articulate resonance. The common problem, I suppose, is to have more to say than vocabulary and syntax can bear. That is why I am hunting in these desiccated streets. The smoke hides the sky's variety, stains consciousness, covers the holocaust with something safe and insubstantial. Knowwhatimean?
― Servings Per Container: 736 (WilliamC), Wednesday, 27 November 2013 04:19 (ten years ago) link
Got my copy from good ol' inter-library loan - lets see if PKD was right.
My thinking now goes something like: we'll never finish as a collective, so lets do about 3-4 parts (at 350-400 pages) and then a final oh-whoever-reads-through-the-rest and want to add more is invited to do so?
How about starting this on Mid-Jan? Post a thread then - the worst that can happen is no one answers/takes this on. It will be 'hilarious'.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 19 December 2013 16:27 (ten years ago) link
I'm in for whatever happens. One hope I have for this is to use it as a training session in close reading, something I've always been an abject failure at. (Which is funny, considering Delany has always been one of my favorite authors.)
― diffidently worth every cent!!! (WilliamC), Thursday, 19 December 2013 16:41 (ten years ago) link
my ancient copy self destructed so i got the new ugly tpb version. gonna bring it with me over xmas holidays, looking forward to revisiting this novel that i loved as a young feckless autodidact. always goes well.
― adam, Thursday, 19 December 2013 16:51 (ten years ago) link
maybe i'll join, i do have an unread copy of this on my bookshelf. my strong hunch is that i won't be into it but who knows
― johnny crunch, Thursday, 19 December 2013 16:55 (ten years ago) link
Great! Monday 13th January is the date for your diaries.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 19 December 2013 16:57 (ten years ago) link
If I can get this for free I'm in.
― Scuse me while I kiss this guy correspondent (ledge), Thursday, 19 December 2013 17:07 (ten years ago) link
Inter-library loans. Can't say it enough :)
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 19 December 2013 17:13 (ten years ago) link
Took over a month the last time I tried that. Also Lambeth libraries have 3*Delany, 0*Dhalgren. Hopefully the internets will provide an epub though.
― Scuse me while I kiss this guy correspondent (ledge), Thursday, 19 December 2013 17:30 (ten years ago) link
The last section has some very specific formatting requirements meant to convey the sense of multiple passages written into a notebook, possibly or possibly not by different authors. I don't know enough about epubs to know whether they can handle that sort of thing.
― WilliamC, Thursday, 19 December 2013 17:40 (ten years ago) link
From the sound of things I won't get that far.
― Scuse me while I kiss this guy correspondent (ledge), Thursday, 19 December 2013 18:04 (ten years ago) link
My local borough has no Dhalgren so they got one from Wandsworth lib.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 19 December 2013 18:25 (ten years ago) link
finished re-reading my six month old reread of triton, now just to finish through the valley, only been reading that for a year and a half, then i'll get on this dhalgren thing, how's everyone else doing
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Monday, 27 January 2014 11:22 (ten years ago) link
I'm not at the mo as my copy was recalled back (wonder if it was an ilxor).
If someone wants to start the thread sometime otherwise I'll get round to it.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 27 January 2014 11:25 (ten years ago) link
I read Dhalgren for the first time with a group last year, so I probably won't be taking part in the thread, but I'll just mention the wide-ranging Paris Review interview with Delany from a few years ago:
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6088/the-art-of-fiction-no-210-samuel-r-delany
Fredric Busch's observations on publishing Dhalgren are also worth reading, particularly since Delany offers corrections to Busch's account in the comments section:
http://www.thewaythefutureblogs.com/2011/01/chip-delany-part-2-the-miracle-of-dhalgren/
― one way street, Monday, 27 January 2014 16:55 (ten years ago) link
A weird typo above: by Fredric Busch I meant Frederik Pohl.
― one way street, Monday, 27 January 2014 16:56 (ten years ago) link
that is a weird typo, you should get a larger phone
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Monday, 27 January 2014 21:18 (ten years ago) link
or a better analyst
― one way street, Monday, 27 January 2014 22:32 (ten years ago) link
i'm ready to go when you all are
what do you think of "triton" thomp? i think it might be my second-favorite delany.
― the late great, Monday, 27 January 2014 23:08 (ten years ago) link
it's my favourite after 'mad man' probably; idk, it reminded me to Think About Things when i read it first time round; this time round it felt more uncomfortably close i guess bcz more life-experience to try and connect with the narrative stuff and reconcile with the theoretical stuff. -- that's not very interesting, is it? i'll think about it. i do think (like all his best stuff!) it actually is stronger at what it's doing for delany's failings; like he does a great job of not just building his project around his strengths but designing it such that his not-quite-there and overdetermined-feeling characterisation/dialogue/description seem an essential part of his affect
i was thinking of proposing a feb 14 start date for dhalgren, but mainly just because it was convenient for me to do so
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Tuesday, 28 January 2014 01:11 (ten years ago) link
book club, this time for real?
― the late great, Tuesday, 26 March 2019 15:29 (five years ago) link
yeah i'm in
― Mordy, Tuesday, 26 March 2019 15:43 (five years ago) link
just bought the ebook, hope the formatting is up to scratch.
― what if bod was one of us (ledge), Tuesday, 26 March 2019 15:53 (five years ago) link
What about the audiobook?
― Theorbo Goes Wild (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 26 March 2019 15:56 (five years ago) link
Is this the thread or do we need a new one bc I’m liable to start tnite
― Mordy, Tuesday, 26 March 2019 16:10 (five years ago) link
i was unsure, there may already be one
― the late great, Tuesday, 26 March 2019 16:17 (five years ago) link
A friend of our family, a 17-year-old girl, asked us all what our favorite novels were. I said this one and she asked to borrow it. I tried to warn her away from it but she insisted, so she's got one of my 2 copies. She got about 250 pages in pretty much lost interest.
― CPAP Makers Scrambling After New ILX Sub-board Unveiled (WmC), Tuesday, 26 March 2019 18:04 (five years ago) link
i mean huge credit to her getting 250 pages in
― Mordy, Tuesday, 26 March 2019 18:18 (five years ago) link
I have a copy and have read like ten pages. i'm in.
― adam the (abanana), Tuesday, 26 March 2019 23:44 (five years ago) link
I’m in. (famous last words, pvmic etc.)
― Theorbo Goes Wild (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 27 March 2019 21:32 (five years ago) link
― what if bod was one of us (ledge), Tuesday, March 26, 2019 8:53 AM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink
lol yeah i wish, though it's not horrible as those things go. quite a few very silly spacing/pagebreak errors throughout though, and one paragraph in the final chapter is repeated twice and i had to check it against my print copy, as things were kind of unraveling by that point anyway
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Tuesday, 27 October 2020 01:11 (three years ago) link
anyway, best book i've ever read
its good
― ciderpress, Tuesday, 27 October 2020 02:51 (three years ago) link
[ernest newboy voice] i couldn't possibly tell you if it's good or not
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Tuesday, 27 October 2020 02:53 (three years ago) link
Brad, I really liked your substack essay on this
― rob, Tuesday, 2 March 2021 15:43 (three years ago) link
https://hologramofthesenses.substack.com/p/escalator-over-the-hill
Met Chip over the weekend because we were booked to read together. Honor of my life, he tickled my shoulder and took lots of pictures of the audience's hands and postures? Then he read a damning review of 'Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders,' then a chapter from that book. It was excellent.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Monday, 28 March 2022 12:41 (two years ago) link
Amazing!
― change display name (Jordan), Monday, 28 March 2022 12:54 (two years ago) link
Cool! I think ex-ILX0r Casuistry may have met him once as well, iirc.
― The Central Rockaliser (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 28 March 2022 13:10 (two years ago) link
Oh that's so nice! I've noticed he frequently describes his characters' hands so that one doesn't surprise me. I emailed with him about a blurb once when I worked in publishing but that was as close as I got
― rob, Monday, 28 March 2022 13:29 (two years ago) link
aww this is so wonderful
my old college lit professor is writing his biography and i couldn't be more thrilled :)
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Monday, 28 March 2022 14:11 (two years ago) link
Very cool. I thought about ilxor love for him while we were sitting waiting for his Uber home. He lives only ten minutes away from me.
― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Monday, 28 March 2022 15:17 (two years ago) link
awww that rules
― donna rouge, Monday, 28 March 2022 15:42 (two years ago) link
I will never not love this book. I read it for the first time in my early teens. That was probably a great time and an awful time to read it. It made a powerful impression on me, probably as much as any novel ever has, in terms of shaping my ideas of what fiction, and life itself, could be. Returning to it in my middle age was a revelation, an almost unique experience of telescoping time.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Monday, 28 March 2022 17:46 (two years ago) link
thinking about a reread.
― the cat needs to start paying for its own cbd (map), Wednesday, 4 May 2022 14:31 (two years ago) link