Chris

I have read this amazing book three times now. The first was in 1976, just after its original publication. It still is astonishing, and the language is fresh and exhilarating each time. One of my all time favorites, I have no doubt I could read it many more times and it will always seem like the first.

More than any I've read, Dhalgren is much more than a book, it is a place where you will be welcomed, to escape from our “sane” world - where your imagination can run free - and you can live an exciting, if apocalyptically risky, virtual life without judgment.

Unlike most reviewers who seem not to have read the book carefully or completely, yes, I do understand this book. You will, too, if you set aside your expectations and simply listen to the language, to how Delany tells the tale. Like most great music, which can't be explained with words, Dhalgren is essentially a sprawling classical symphony.

Let linear time go, don't try to figure things out. Listen to it. Let its beautiful language sing, the melodies take you on a journey, fill you with emotion. The sections and chapters divide it up into separate bits, often recapitulating, improvising, and developing prior themes and dialog, just like music. Do this, and the social issues Delany covers will be clear, and a plot will be apparent.

I offer no analysis. The worthwhile things in life are never acquired easily. You must work through it yourself. Actually, you must live it. Like with Thomas Pynchon's great Gravity's Rainbow, the authors merely give you the tools and material from which you build your own understanding - even enabling you to add yourself as a character within the written framework. Since each reader comes with his own reality and origins, no two readers experience the same thing, or end up at the same place at its conclusion.

Some advice: If you can't accept the vital, honest, animal humanity of Kid, Denny, Lanya and George, along with the beautiful, untamed, holographically illuminated scorpions, this book is not for you. Quit before you're tempted to give it a bad review. Better, don't start. That's not Delany's fault, it's yours.

I can't wait my for my next visit to Bellona! What or who will I be? A scorpion or a newspaper publisher? A commune kid or an astronaut? A politician? (Please no!) From whom will I steal my optic chain? What lights will I wear? Wolf? Does that one even exist? Who will give me an orchid? Maybe I can't get one...it'd be pretty dangerous without it.

I probably should bring a smoke mask next time, there don't seem to be any in Bellona. Oh, and some 27-1/2 volt batteries, yeah those for sure. Don't forget my damn ID this time, either! Trouble is my name has been nearly rubbed off it. Something like Mike...Michael...Henry F...? Can't hardly tell or remember anymore.

My spine tingles in anticipation. I'm nearly ready to go again. I probably won't come back.

It was okay for an easy bedtime read. The plot is suspenseful, yet also predictable. Hmm. But it's too sketchy, due to Patterson's typical style, which consists of a multitude of very short chapters that can't possibly fully develop the defining features of good literature. It goes down easy, but leaves nothing behind. At least you are able to finish a chapter before nodding off. Hey, it's Patterson, and I didn't expect anything more.

Lower-tier Pynchon. I wasn't the least bit interested in its characters or plot. But it's better than those hyper-emotional throwaway novels of no intellectual value being written today by many other authors. No point saying anything more.

God-awful. I didn't care one bit about Irvine's personal issues. I expected to read about her experiences with the Mormon religion. Sure, there is some pretty damning content on that, but it all eventually is buried by her need to overshare her miserable life.

As the ORV's tear up more and more of the desert landscape, and her self-admitted hormonal (her word) problems worsen, by the end you find yourself deep down some dark depressing hole wondering what happened to the desert sunshine. What is the purpose of this book other than a selfish groping for her readers' sympathy?

For a leaner and more literary evocation of the same desert's beauty, and a stronger polemic against its destruction, read Abbey's Desert Solitaire instead. It's a permanent classic which will far outlive the inevitable end of the American desert wilderness. I suspect, in fact, Solitaire will be its final epitaph, despite all the later derivative works by authors who never experienced what Abbey did back in 1956-57. That's gone forever now.

I read this short novel entirely at Indian Garden at the Grand Canyon waiting for the beautiful 105 degree sunny day to cool down to ascend back to the rim. That scenario is the best thing about reading this book, which is well written but uniformly uninteresting. Maybe it was the reading location, maybe it was that I wasn't born in or lived in a small Midwestern town, or maybe it's because I am not yet a hyper-nostalgic octogenarian, but this book did nothing to capture my imagination. It's very literary but too depressing. I donated the paperback to the small library at Indian Garden, deep within the Grand Canyon, and if you hike down there you may want to spend a few hours with the book – or perhaps it's better to read the canyon instead.