Rolling articles/essays/features/interviews thread

catalog

Well-known member
Just read this Samuel R Delany article for the second or third time and really enjoyed. It's a very frank, but sort of meandering, account of a trip he goes on his 70s to a sex meet up club in New York. It sounds tawdry but he clips over so many details and takes in a lot of stuff, it's got this very pleasing sense where you don't know what's gonna happen next.

I keep meaning to read more novels by him (enjoyed Dhalgren, didn't enjoy Times Square Red... ) but haven't done so.

But there's just something about the style of writing in this I really love. Diaristic, profound, funny, shocking, rude, but wrapped up in this sort of coherent way of looking at the world that you don't often find.

 

catalog

Well-known member
Thanks, might check that out. that piece i posted reminds me of this other book i read a while ago, "My Walk with Bob", by Bruce Boone. I've got it on PDF somewhere, cos someone recommended it. Similar type of thing where its all done in this casual, this is just me going for a stroll, travelogue type way, but then it gets deep quick. I love that sort of style.
 

catalog

Well-known member
went looking for some delaney/delany in the library today but no joy. but i did get "the three stigmata of palmer eldritch" instead. library staff said that delaney's not been republished much recently, they would have had him in the past but would have chucked him.
 

version

Well-known member
That article reminds me of Vollmann in how matter of fact and nonjudgmental it is. I've seen people complain about both Delany and Vollmann re: that lack of judgement extending to some pretty appalling things.
 

catalog

Well-known member
i've never read vollmann, apart from had a go with "atlas" years ago and really didn't like it, just disliked him as a character, he felt really grubby and low rent. couldn't get into it at all.

but yes, can see in delaney that similarity re the nonjudgemental tone going to a place where you think it's nasty. like when he's describing fred and says he doesn't wanna get too close to him cos he smells.

it's just so weird, as a fairly short piece, how he's catching his own mood and thoughts in this quite distanced way. i like the bit where he goes outside and writes up descriptions of the cars to test his abilities.

i intuitively like delaney as a character, how he writes, how he thinks, it chimes with me.
 

catalog

Well-known member
He's well cancellable for the NAMBLA stuff. I suppose he's not been cos he's not really that significant and it's like a lot of cancellation stuff, the statement is long ago enough, taken out of enough context, and he's addressed it


Although I've not read all of that cos it goes into an area I don't find interesting.

But maybe that's why he's not getting republished much I dunno.

He's interesting though. Dhalgren I would recommend to anyone, so much going on in it. And this bit where a sun just collapses and everyone's sort of staring at it, but things just carry on.
 
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