I have the sense that Dhalgren is so MUCH about its particular time and place- 1960s NYC- that it has to be about something else entirely or the intensity would be overwhelming. The linkage between the modern city and the post-apocalyptic city, in the form of Bellona, which is somehow both, is an incredible deconstructive fiction.
Ha... I don't really know Delany, but I have met him a couple times. He was clearly one of the most intelligent and thoughtful writers I've ever met and I'm not sure I would say for certain that he'd hate that this was not revised much. Surrealism is obviously an influential thought pattern in Dhalgren's composition, after all.
I really liked your summary labeling the story as not a poem, since I think in terms of Kidd's explorations of being an artist, the idea of not identifying as an artist and yet still being a creator is very vital and meaningful.
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I have the sense that Dhalgren is so MUCH about its particular time and place- 1960s NYC- that it has to be about something else entirely or the intensity would be overwhelming. The linkage between the modern city and the post-apocalyptic city, in the form of Bellona, which is somehow both, is an incredible deconstructive fiction.
Ha... I don't really know Delany, but I have met him a couple times. He was clearly one of the most intelligent and thoughtful writers I've ever met and I'm not sure I would say for certain that he'd hate that this was not revised much. Surrealism is obviously an influential thought pattern in Dhalgren's composition, after all.
I really liked your summary labeling the story as not a poem, since I think in terms of Kidd's explorations of being an artist, the idea of not identifying as an artist and yet still being a creator is very vital and meaningful.