FIC: Optic/Nerve (Dhalgren, Mature, Kid/Lanya/Denny)

[rhivolution]

Title: Optic/Nerve
Author: Rhi (rhivolution/rhipowered)
Fandom: Dhalgren - Samuel R. Delany
Rating: Mature
Warning: I chose not to use archive warnings on this, only because all of the warnings therein don't really define the sense of this fic. It's a confusing somewhat problematic shambles (in keeping with canon). Denny is underage, but that really doesn't apply to this story, so I left it out.
Relationships: Kid/Lanya/Denny
Summary: "This is not a poem. It is a very shabby report of something that happened in the year of Our Lord it would be oh-so-nice to write down, month, day, and year. But I can't."
Notes: For seekingferret in the Kaleidoscope Fanwork Exchange Autumn 2011. 1518 words.

Read at AO3


Additionally...this is not a fic to read if you haven't read canon. Seriously, it barely makes sense if you have read canon. I...have rarely written an unreliable narrator on purpose before, and it's a trip and a half.

And the canon...the canon is problematic-on-purpose, and not for everyone by any stretch of the imagination, certainly not for people who have assault and/or racism and/or anti-gay triggers. In his attempt to deconstruct myths both ancient and modern (of the stereotype sort), Delany plays with all of those things. Alternately, some people aren't triggered by any of that but really don't get it and find Dhalgren to be utterly hopeless and OTT.

It is, but there's a point to it--the deconstruction of the modern city and descent into chaos sort of demands that. (And the theme somehow seems exceedingly relevant to the current economic debacle.) Somehow there's seriously interesting worldbuilding going on, and a really great meditation on being an artist of any variety (Delany would probably hate to know that I didn't revise this fic much at all. If for some reason you're acquainted, please don't have him read it). I went with the latter theme in my writing, and I'm trying to decide if telling people what I meant by it is ruining the whole thing. If you're interested in knowing, please drop a comment.

I've made a Dhalgren inspired fanmix as well, but I'm too tired to upload the cover art right now as I've cooked a whole turkey dinner and am wiped. Soon.

And if you haven't looked at mific's art for me, please do.

Comments

[futuransky]

OMG you made Dhalgrenfic! I AM SO EXCITED.

And horrendously busy, so bookmarking right now... But I can't wait to read! And to hear your fanmix!

Delany is never about positive representations, really... not that he doesn't create them, but he always wants to make us think about and live with what is difficult. Sometimes it works better than other times, but I think Dhalgren does well.

[rhivolution]

Yay! I'd love to know what you think once you get a chance to read it.

I think I like Delany a lot more for not trying for positive representations, because in his sort of narratives, it's going to ruin the whole thing. I personally thought Dhalgren was quite strong, though it's a slow burner, I think.

[azuire]

HAR I was right! Though I haven't read Dhalgren in a while - the fanmix! Hurray!

[all the squee]

[rhivolution]

How did I not know you had read this?! YAYS. I hope you liked it okay.

[azuire]

I did! I may need to read the source again though. ♥

[seekingferret]

Ooh, there's a fanmix too? Wow, lucky me. :D

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.

[rhivolution]

Yeah, the fanmix bug bit and would not go away at all. It helps that I am a massive 70s (and to some extent the 60s, but like a hipster the 60s are so overdone) history geek--it's my favourite period of recent US history, bar none. Thus the sense of place really caught me, along with relating it to where we are now.

Which is, of course, utterly screwed.

It was funny, the summary is a quote from a page where I found another quote I really liked but that didn't fit with the narrative--and I thought I might as well put Delany and Kid in their own written words there, just a bit. It felt appropriate.

[seekingferret]

Ha. You know what's bizarre? I think in relation to the kind of thing you're talking about, the optimistic reading (the maybe we're not UTTERLY screwed reading) of Dhalgren is via Jane Jacobs. The cityscape is so much a character, its architecture is so alive, that Dhalgren just might be the story of the death of the American city and its subsequent afterlife through urban planning.