ask sam delany a question?

the last delany i read was dark reflections, which i remember being melancholy and pretty great.

I skimmed through most of Hogg in a bookstore and ultimately couldn't bring myself to buy it. My daughter was about 7 at the time and it squicked me out just a little too much.

i read hogg when i was...25? i guess? maybe earlier. it didn't gross me out, per se, but it definitely became a slog. i don't know if i ever finished it.

i mean i can understand why he felt he needed to write it, and as a busting-loose-of-all-societal-and-literary-constraints move it has historical value, but i think everything he was trying to do there he did better in later books (including, it sounds like, spiders), mostly because they have actual plots and characters you care about, rather than just a steady, numbing accumulation of taboo-busting grossnesses.

actually i did finish it, because i remember the last page very vividly now, and it's a hell of a punchline if nothing else.

i picked up 'through the valley...' again this morning and it's interesting how easy it was to fall back into the rhythm of it, eric and shit and dynamite collecting trash and drinking each other's piss, and jay and mex piloting the ferry and eating shit out on the island, and so on and so forth

i mean, it's a rare novel you can pick up again at six month intervals and not feel like the effort's become completely pointless

just checking in with your poop-eating friends.

i still need to read this.

For whatever reason I pulled a copy of Dhalgren off the shelf last night and reread the first 80 or so pages. The Kid's about to become a poet and get his ass kicked.

to be fair, i probably feel more excited at the idea of rereading dhalgren than i do getting through the second half of ...spiders.

good thread, someone said 15 years too late

crossposting from the ILB thread.

Good (first half of an) interview: http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2015/07/interview-samuel-r-delany-three-novels-launched-career-part-1/

He was also interviewed by Gary Wolfe for the Coode Street Podcast — http://jonathanstrahan.podbean.com/e/episode-241-samuel-r-delany/ — but it seemed a bit lightweight and inessential. Getting a bit of press/doing a bit of promotional work for the new Vintage edition of three early novels.

Didn't know about those reprints, thanks!

For all my Delany fandom, in the early 80s I breezed through his early work once, quickly and with poor attention to detail. Time to reread.

Another good new interview, from The Nation - http://www.thenation.com/article/samuel-r-delany-speaks/

The Motion Of Light In Water is one of the best autobiographies/memoirs ever written (him being young & etc in NY 1957-1965) - pretty much the first thing I read of his, Tim, & I luvved luvved ELL YOU VEE luvved it to death.
― Ess Kay (esskay), Sunday, May 25, 2003 11:56 PM (12 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's true

Still a hero, another new interview:

https://io9.gizmodo.com/samuel-r-delany-on-his-legacy-creativity-and-promisc-1833407173