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FUNCTION_OF_WORD_PATTERNS


                                                             January  19, 2005
                                                             February 10, 2005
                                                       


   to wound the autumnal city.

   So howled out for the world to
   give him a name.
                                                 DHALGREN
   The in-dark answered with wind.

   All you know I know: careening astronauts
   and bank clerks glancing at the clock
   before lunch; actresses cowling at
   light-ringed mirrors and freight elevator
   operators grinding a thumbful of grease
   on a steel handle; student riots; know
   that dark women in bodegas shook their
   heads last week because in six months
   prices have risen outlandishly; how
   coffee tastes after you've held it in
   your mouth, cold a whole minute.


Reading Delany's "Dhalgren"...

Take it step by step.
                                Reading as Delany has been
  It begins with a              known to read others.
  sentence fragment,            (Or in something like a
  goes through some             similar fashion.)
  pretentious (windy?)
  statements that
  establish a tone, an                                     (A trick
  atmosphere, without          Much later, we will find    borrowed
  immediately resolving        the beginning of this       from Joyce,
  into sense.                  fragmented sentence, at     I think.)
                               the close of the book.
                               There's a choice of:

There is something                  I have come to wound the autumnal city.
odd going on with                   I have come to to wound the autumnal city.
pronouns...
                                        And here: who can the
Experienced fiction                     "I" be that is speaking?
readers expect the
"person" to be                                         There are only two
established quickly                                    guesses: (1) the Kid;
(third?  first?  the                                   or (2) the author.
rather rare second?).             We also
Instead, the implied              expect that             Reading to it from
third person "he" is              a name will             the end (where the
elided-- though strongly          be given                narrative has
suggested by a quickly            for the                 shifted to first
following "him":                  main                    person), it seems
                                  character.              like the Kid.
  So howled out for the
  world to give him a name.         (There are            Considering it
                                    notable               wrapped around,
But then immediately                exceptions            I suggest it
afterwards in the next              with first            looks more like
paragraph (the fourth?              person,               the author.
or is it the third and a            though.)
half?)  there is a "you"                                  Delany himself,
and then an "I":                      Later in this       is stating his
                                      narrative the       purpose.  He has
  All you know I know                 "amnesia" card      arrived (or
                                      is played,          awakened) in
Who is the "you" addressed?           which back          order to "wound
Who is the "I" speaking?              fills the           the autumnal
                                      meaning of          city".
  It seems likely, in                 this "howl".
  retrospect -- once the                                     The citadel
  third person narrative                                     of science
  is established -- that                                     fiction
  this can only be the                                       itself?
  reader and the author.    The voice
                            remains                             Autumnal.
                            unstable,                           A fading
                            though.                             citadel?

                                 I -> He
                                 He -> I

                                        There's something
                                        there about the
                                        blurring of self      WANDERING_PURPOSE                written to be read
                                                         aloud.

In the midst of the first                                       
sex scene, there's this bit      Delany himself, we all learned much     
about the main character's       later, finds "ugly" hands like this     
hands being "ugly".              to be tremendously erotic, a piece      
                                 of information that colors (flips?)     
The way this is played--         the meanings here.                       
at first-- makes it look                                                 
like a horror movie bit:                                                 
                                                                        
   She pulled back. "Your *hands*--"                               

   Veins like earthworms wiggled in the hair.
   The skin was cement dry; his knuckles were
   thick with scabbed callous.  Blunt thumbs
   lay on the place between her breast like
   toads.
   
You know the routine: the woman is 
having sex with a stranger, notices    
something weird about him, and                            Monsters.
discovers-- oh no, oh my god he's                         Dhalgren = Grendhal
not *human*, he's a *monster* ...                         The monster reversed.
                             
But it doesn't go that far.         (Dhalgren never         Through the
Instead, it backs off from          goes too far into       mirror...
this:                               what you expect.
                                    When you expect it         First he is
  No, they were not deformed.       to be misleading,          warned of
  But they were... *ugly*!          then it stops trying       scorpions,
                                    to mislead.)               then he becomes
Here, the narrative seems to                                   a scorpion.
admit that it was misleading
(a rare admission in this book     But the narrative               (You know
as I remember it).  The author     is not misleading               what you
tells you they were not,           about the state of              find when
because he knows you were          mind of the woman:              you go
thinking they were.                she thought they were           where they
                                   deformed, at first.             tell you
                                                                   not to go?)
                                   Has the viewpoint wandered      
                                   into *her* head?  Not           
                                   precisely: the male             
                                   character experiences her       
                                   suprise at the same time        
                                   she does, he can see her        
                                   reactions (perhaps he           
                                   expects them, having seen       
                                   them before).                   
                                                                  

                                       Feb 2005:
Then there's some dialog,              Suddenly it dawns
where the main character's             that the main
partial amnesia is established.        character is
                                       an echo of
There's a "recitation" of              Wandering Angus.
questions that I like, but
don't recognize -- nor do                       This woman is the
I know if it is something    It could           creature (the sprite?)
that is to be recognized.    easily be          that Angus seeks.
                             some formula
Then there's a classic       for plotting            Look at all those
science fictional "hang      stories.                references to the
up": dates don't add                                 moon... the Silver
up.  The main character        ("And what            apples?
claims he knows when he         is your
was born, (he says              quest?")                     Eh: might not
1948, which I would                                          be what Delany
guess is Delany's own                                        had in mind.
date of birth), and          The setting would
that he's 28.                then be 1976.
                                                             (Which is not to
The woman insists                                            say that he would
that he must be much      So then the date is a decade       necessarily object
older if he was born      or so later, but no more than      to some over-
then (she was born in     two. (She can't be *all* that      interpretation,
'47 and claims to be      much older.)                       either.)
much older).                                                 
                                                             
  In the real world, this would be taken as               
  proof of a radically damaged memory; in        
  straight fiction-- say, a Hitchcock film--     
  it might mean the woman was lying to induce    
  self-doubt.  But in a science fiction           But if Dhalgren *is* 
  story, there's a strong suggestion of time-     science fiction,     
  travel or time-slip.                            it's not *that* kind.
                                                                       
                                                      The flow of time
                                                      is either not as
                                                      strange, or stranger
                                                      than that.
The woman leads him                                   
into a cave, where he                             
finds a string of            
prisms, mirrors and           I've heard it claimed
lenses, and wraps             there's some mythological    There is a large
them around his body.         tie-in to this... Jason      brass brazier on
                              discovering the chains       the floor of the
  And here we have            that bound Prometheus?       cave.
  another major       
  fake-out/red                  Well, Prometheus is
  herring...                    an appropriate deity                 
                                to invoke in an SF tale.   Or in a tale
                                                           about SF.        
                                And Jason is yet                            
                                another wanderer...                         

      ORCHID_PETALS

I know at least one reader that jumped to
the hypothesis that this strange chain was
a science fictional talisman, which caused
all the later fantastic events, perhaps by
warping the main character's perception.       Though his amnesia
                                               clearly precedes this.
    In retrospect, this might seem as
    plausible an "explanation" as any,              (Unless the apparent
    because -- in retrospect -- we realize          order of events is also
    that no explanation will be endorsed            a warped preception.)
    by the author as the one true one.

         Also in retrospect: it's easy to
         spin a hypothesis of the
         "literary significance" of this
         chain of prisms, mirrors, and          (Compare to the "Helix of
         lenses: It is symbolic of chains       Semi-precious Stones":
         of words, which themselves             Moments in time,
         distort, reflect, or focus the         fragments of meaning...)
         real, without being the real.

         And the fourth (third and a half?)  paragraph
         resolves into meaning: since the primary
         focus (or one of them?)  of this novel is
         language itself, this list of things known
         represents the massive amount of shared
         background information -- context -- without    SYSTEMS_OF_THE_MADMAN
         which any communication would be impossible.

             "All you know I know"


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