Dhalgren
I loved Delany's The Mad Man, a favorite of mine for a few years. I was really interested in reading another work of his, especially one that's so highly regarded.
This was a beautiful epic of science fiction/magical realism, with a colorful cast of characters and realistic dialogue. One thing I like about Delany's work is his realism among the unbelieveable. He doesn't shy away from describing the dirty bits of the real world, yet his work is simultaneously otherworldly.
The theme that stood out most to me throughout the story was that of uncertainty, particuluarly the feeling of it and having to live with it. People of Bellona don't know what day or year it is, or even the exact time of day. The main character Kid is only so-called because he doesn't know his own name. There's also different versions of truth/reality presented so you can't even be sure of the story. There's one scene, on pg. 356, when a woman on a ladder is changing the street signs. When Kid asks which one is right, she says neither. The next time Kid sees the signs the names have changed again. They have to live in a city where even the names of the streets can change and one still has to manage to navigate around.
Then there's the mythologization of people in Bellona, which is wrapped up in the state of race relations. There's George, an archetypal black hero, with a moon named after him. Of course he has to be in pursuit of a young white woman who represents purity. Then there's Roger, the white politician and keeper of order, who's never actually seen but is always in some way influencing major events and controls the only newspaper in town.
Then Kid, the in-between, unidentifiable, half-white half-native american Other. Kid literally has a foot in both worlds because he only ever wears one shoe, leaving his left foot bare and calloused while the right is shielded and protected. A bit like a trickster, Kid upsets the social order by bringing his gang of scorpions to a party of rich white people, and moves between worlds more easily than others. He knows how to behave in nice places: "Take what you need then get out." Kid inhabits many in-between states and dualities: he's ambidextrious, bisexual, not young but not old, not black or white, not innocent but not a bad guy. He's seen doing good deeds for nothing, like moving a family into another apartment, but also does random acts of violence, like mugging a guy in the street to see what it feels like. As the story goes on, it's really Kid who becomes the greatest hero of Bellona. So many of his ideosyncracies contribute to his being like a demigod of legend.
