Re: The Mad Man

There is a sentence in Mad Man--putatively the writings of Timothy 
Hasler--about how "I need Dennis so much more than he needs me".  
I'm paraphrasing but that sentence seemed pretty autbiographical.

I would disagree with Steve M. that knowing the author's biography 
is rarely of value in fiction.  I think there's a more complex 
relationship going on.  Does anyone remember the Borges story about 
the guy who's going to lead the life that will lead him to write Don 
Quixote word-for-word, but with an entirely different meaning?  It 
seems so quaint now when the literary theory consensus seems to be 
that we should isolate the text from its real-world moorings before 
we analyze it.  In a sense, though, Borges was advocating two 
positions:  that the text is entirely subjective and that the 
author's life is essential to interpreting the text.  

On that same note, it genuinely bothers me how much sex with kids 
(or minors) pops up in Delany's books.  I've read maybe ten of his 
books at this point and pedohilic stuff pops up in almost all of 
them.  Does this bother anyone else?


--- In [email protected], Steve M <lists@m...> wrote:
>
> At 8:45 AM +0100 12/24/05, Henrick Pålsson wrote:
> >  I reading now The Mad Man I have only read  50 
> >pages so far, but I wonder how biograhical The 
> >Mad Man is. I know  its fiction, but is some 
> >thing about Delanys own life. I got that 
> >felling when I read. Anyway it is a great book. 
> >I also have his About  Writing and hope he will 
> >write more great books. He is after all my 
> >favorite writer both fiction and non-fiction.
> >
> >   Merry christmas and happy new year I wish all Delany-fan.
> >
> >   Cheerio!
> >   Henrick
> 
> I think that's one of those questions that rarely 
> is of much value with fiction. As you read 
> Delany's explanation of "Write what you know" in 
> his book "About Writing" it becomes clear how 
> slippery this question is.
> 
> What can be said: Certainly the descriptions of 
> New York City are informed by Delany's own 
> observation of that city. Certainly the fact that 
> his current lover was homeless informed his 
> portraits of homeless men in the story. Certainly 
> his visits to adult movie houses informed that 
> portion of the book. And certainly his recent 
> career in various universities informed his 
> writing about those aspects of the book and about 
> the characters that come from or pass through 
> that milieu. However, "informed by" is different 
> from "based on."
> 
> Read "The Motion of Light in Water" and "Times 
> Square Red, Times Square Blue" and 1984, as well 
> as the graphic novel about his relationship with 
> Dennis to get biographical information about his 
> sexual and intellectual life. If you do, you will 
> see correspondences--character traits that show 
> up in someone encountered in his memoirs that are 
> remapped onto a fictional character, but few if 
> any one-to-one matchups. In the same way, some of 
> the experiences in Delany's triadic relationship 
> with Marilyn Hacker and Bob Folsom certainly 
> informed some of the dynamics of the relationship 
> of Kidd, Lanya, and Denny in Dhalgren, but Kidd, 
> Lanya and Denny are not Delany, Hacker and 
> Folsom. There is no simple one-to-one 
> correspondence.
> 
> In short, it's a work of fiction that, like any 
> good work of fiction, draws on its writer's life, 
> but if you read the memoirs, it's clear that The 
> Mad Man is not a roman a clef.
> 
> However, your sense that "this must be real" is a 
> testament to how well it is written, how well he 
> used real experience to make the fictional 
> occurrences feel real.
>






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