Dhalgren's first and last line

I just finished rereading _Dhalgren_ a few days ago, approximately 7
years after my last rereading.. Whenever I reread it, it is like
coming back to a city I visited some years ago, and being pleased that
all of the things about it I found interesting are still there, but
there's usually something new that surprises me.

Anyway, reading it this time I realized that the famous first/last
line, "I have come to / to wound the autumnal city", actually can be
read literally: "I have 'come to' to wound the autumnal city", with
"come to" meaning "to wake from unconsciousness" or something like
that. And this lets you read the end of the novel as "I have awoken...".
That never occurred to me before.

I also thought, on reading the fragment in the "Anathemata" section
where the envelope from the Richards' mailbox is described, that it
could not be written that way today, due to the total adoption of ZIP
codes; Delany would have to have made up a ZIP code for Bellona,
making it much less of an "anonymous American city".

-- 
Erich Schneider  [email protected]


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