Re: Re: Dhalgren's first and last line

On 5/1/06, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <[email protected]> wrote:

>> Paul wrote:
> >I thought it was well known that Dhalgren was Delany's tribute to
> >Finnegans Wake.

I agree that "tribute" is the wrong word here -- in many of his
stories and novels, Delany references / alludes to / parodies /
borrows tropes from assorted modernist masterworks, including Joyce's
FW and Ulysses (and I'd argue there is as much Ulysses as FW in
Dhalgren, but there are also clear gestures toward a variety of other
works, including Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, and even John Ashbery's
poetry).

>What's interesting is that the evidence of those two conversations,
>plus other bits, indicates that the women the kidd meets leaving
>the city as he enters are the same women he meets entering
>the city (for the first time) as he leaves; and also that they were
>in the city at the same time as Kid ... though I don't _think_ they
>ever meet _in_ the city.

I don't have a copy here to reference with citations but in my mind I
have always associated the women Kidd meets on the bridge with the
group living in the "women's commune" -- who are mentioned several
times but which Kidd doesn't actually visit until all the women have
abandoned the house (iirc both Denny's "girlfriend" and Lanya spend
time with those women, which makes me wonder if the two of them, and
maybe Millie as well, aren't in the group Kidd passes on the bridge,
just he doesn't realize it because, entering, he doesn't know anyone
yet, and because, leaving, he is so dazed and confused and the light
is bad/erratic.

> >To me this has always indicated that there is another story, of the
> >girl, written on the other side of the paper but equally that the story
> >itself is a moebius strip – it only has one side – which in turns means
> >that the story of Kidd is not about a boy/man nor about a girl/woman
> >but rather about a person.

I've heard someone offer the moebius strip model before -- was it Jean
Marc Gawron in his introduction from the old Gregg Press hardcover?
(Which is now included in the Ash of Stars collection of essays.) 
Anyhow, it's a compelling image, yes. Equally compelling (maybe this
is the image from Gawron) of the narrative structured not as a simple
loop, but like one of the prism/mirror/lens chains, with a main loop,
numerous side loops that cross and re-cross each other and the main
plot, and even a few loose "gaps" that produce disjunctions in the
story's thread.

> That's a really interesting insight, and I think it fits the text better
> than my "spiral" model (which implies a rising consciousness). I'm not
> sure they're mutually exclusive, come to think of it -- _Dhalgren_ is
> "about many things."
>
> It _would_ be interesting to see the female "version" of the story.

Agreed. Millie or Denny's girlfriend would be the most immediate
candidates to come to my mind for that narrative. Lanya... well, she
is too thoroughly explored in Kidd's narrative, seems like -- in some
ways she is largely a product of his interests, needs, and desires,
and doesn't have that much of an independent existence. (Though I
suppose if her perspective were narrated well it would provide an
interesting lesson in subjectivity and difference in perspective.)

--
Ron Henry | [email protected]


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