RE: Reading Phallos

>From: "Pete Lenz" <[email protected]>

>I picked up a copy of the Bamberger edition of Phallos a few months
>ago, and I'm considering reading it soon. I'd like to get a discussion
>started about it.
>
>I had wanted to get a copy of Phallos when it was being offered through
>Voyant Publishing (why can't I find their website?) as a chap book, but
>never got a copy. It seems as if it's going to be a really fun book to
>read, it's set up in an interesting way.
>
>So, anyone whose read Phallos, sound off!


I read _Phallos_ at the beginning of the year.

Sadly, it's the first Delany book that has ever left me disappointed. I've
been enthralled, enraged, engorged, but never ennui'd before by an
SRD book. I'm tempted to dismiss it as what some clueless people
dismissed _The Lord of the Rings_ as: "a donnish joke." But I know
better; Delany doesn't write pointlessly.

Yet: I found _Phallos_ singularly unengaging, and unmemorable. I
doubt that I will ever reread it, and I've even managed to reread
_Hogg_ (the one that enraged me).

Assuming you've read other people's comments, I'm not giving
anymuch away when I say, A plot summary is not a book. And
that's what _Phallos_ is, basically; a summary of an imaginary book.
Why bother? Did Delany doubt his ability to write the actual book,
or perhaps to get it printed in the current state of the Union? I
don't know; I am inclined to believe that he had some better (at
least to him) reason for doing things this way -- but, really,
metafiction at this level is, by now, just trite, a winking at the
reader ("We know it's just a text, right, readers?") that adds
nothing while detracting from any "emotional" impact the text
might otherwise have had.

--Dan'l

PS: Side note to whoever it was that commented on "About
Writing" being almost finished ... I don't know what you're
talking about; I've had a copy for months, and it sure _looks_
finished.




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