[Fwd: Review-a-Day: Dark Reflections]

The Washington Post reviews Dark Reflections...

--Zvi


---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Review-a-Day: Dark Reflections
From:    [email protected]
Date:    Fri, July 20, 2007 2:00 am
To:      [email protected]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


Today's Review From
Washington Post Book World

Dark Reflections
by  Samuel R. Delany

<<>
Read today's review in HTML at:
http://www.powells.com/n/220/wpb/review/2007_07_20

Tell us what you think! Give us your two (or ten) cents about today's
review by posting a comment on the Powells.com blog:
http://www.powells.com/n/220/blog/?p=2265

<>>

A Poet's Gaze
	A review by Andrew Holleran

Samuel Delany's new novel is a triptych -- a biography, in reverse, of a
poet we see at three stages in life. On the first panel,
a decrepit writer is dining with his young editor; on the second,
a middle-aged groom searches for sex in a public restroom on his
wedding night; in the third, a college boy falls in love.

The figure in all three scenes is a man who, whenever he finds
photographs of himself, invariably turns them over and writes
on the back, "The poet Arnold Hawley." More specifically, Arnold
Hawley is a black, gay poet who lives in Manhattan's East Village. Dark
Reflections is a sort of love letter to that part of town,
when it sheltered the homeless and the hustler in a way it no
longer does.

Beneath the physical and psychological squalor, the humiliations
of poetry and poverty, lies a certain nostalgie de la boue. The
10-year-old bookworm raised by an intellectual aunt who prefers
Berg to Webern (Arnold's favorite) ends up "a very fragile" old
man who wonders when he enters the subway whether the smell of
urine is coming from him or the station. He is also unable to
forget the remark a famous white poet made when a poet of color
was admitted to a literary society: "Who let the coon in?"

His consciousness, however, remains essentially childlike. The
same wonder is bestowed on dinner ("her veal -- which really was
awfully good") as on the darkness of a restroom swarming with
homosexuals ("Yes, there were men in here!").

In previous books, Delany has shown himself to be comfortable
with both gay and straight, black and white milieus -- not to
mention various literary forms -- but the hero of this heartfelt,
often funny book is triply alienated. Looking at a beautiful oak
door painted over, he thinks: "Some things were ruined, and you
had to let them go, which was how, actually, Arnold had always
thought about his own sexuality." His only brothers are brothers:
other gay black male writers. Yet sex with men terrifies him.
Meanwhile, the psychotics, policemen, hustlers and suicides he
meets are mere obstructions to be endured till the next poem,
mercifully, arrives.

In the end, like Doctor T.J. Eckleburg in The Great Gatsby, he's
nothing but a pair of spectacles. Yet Dark Reflections, while
harrowing and bleak, is mainly tender -- a loving rendition of
a place that gentrification has all but obliterated, a spot-on
portrait of the East Village artist as a gay black geek.

Andrew Holleran's most recent novel is Grief.

Read the review online at:
http://www.powells.com/n/220/wpb/review/2007_07_20

COPIES NOW AVAILABLE*
Trade Paper (New) starting at $15.95
http://www.powells.com/n/220/wpb/biblio/9780786719471

*Please note that copies are limited to on-hand quantity; used copies, in
particular, may be available in extremely limited supply.

WISH LIST
To add this title to your Powells.com wish list, click here:
https://www.powells.com/n/220/wpb/cgi-bin/wishlist?add=9780786719471

<<><><>>

Browse reviews from the past seven days:
http://www.powells.com/n/220/wpb/review/

<>

Visit Washington Post Book World at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/print/bookworld/

<>

You are currently subscribed to review-a-day as: [email protected]

To UNSUBSCRIBE from Review-a-Day, go to
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/[email protected]

To manage your subscriptions, use the following link:
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/[email protected]

<<><><>>
Powells.com, 2720 NW 29th Ave, Portland, OR 97210

http://www.powells.com
Free shipping on qualified purchases of $50 or more.
<<><><>>





== Posted to delany-list, hosted at yahoo groups ==
== A mailing list for the discussion of the works of Samuel R. Delany. == 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/delany-list/

<*> Your email settings:
    Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/delany-list/join
    (Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
    mailto:[email protected] 
    mailto:[email protected]

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    [email protected]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/