Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site unc.unc.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!mcnc!unc!oliver
From: oliver@unc.UUCP (Bill Oliver)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Samuel Delaney's Dhalgren
Message-ID: <71@unc.unc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 31-Jul-85 22:44:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: unc.71
Posted: Wed Jul 31 22:44:58 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 3-Aug-85 00:43:14 EDT
References: <662@ihu1g.UUCP>
Reply-To: oliver@unc.UUCP (Bill Oliver)
Distribution: net
Organization: CS Dept, U. of N. Carolina, Chapel Hill
Lines: 26
Summary: 

In article <662@ihu1g.UUCP> rls@ihu1g.UUCP (r.l. schieve) writes:
>Dhalgren was mentioned in another posting.  It is one of the
>few Sci-Fi books I gave up half way through in discust.  Has
>anyone read it all the way through?  Is the ending any better?
>Or does it just keep rambling on and on.....
>
>				Rick Schieve
>				...ihnp4!ihu1g!rls
>				

Yes! I finished the thing, and it becomes more flaky the further
you go.  If you can abandon yourself to the book, and try to
completely inhibit any critical faculties you have, the obsessional
nature of the imagery can be compelling.

I read Dhalgren a second time during my Psychiatry rotations
while in med school, and discussed it with my attending physician
(who was also an avid SF reader).  We basically came to the
decision that the organization and the imagery of the novel
is a great simulation of the reality and imagery experienced by a 
schizophrenic, though a really hard core symptomatic schizophrenic
couldn't stay cohesive enough to write the thing.

Any psychiatrists on the net?

Bill Oliver