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From: psc@lzwi.UUCP (Paul S. R. Chisholm)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: STARS IN MY POCKET LIKE GRAINS OF SAND
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Date: Fri, 4-Oct-85 17:37:06 EDT
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Posted: Fri Oct  4 17:37:06 1985
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< Oxygen is for people who can't take New Jersey >

 STARS IN MY POCKET LIKE GRAINS OF SAND: first half of a diptych,
Samuel R. Delany, 1984; Bantam Spectra, 1985, 375 pages, $3.95.

     "'We're planning to pluck all the best stars out of the sky and
stuff them into our pockets,' I said, 'so that when we meet you once
again and thrust our hands deep inside to hide our embarrassment, our
fingertips will smart on them, as if they were desert grains, caught
down in the seams, and we'll smile at you on your way to a glory that,
for all our stellar thefts, we shall never be able to duplicate."
[p.132]

     My FUNK AND WAGNALLS STANDARD DICTIONARY (where else would I look
it up in?) defines a diptych as "1, A double tablet; especially, two
tablets of wood, metal, or ivory, hinged together and covered on the
inside with wax, on which the ancient Greeks and Romans wrote with a
stylus.  2, A cover for a book, resembling this.  3, A double picture or
design on a pair of hinged tablets or panels." (They give an
illustration of the last; have you ever seen a hinged pair of portraits
of saints, or of photos of different people, perhaps at different ages?
That's what it looks like.) Delany begins the book with, "STARS IN MY

POCKET LIKE GRAINS OF SAND is the first novel in an SF diptych.  The
second novel in the diptych is THE SPLENDOR AND MISERY OF BODIES, OF
CITIES." I guess a diptych is a trilogy without the middle book.  I'll
probably get THE SPLENDOR AND MISERY OF BODIES, OF CITIES, the second
half of the diptych, when it comes out.  I'm not entirely sure why;
certainly not to finish the story I started reading here.

     STARS IN MY POCKET LIKE GRAINS OF SAND is rich in description,
culture, aliens, tradition; maybe everything but story, and possibly
characterization.  We see a lot of strange planets and people (not all
of the latter human), and we get to know quite a bit about some of the
planets.  It's a galactic whirlwind, complete with dizziness.  (One of
the characters tells how much more you can learn about a world by taking
a simulated tour, rather than actually visiting.) Delany never misses an
opportunity to go off on an intersting tangent, exploring lush
tributaries of a dry river bed.

     The Prologue concerns itself with a world, and one of its natives
(actually, a nth generation human colonist).  If you have any doubt that
Delany can tell a story, this should dispell it.  (So should a *lot* of
Delany's other writing.) Except in the Prologue, STARS also concerns the
narrator; at least, it never leaves her side.  She's as tempest tossed
as the reader, and very few of her goals are of import to what goes on
in the novel.

     A word or two about pronouns: "'she' is the pronoun for all
sentient individuals of whatever species who have achieved the legal
status of 'woman.' The ancient, dimorphic form 'he,' once used
exclusively for the genderal indication of males (cf. the archaic term
MAN, pl.  MEN), for more than a hundred-twenty years now, has been
reserved for the general sexual object of "she," during the period of
excitation, regardless of the gender of the woman speaking of the gender
of the woman being referred to." [p. 78]  Except in the Prologue.

     In fact, the woman who is the main character is a male human, who
(this is essential to the plot!), unlike most women who enjoy sex with
women of either gender, is primarily turned on by large human males with
acne and short fingernails.  Twice in the novel, she (the narrator)
remarks with surprise how, in some places, sado-masochism and "what's
called beastiality" are (giggle) actually forbidden, even by law!  I'm
sure that all of this, including the short fingernails, is making some
very subtle political statement.  Maybe, "sex can be pleasurable without
being pleasant"?

     The pronouns I can accept as a reversal of the expected.  Some
other things - for instance, claiming one world just happened to have a
compass rose with five directions (north, east, south, oest, and west) -
don't seem to make a lot of sense.  By and large, though, the bizzare
bazaar of detail works at enrichening the novel.

     Delany wasn't writing a story; he was conducting an experiment.
Realize that not all experiments "succeed" or "fail"; many simply yield
data.  There's a lot here, much of it good, but not enough of it working
to stir the cauldron of Story; and as a *story*, as something to read
rather than study, I think it fails.  Maybe I'd enjoy it more the second
time around?  Maybe; but if so, the books requires, but doesn't
encourage, you to reread it.  I neither recommend that you read or don't
read this book.  (But if you read it, let me know what you got out of
it!)


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