#AutumnalCity discussion

Discussion of pages 601-700

On page 610-611, Kamp gives a wondrous, beautiful soliloquy on the Moon. I'm wondering if any of the Apollo astronauts had said anything similar?

This place is dead. Time for everyone to load up your wildest unsupported suppositions about what's going on!

Example: I think Bellona has been removed from Earth by aliens. The optic chain is some kind of monitoring/mind control technology. This explains both the odd astronomical things happening, and the strange reluctance of everyone to discuss the optic chain.

Still don't know what the red eyes are all about.

(Of course I know that probably isn't what's "really" happening, and we're never likely to find out. It's a wild supposition, and that's what's fun about it!)

oh, also Kid and Roger Calkins are the same person, which explains both Kid's blackouts and Calkins' absence from Kid's party. (I've noticed a lot of potential doubles in this book ... so many I find it hard to believe at least one pair isn't deliberate on Delany's part.)

I'm working 60 hours weeks just now and not really up to contributing, but thanks Brian for those ideas! Will try and find more 'pairs' while commuting... anyone else still following?

Bunny's an interesting character, I think I barely noticed her/him first time through.And the rather sweet relationship with the spotty wannabee Scorpion who my brain is too tired to remember the name of... Dollar??

I'm finally caught up! Brian, that Kid and Roger Calkins being the same person comment showed up on my newsfeed and I half-read it and thought, good grief, really? without realizing it was a joke.

I don't think we're going to get any explanations for all the weird crazy stuff in this book. At this point, I really hope we don't. I've been disappointed by clean endings to messy books before, and I wonder if I'll be happy with the ending to this one. I think Murakami, for instance, rarely ends a book as strong as he starts it, because it's hard to wind up a weird, sprawling story in a satisfying way. I loved the first two books of 1Q84, rather disliked the third.

Actually, more than any Murakami, Dhalgren reminds me of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro. Have you guys read that book? It has that same unsettling crazy-making quality.

Murakami: I really enjoyed Kafka on the Shore, was unsure about Norwegian Wood, and HATED book of short stories, couldn't finish it. Then I suffered the acute embarrassment of sitting through the turgid film of Norwegian Wood with my 14 yr old daughter - 'It's Japanese! you'll love it'. Anyone read any David Mitchell (not the comedian)? He's inspired by Murakami but I like him more. Sorry, off topic!

Well, I'm not going to catch up, but I am going to finish. I'm not sure what to make of the odd astronomical occurrences in Dhalgren. They're still on the planet, but I'm not sure what caused all this, except we're getting all of it from an unreliable narrator. Maybe he dreamed that stuff.

That always seemed more like disorienting backdrop in the novel to me, like Calkin's dates in his paper. No one ever knows what the real date is and sometimes there are Sundays just two days apart.

As I'm reading I'm realizing how much my time at my first college was like this. All the clocks at the school were set 15 minutes fast. Entering freshmen who weren't clued in were always "late" to their first class. I was "late" for mine. It's not as big a shift as what Calkins does, but it was definitely disorienting and you learned quickly to change all your clocks and fall in line. It felt like the school had gone through some temporal shift and existed slightly off in time compared to everywhere else.

I'm also realizing I may be confusing the gangbang scene in Dhalgren with the one that happened my first semester at college. What a strange and yet appropriate thing that would be. Does anyone know where that scene is? Maybe I didn't get there yet.

Some things I'm putting together, I'm not sure I noticed on other readings, like Kid's progress through the novel. He starts off as an unknown quantity in Bellona. It doesn't take him long before he becomes a local celebrity with his book of poems. He falls a** backward into the leadership of the Scorpions. It takes him a while to recognize that he has and I think that's why I almost don't notice he's the leader too. He seems to get along with just about everyone. I can definitely see why i was so attracted to this book in High School. Kid is seemingly not someone you would expect to be popular. He only wears one shoe/ boot/ sandal throughout the novel. Yet he becomes the BMOC and can travel in pretty much any circle he wishes to. He's welcomed everywhere. And I think that's why the city of Bellona, despite it's broken down nature, seemed such an attractive place to me when I read it the first time. I remember wishing I could go there. Amazingly, the college I started out at wasn't so far removed from Bellona. The same kinds of things happened there (barring George's Moon and the gigantic sun).

You obviously had a more interesting time at college than me. But the gang bang happens towards the end, after the Scorpions have 'moved house'.

Yes, Kid is the loner, the misfit, who just seems to fit in everywhere. I guess we all kept waiting for that transformation to happen to us?!

It did happen to me, fortunately. But I had 6 years in college to make that transformation. And I guess I didn't wait for it to happen. I did a lot of therapy from 17-24.

I'm currently at Roger Calkin's party for Kid, where Roger isn't present. I think I always just assumed the huge property with all the monthly gardens was owned by Calkins, but this time around, I realize we don't really know that. The actual owners could have left Bellona and Calkins could have just moved in. I love the fact that all the gardens are named for months. It's another example of the dislodging of time in the novel. They can move easily from one month to another, just as Calkins plays with the dates in the paper. It makes Bellona a very surreal sort of place, lacking context, just like Kamp describes his experience of the moon. There's none of the things we use to anchor us in our own lives and time frame here. I think that's one of the reasons this book ages as well as it does. There are only a few 60's slang words that creep in here and there, like the word "natural" to describe an afro.

I'm not sure I ever thought about the fact I was pretty close in age to Denny when I read this book the first time. Because it's all from Kid's perspective, I identified with Kid. I also wanted to be a writer, so he was the most natural for me to. I didn't relate to all the sexual situations he was in, though. And I definitely wasn't comfortable with Denny's sexuality, so the only thing we had in common was our age. Kid really comes off as ageless anyway. He looks 15 years younger than he is, which, interestingly was true of me until about 4 years ago when I went more gray.