When did you first read Dhalgren? What did you think of it then? What do you think of it now?

First, I looked for it for *years*, all over the country, then found it when I least suspected it, right here where I live, in a mundane used book store.

Then, I started to read it. Couldn't. Couldn't even begin to get my head around it. Put it down. For years.

Finally, I picked it up again, and this time it reached up and grabbed me by the throat and honest to God I did nothing else for 10 - 12 hours until I'd read that entire book. I *loved* it. I didn't *understand* it, but I loved it.

One of these days I'll read it again. I expect I'll understand more of it second time around.

I'm going to have to read it now!

Thanks, Karen!

A friend of mine sent me the novel Nova to read. Nova instantly became one of my favorite novels so I looked for more Delany. I found two books that day that weren't in the sci-fi/fantasy section, they were in the regular fiction section.

One was Hogg (which made Dennis Cooper's novel Try seem like a young adult novel) and the other was Dhalgren.

The first time I read Dhalgren I couldn't finish it. A combination of other books coming out that I really wanted to get to reading and secondly I wasn't in the 'mood' to get into Dhalgren made me put it down.

The second time I read Dhalgren it grabbed me by the throat and throttled me for all it was worth. I had never read anything like it before or since.

Bellona to me is a dream, a city made from the mind of a poet. I want to live there and explore that world time and time again. Dhalgren is one of my favorite novels I have ever read. Reading the essay about it brought a smile to my face wanting to read it again.

If people want to get to know me better I always tell them to read two books. Notes from Underground by Dostoevsky and Dhalgren by Delany. It doesn't get much better than those two novels.

i'll have to read Notes from Underground!