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Dhalgren

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Dhalgren

By: Samuel R. Delany
Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
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About this listen

In Dhalgren, perhaps one of the most profound and best-selling science fiction novels of all time, Samuel R. Delany has produced a novel that rivals the best American fiction of the 1970s.

Bellona is a city at the dead center of the United States. Something has happened there...the population has fled. Madmen and criminals wander the streets. Strange portents appear in the cloud-covered sky. And into this disaster zone comes a young man - a poet, a lover, and an adventurer - known only as the Kid.

Tackling questions of race, gender, and sexuality, Dhalgren is a literary marvel and a groundbreaking work of American magical realism.

©1975 Samuel R. Delany (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Adventure Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Psychological Science Fiction
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Narration is phenomenal and while the audiobook format isn't perfect for the beginning of the final chapter (which is littered with lots of visual cues and formatting in the style of an edited journal), it is otherwise a great way to experience this novel. A dense, sprawling, poetic, and oftentimes very mundane story—it will not always make sense, and loops about on itself in strange ways, and it filled with levels of sexual and violent gratuity that can weigh heavy, but it is all aimed towards tackling prescient and valuable themes regarding morality, sex, gender, violence, art, poetry, religion, state, reality, memory, community, identity, values, and a million others. A read that will challenge you, and will not always be entertaining, but as a complete work of art with high conceptual goals, it is a masterpiece.

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The selling points of this story require a written version. It’s just confusing otherwise. It’s confusing with... but at least you have all the facts.

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