{"id":3201,"date":"2025-03-24T17:32:44","date_gmt":"2025-03-24T21:32:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/?p=3201"},"modified":"2025-03-24T17:32:44","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T21:32:44","slug":"the-worst-book-ive-ever-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/24\/the-worst-book-ive-ever-read\/","title":{"rendered":"The worst book I\u2019ve ever read"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The fate of books that I\u2019ve read and didn\u2019t like is a pile in my library that I\u2019ll eventually take with me on a trip to Half Price Books to trade in for some paltry sum.\u00a0 Paltry, I tell you. My reasoning is that someone else might <\/em>enjoy them – so putting them back in \u201cthe system\u201d and getting a little back to try other<\/strong> books makes sense to me.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Never have I ever added a book so quickly or throughly to that pile as I have for \u201cDhalgren\u201d by Samuel R. Delany.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consider this my book report for the worst book I have ever read.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I preface this by saying I\u2019ve read two other books by Delany and thoroughly enjoyed them – Empire Star and Babel-17. They were both clever and thought-provoking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I approached Dhalgren with interest – a mysterious city and a nameless protagonist on an adventure seemed like my cup of tea. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, as I found, nothing mattered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The nameless protagonist does finally remember his name – or so he thinks. \u00a0 But no one cares and there\u2019s no revelation as to why he couldn\u2019t remember and suddenly did. He doesn’t use it going forward and no one ever calls him by his real name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second moon that appears in the sky one night has no explanation and is glossed over.\u00a0 A second moon, mind you. As is the sun that appears at night – but it may or may not actually be night and anyway no one knows what day it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The chain he wears with prisms on it – and is hesitant to talk about – turns out to have no special significance.\u00a0 There are literally miles of the stuff in a warehouse that is never mentioned again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gang he joins – and is made the leader of for no reason other than he shouted once – has no purpose or motivation. The holograms they wear have no explanation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is misogyny, racism, and sexual violence throughout the story – but it\u2019s gratuitous and doesn\u2019t advance the plot or really mean anything to anyone.\u00a0 Though, really, I had trouble finding a plot to advance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The poetry that the protagonist writes may not have been written by him at all and people either like it or don\u2019t like it.   Which can be said about any poetry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even the central mystery of the weirdness of the city – what caused it, why are directions so random, why do some buildings burn but are undamaged – is never addressed.\u00a0 Things are weird and that\u2019s it. And where does the food come from? No one knows or cares. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, the protagonist\u00a0 – called \u201cKid\u201d through the whole novel even though he\u2019s an adult – leaves the city and hands off his fancy bladed weapon (that he never uses and cuts himself with by accident several times) to someone else entering the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s it.   Roll credits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only thing I found remotely clever took place on page 672 (in the edition I read) when Kidd repeats the name \u201cgrendhal\u201d (as: grendel) and realizes the syllables should break differently as Dhal-gren.   I actually had a little bit of hope that it was going to tie into a larger mythology, but no, it\u2019s dismissed immediately like everything else.   Couldn\u2019t even get the spelling right\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

800 hundred pages I read, hoping for something clever, something thoughtful, something meaningful. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Denied. At every turn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I pulled the bookmark from the pages as I closed the cover for the last time and added it to the pile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then, I looked it up on Wikipedia<\/a> just to see if I\u2019d missed some underlying plot or to learn why it was so well reviewed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much was given over to the non-linear approach – where the end mirrors the beginning.  I found that to be heavy-handed and obvious – and was done to much better effect in Empire Star.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some notably luminaries in Science Fiction liked it and others were\u2026less kind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“I must be honest. I gave up after 361 pages. I could not permit myself to be gulled or bored any further.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

-Harlan Ellison<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\n

“Dhalgren<\/em> is, I think, the most disappointing thing to happen to science fiction since Robert Heinlein<\/a> made a complete fool of himself with I Will Fear No Evil<\/em><\/a>.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

-Darrell Schweitzer<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In response, Delany has speculated that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“a good number of Dhalgren<\/em>‘s more incensed readers, the ones bewildered or angered by the book, simply cannot read the proper distinction between sex and society and the nature and direction of the causal arrows between them, a vision of which lies just below the novel’s surface.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Oh, Oh, Sammy.  I didn\u2019t like it because I didn\u2019t get it?  Oh, if only I was a little bit smarter.  Oh woe is me.   Woe, I tell you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ass-hat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A man goes to a city. He does things. No one cares. Then he leaves.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eight hundred pages.   Eight. Hundred. Pages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I wasn\u2019t so violently opposed to book burning I\u2019d toss this one in the fire pit.\u00a0 But, no, I\u2019ll trade this in at Half Price Books to get something<\/em> out of it.\u00a0 But I might put a warning on a post-it note on the inside cover:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJust\u2026don\u2019t,\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The fate of books that I\u2019ve read and didn\u2019t like is a pile in my library that I\u2019ll eventually take with me on a trip to Half Price Books to trade in for some paltry sum.\u00a0 Paltry, I tell you. My reasoning is that someone else might enjoy them – so putting them back in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3201"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3202,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3201\/revisions\/3202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}