Longer Views

June 15, 1996
To this unusual cluster of five long, eccentric essays, science fiction writer and comparative literature professor Delany brings a rare personal frankness and stunning erudition. Intellectual probings into topics as varied as Richard Wagner and poet Hart Crane's masterwork The Bridge, these sometimes turgid pieces pivot on questions of linguistics, science fiction, and homosexuality. For instance, in "Aversion/Perversion/Diversion," an address given at Rutgers's Lesbian and Gay Conference on Gay Studies, Delany speaks not only of his own early homosexual experience but of how "the sexual experience is still outside the language." Recommended for readers who enjoy the challenge of being led into remote regions of a gifted mind.--Charles C. Nash, Cottey Coll. Nevada, Mo.

May 1, 1996
A university press rather than a commercial publisher gives us this collection of essays by one of science fiction's grand masters, perhaps because these long critical pieces seem addressed to an audience smaller than that for Delany's fiction. A probing study of the iconoclastic Antonin Artaud that observes the French theatrical director's similarity to Richard Wagner in his turbulent style of dramatic presentation opens the volume, and a revealing collection of notes from Delany's mid-1970s journals that afford a peek at his creative development closes it. In between are a lecture on gay identity, a series of loosely connected literary observations, and a long study of Hart Crane's modernist epic poem, "The Bridge." Delany's elegant command of language and deep insight into other authors' works are delightful to behold. Die-hard Delany fans and other sf writers will want to read these pieces, and literary scholars, especially of Crane, really ought to read them. ((Reviewed May 1, 1996))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1996, American Library Association.)