Samuel Delaney, Part 2

Finished Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand and started on the short story collection Aye, and Gomorrah, in which it is clear (if it wasn't before) that Delaney has certain themes he really, really likes. XD For instance, Surprise, this person is actually the opposite gender! is one (The Star Pit); dirty fingernails is another (also The Star Pit); making a sexual fetish the mechanism that drives the plot is a third (ALL OF THEM); and finally there's a couple scenes where illusion/hallucination disguises a reality that's really dirty and shabby, which I was reminded of when Kara mentioned that she'd been shown an absolutely disgusting house when she and J were househunting... owned by druggies. For some reason before she brought this up, I hadn't made the super obvious connection.

Discussed with Sabina how this novel could have been written as a series of short stories. There are a bunch of discrete units in the novel that would have been very good longish short stories: the prologue, the follow-Marq-on-the-job scene (which even ends with a "twist" re: people's genders); the rescue scene; the dragon hunt; the banquet; even the Catalog of the Literary Meanings of Dawn essay at the end, which let me tell you, I was in no state of mind to read after the traumatizing cliffhanger ending.

Again, this (the linked short stories) is something that's pretty obvious, but that I didn't notice until I read the scholarly introduction. Speaking of scholarly, there's a note from Delaney at the end of my library edition of the book. Stars in My Pocket is essentially an unfinished work (Kara said there was going to be a Part 2, but that Delaney didn't write it because he felt bad writing so much casual sex in his book when a lot of his friends were dying from AIDs irl), but does the author say anything about that in his afterword? No, he does not.

Discussed Americanisms and other things with Kara, but I can't find the chatlog now. ^^; ayalesca, help?

Anyway, WIPness aside, this was a very enjoyable book. Some of my specific commentary is below the cut.

( Notes of second half of Stars in My Pocket )

See also: Stars in My Pocket, Part 1 (spoilers).