Well, he starts thinking thru the concept in fiction in some of the novels of the 80s--I think the Neveryon series is worth reading for that, and also just for the way he engages theory. If you haven't encountered those books, well, I love them--they're just strange and beautiful things.
OK, I found my reeeeally old paper on Delany, in which I wrote the following:
In “Toto, We’re Back!,” a 1986 interview with the Cottonwood Review, Samuel Delany develops what he labels a “web” or rhizome, based upon the distance, or “mutual inadequations,” between language, desire, and “what happens,” the last being our behavior alone and with others (59).
and
“Aversion/Perversion/Diversion,” while it showcases Delany’s role as “storyteller” and the nature of “Gay Identity” explicitly, uses the rhizome of “Toto, We’re Back!” as an implicit code (119, 142).
Wow. That was... a different me. Reading one's early grad school papers is interesting. "Aversion/Perversion/Diversion" is in the essay collection Longer Views. You could also consider Times Square Red, Times Square Blue as a kind of analysis of space inspired by these concepts--I heard someone give a good talk on that, once. (Finally, but not all that relevant: "Atlantis Rose...", also in Longer Views, is the best piece of lit crit on Hart Crane ever.)
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regna
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Date: 2012-08-29 07:54 pm (UTC)OK, I found my reeeeally old paper on Delany, in which I wrote the following:
In “Toto, We’re Back!,” a 1986 interview with the Cottonwood Review, Samuel Delany develops what he labels a “web” or rhizome, based upon the distance, or “mutual inadequations,” between language, desire, and “what happens,” the last being our behavior alone and with others (59).
and
“Aversion/Perversion/Diversion,” while it showcases Delany’s role as “storyteller” and the nature of “Gay Identity” explicitly, uses the rhizome of “Toto, We’re Back!” as an implicit code (119, 142).
Wow. That was... a different me. Reading one's early grad school papers is interesting. "Aversion/Perversion/Diversion" is in the essay collection Longer Views. You could also consider Times Square Red, Times Square Blue as a kind of analysis of space inspired by these concepts--I heard someone give a good talk on that, once. (Finally, but not all that relevant: "Atlantis Rose...", also in Longer Views, is the best piece of lit crit on Hart Crane ever.)