Shorter Views

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Overview

In Shorter Views, Hugo and Nebula award-winning author Samuel R. Delany brings his remarkable intellectual powers to bear on a wide range of topics. Whether he is exploring the deeply felt issues of identity, race, and sexuality, untangling the intricacies of literary theory, or the writing process itself, Delany is one of the most lucid and insightful writers of our time. These essays duster around topics related to queer theory on the one hand, and on the other, questions concerning the paraliterary genres: ...
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Overview

In Shorter Views, Hugo and Nebula award-winning author Samuel R. Delany brings his remarkable intellectual powers to bear on a wide range of topics. Whether he is exploring the deeply felt issues of identity, race, and sexuality, untangling the intricacies of literary theory, or the writing process itself, Delany is one of the most lucid and insightful writers of our time. These essays duster around topics related to queer theory on the one hand, and on the other, questions concerning the paraliterary genres: science fiction, pornography, comics, and more. Readers new to Delany's work will find this collection of shorter pieces an especially good introduction, while those already familiar with his writing will appreciate having these essays between two covers for the first time.
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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
Living up to essayist and science fiction author Delany's reputation for pushing literary and cultural boundaries, these 25 essays, interviews and reviews, all of which appeared between 1987 and 1998 in a variety of literary magazines and anthologies, encompass both traditional literary criticism and autobiography. From his explication of Jacques Derrida's literary theories as applied to U.S. science fiction to his analysis of the African-American s&m scene and its effect on his writing, Delany's remarkable erudition is as evident as his ability to generate controversy. In a provocative essay, "Pornography and Censorship," he discusses how critical evaluations of pornography and other sexual writings would be more valid if the critics discussed their own arousal. In "The Making of Hogg," Delany discusses the writing and the critical reception of his novel, which was considered so sexually violent that it took 22 years for it to be published. In the middle of an interview about the literary canon, he includes a 10-page riff, replete with new scholarship, on how the suppression of information about Stephen Crane's homosexuality has helped to secure Crane's place in American literature. Delany's third book this year (after Times Square Red, Times Square Blue and Bread & Wine), this important collection demonstrates his passion and intelligence, and his dedication to pursuing difficult questions about writing, theory, teaching and sexuality. (Jan.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
Delany's (Times Square Red) sf novels have won Hugo and Nebula awards; now, he has compiled for publication 25 of his nonfiction essays on the subjects of queerness, writing, and "paraliterature." In a piece called "Neither the First Word Nor the Last on Deconstruction, Poststructuralism, and Semiotics for SF Readers," Delany draws on both his facility with modern critical theory and his commitment to the "paraliterary" (sf, pornography, mysteries, comic books, and other creative forms). In "The Para*Doxa Interview," he ruminates brilliantly on the nature of literary canonization through a riveting investigation of how Thomas Beer's fraudulent 1923 biography of Stephen Crane lifted the author of The Red Badge of Courage to exalted heights. The last section introduces readers to a batch of his contemporaries, from sf writer Michael Perkins to A.S. Byatt. Delany's erudition and use of contemporary critical terminology can be daunting, his writing style tangled and difficult. But this book will strongly appeal to a select group of brave readers who have the patience to follow a daringly original mind at work. For academic libraries.--Charles Crawford Nash, Cottey Coll., Nevada, MO Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780819563699
  • Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
  • Publication date: 5/1/2000
  • Edition number: 1
  • Pages: 482
  • Sales rank: 1,280,956
  • Product dimensions: 6.00 (w) x 9.00 (h) x 1.07 (d)

Table of Contents

Preface: On Creativity and Academic Writing
1 The Rhetoric of Sex / The Discourse of Desire 3
2 Street Talk / Straight Talk 41
3 On the Unspeakable 58
4 Coming / Out 67
5 A Bend in the Road 98
6 The "Gay" Writer / "Gay Writing" ...? 111
7 The Black Leather in Color Interview 115
8 The Thomas L. Long Interview 123
9 Neither the First Word nor the Last on Deconstruction, Structuralism, Poststructuralism, and Semiotics for SF Readers 141
10 The Para doxa Interview: Inside and Outside the Canon 186
11 The Politics of Paraliterary Criticism 218
12 Zelazny/Varley/Gibson - and Quality 271
13 Pornography and Censorship 292
14 The Making of Hogg 298
15 The Phil Leggiere Interview: Reading The Mad Man 311
16 The Second Science-Fiction Studies Interview: Of Trouble on Triton and Other Matters 315
17 Antonia Byatt's Possession: A Romance 353
18 Neil Gaiman, I, II, and III 359
19 A Tribute to Judith Merril 373
20 Michael Perkins's Evil Companions 377
21 Now It's Time for Dale Peck 384
22 Othello in Brooklyn 388
23 A Prefatory Notice to Vincent Czyz's Adrift in a Vanishing City 396
24 Under the Volcano with Susan Sontag 399
25 Some Remarks on Narrative and Technology or: Poetry and Truth 408
Appendix Some Notes for the Intermediate and Advanced Creative Writing Student 433
Index 461
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