Book Log #10: Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, by Samuel R. Delaney

[annathepiper]

My gut reaction to Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, the first Samuel R. Delaney I’ve ever read, was pretty much this: it feels like something I might have read for a college course on influential SF authors, rather than something I’d ordinarily have read for fun. I have a very definite respect for the language, but there are a lot of aspects of the plot that just didn’t work for me.

The core of this story is essentially a romance between Rat Korga, a man who’d submitted to voluntary slavery on his homeworld, and Marq Dyeth, an interstellar diplomat. Korga is the only survivor of a cataclysm that has destroyed his world, and he’s been brought to Marq under mysterious circumstances; Marq’s not really told much more than “this man has been found to be your ideal erotic object, so we thought you might find him interesting, show him around your planet, will you?”

And that’s part of my first problem with the book. A big part of me was put off by the whole concept of these men coming together only because a third party had calculated that they are each other’s “ideal erotic objects”. That’s very cold and very clinical and not at all romantic. On the other hand, there are certain scenes where Marq waxes eloquent on why exactly he finds Korga so very, very attractive–and those are some of the passages that work the very best for me. (On a related note, there’s a huge amount of casual sex all throughout this book, way more than I was expecting; from what I’ve read about Delaney, though, I think that may be typical for his work?)

Secondly, there’s frustratingly little plot here, truth be told. The initial stretch with Korga, setting up his background, was a lot more interesting to me just because of the relative sparsity of Korga’s point of view; by comparison, Marq, who has a propensity to infodump huge reams of text at the reader, was a hard slog to read through. And he’s got the main point of view for the majority of the book. He spends the vast majority of his time hanging out at parties and chatting with other people, and more than once I kept groaning and waiting to see when the plot would kick back in. I can’t say anything about the ending due to spoilers, but I will say that ultimately, I was unsatisfied with it.

On the other hand, all of this is balanced out for me by the sheer mastery of Delaney’s language, infodumps aside. I don’t go up to five stars here because he pulls a couple of language tricks in places that I thought were kind of a cheat. But I found his whole treatment of gender-based language fascinating. This is a future where humanity in general refers to itself collectively as “women” regardless of physical gender, and in which female pronouns are used as well. At first I found this horribly distracting, but then I thought, “well, WHY CAN’T ‘women’ be used as a generic identifier for humans?” Once I had that realization, it was suddenly much easier to accept.

More confusing though were the parts where Delaney suddenly switches back to male pronouns in certain scenes. Only after reading about the book after I’d finished did I realize that apparently this was a marker for when the point of view character, Marq, was finding a male sexually attractive; now that I know that was going on, I appreciate the distinction. I liked as well how he used subscripts on work-related nouns like job, profession, and such, to give a distinction between a person’s primary employment and other jobs they might take on the side.

Overall I’m definitely not sorry I read it, and I appreciated how it made me think about what I’d read in ways a lot of SF/F hasn’t made me do lately. I’m sticking by my initial gut reaction, though, and am not sure I’d ever want to read Delaney for general fun as opposed to “broadening my SF horizons”. Still, though, four stars.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

Comments

[avram]

Actually, you can't say anything about the ending because it was never published. Stars in my Pocket is the first half of a diptych. Delany hasn't finished writing the second half, The Splendor and Misery, of Bodies, of Cities, and says he probably never will. The story was heavily inspired by Delany's then-relationship with another man, and the gay sexual scene before AIDS came along.

If you want a more traditional Delany book, try Nova. I'm pretty sure you'd like it. (The 2002 Vintage edition includes a passage that's not in any of the earlier ones, which radically alters the characterization of one of the major characters, and explains what happened to another character who, in earlier editions, just vanishes.)

You might also like Babel-17. Jo Walton reviewed it on Tor.com last June.

Delany's also written some fantasy, which I haven't read yet.

There's also Dhalgren, the well-known Delany book that lots of SF fans hate, and lots of people outside the genre love. If you didn't like Stars in my Pocket, you probably won't like Dhalgren, but if you feel like something outside your comfort zone, give it a shot.

[smeehrrr.livejournal.com]

I love Dhalgren, but if Stars is challenging then Dhalgren is REALLY fucking challenging.

[avram]

But at least when you read Dhalgren you've got the whole thing in your hands. There's no unpublished second half.

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

"there’s a huge amount of casual sex all throughout this book, way more than I was expecting; from what I’ve read about Delaney, though, I think that may be typical for his work"

Yes, yes it is; a bunch of his stuff is written from a gay-man-cruising-in-the-70's perspective (that continues on...) For me it worked better in Dahlgren - much longer and more plotless, and I could map he and Marilyn Hacker's lives onto it in a way that worked for me.

I did best with the less sexual books though, I can't remember which one it is but one about people crashing on a planet and having an intense experience in the cove where they landed (some big metaphor?), and another one I loved with a storyline about a storyteller that accidentally tells a story about the people hosting her (with a subplot about slaves?). So, there's a lot more there; honestly I don't think I ever made it through Stars In My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, which is saying a lot as I did read Dhalgren more than once.

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

Hah I love how agrumer and I both contextualize the sex in essentially the same way, and then go on to say the opposite of each other about whether or not you'd like Dhalgren.

OK, I looked things up in Wikipedia - the 'spiritual experience in a cove' book is The Jewels of Aptor, and the 'storyteller' bit I'm pretty sure is in Tales of Neveryon.

Plus, his autobiography/memoir The Motion of Light in Water is pretty great (apparently the British version is better, though I've never read it).

also from Wikipedia "In 2007, Delany was the subject of a documentary film, The Polymath, or, The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman". I have seen that movie (at the Seattle Queer Film Festival) and I thought it was awful, too long and boring and JUST about sex when clearly there's a lot more to him than that, it was pretty disappointing.

[avram]

I've read Dhalgren, and didn't hate it; I think I'll like it more if I ever get around to re-reading it.

I just don't think Anna would like it.

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

the male pronouns appear when someone finds anyone (of any gender or species) sexually attractive. just fyi.

for some more accessible/fun delany, please allow me to recommend "babel-17", which also does something i think sf *should* do -- take a scientifically-incorrect idea and fool around with it as if it were true.

:)

[annathepiper]

Yeah, I'd found out the distinction about the pronouns, as I mentioned in the post. That was called out on Wikipedia when I went looking the book up to read about it. :)

And you're not the first to recommend Babel-17 to me. I'll have to see if the library has it.

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

if the library doesn't i do -- i can send you my copy :)

[annathepiper]

Library's got it, I'm good. :) But thanks!