Dhalgren
A city called Bellona has been partially destroyed by some unspecified disaster; it exists outside time, outside communication, and may not be real. Delany's 879-page experiment in unreliable city-space is the SF equivalent of *Ulysses*. The most ambitious and divisive American SF novel.
Eight hundred pages that meander, with readers reporting they stalled at almost the same spot, seventy to a hundred pages in, across more than one attempt; “this book is my white wale,” one confesses, misspelling and all. The group-sex sequences turn repetitive rather than illuminating after the first few. The narrator’s amnesia keeps readers from attaching to him, so the emotional stakes never land. Detractors call the constant scene-shifting homework rather than experience, the unresolved plot pretension dressed as ambiguity, “Is the Emperor naked?” the question they finish on. Even Delany’s own fans steer newcomers to Babel-17 or Nova instead.
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
