1984 [Paperback]

Samuel R. Delany (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 2000

The contents of 1984 are easy enough to describe: 57 letters and documents written in the mid-80s by novelist and critic Samuel R. Delany. Addressed to various friends, relatives, and colleagues, they present a vivid and exuberant mid-career portrait of a writer and thinker whose work has had an enormous influence across a startling range of literary and paraliterary genres, including science fiction, autobiography, pornography, historical fiction, comic books, literary criticism, queer theory, and more. All the trademark Delany touches can be found here rich descriptions of urban life, incisive social observation, sensuous and sophisticated tales of a life lived on the intersections of multiple social margins (Delany is gay and black), and, especially, passionate meditations on the intersection of aesthetics, politics, and philosophy that have made Delany a figure of paramount importance both for millions of readers, and, more specifically, for a collection of writers and thinkers a mere partial list of which reads like a Whos Who of contemporary intellectual culture: Fredric Jameson, Eve Sedgwick, Um-berto Eco (a key secondary character in the pages to follow), Donna Haraway, Henry Louis Gates, Charles Johnson, William Gibson, and, we learn here most intriguingly but perhaps least surprisingly Thomas Pynchon. -- from the introduction, by Kenneth R. James

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This selection of letters (most composed in 1984) have to be read to be believed. Delany-black, gay, a father, and author of Times Square Red, Times Square Blue and of sf, pornography, and social, political, and literary criticism-chronicles his view of the cultural and the countercultural scene of the early 1980s, including the beginning of AIDS outbreak and the various public and private responses to the disease. The letters-mostly to friends-detail (often exhaustively) Delany's observations on a wide variety of subjects: his daughter, hustling, sexual fantasy, a serial street murderer, money and IRS problems, analytical and philosophical discourses on many things academic, a nail-biting fetish, porn theater cruising, and his writing. In one passage, Delany makes the point that he does not offend very easily; what is said with care should be taken with care. Reading these letters, one senses that that is true. However, the sexually righteous may feel otherwise; several passages will offend some readers, regardless of the evident care Delany has given their construction. Recommended only for large public libraries.
Robert L. Kelly, Fort Wayne, IN
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

1984 is a compulsively readable assemblage of letters that comprises an autobiographical portrait, a philosophical-literary education, a scatological voyage, and an intimate journey in the company of Chip Delany. I'm delighted it's finally going to be reaching a wider audience. -- Neil Gaiman, author of Stardust

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Voyant Pub (May 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0966599810
• ISBN-13: 978-0966599817
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,646,673 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A year in the life of an extraordinary author and lecturer, February 8, 2001

By 

Bob Kingsley (Weston-super-Mare, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 1984 (Paperback)

I came out of this book feeling I know Samuel Delany a little more personally, which I count as a great honour. It's a collection of letters written during 1984 to friends and colleagues. They're highly detailed, witty, sad, bizarre, at times brutally honest about himself and others -- often containing explicitly sexual details of real-life and imagined gay and straight(-ish) encounters that sneak up on you at the turn of a page and quite take your breath away. This is not a book for shrinking violets!

Away from the heat of these sexual excursions, Delany experienced trouble with the taxman during the period in question and the acute frustration he felt in trying to live life with no money to hand, despite having had much success with his novels and academic work, is obvious -- it's hard to imagine just how demoralising it was, but his description of winter in an unheated New York apartment, bundled up in jumpers, jackets and gloves to ward off the biting cold, tapping away at a word processor at 4am trying to finish a final draft of this or that book or article in order to earn some money, only to have it immediately snatched away by the IRS -- this I found particularly poignant. He also writes copiously about the difficulties of getting his then-current projects into print -- fascinating for anyone who has ever wondered what's really involved in getting a book into the shops.

On the positive side though, Delany writes with obvious love and affection about his (then ten-year-old) daughter Iva, product of a well-intentioned but failed marriage; he touches here and there on the deeper aspects of his relationship with Frank, his live-in partner (but I get the feeling much of it is kept private, even from his closest correspondents); his descriptions of the occasional high-flying Manhattan parties and soirees to which he's invited are positively "Dhalgrenesque", teetering on the edge of absurdity; and he writes about the sci-fi conventions he attends (often reluctantly) with deft insight into the natures of the characters involved.

There are references to Dhalgren and the real-life people and places behind some of the characters and locations, and some discussion about the many corrections that have been incorporated into the various reprints over the years; there are several academic discourses about books, music, writers, films and plays that, frankly, went over my head -- but there's enough accessible stuff here to keep an average reader like me absolutely enthralled.

We're now over fifteen years since these letters were written; I can only hope that life for this extremely gifted writer and -- well, a really nice guy, I reckon -- has improved immeasurably (especially financially) since then, because I feel he certainly deserves to have reaped the rewards of what has apparently been a career fraught with difficulties. Delany has provided me with many exquisitely crafted stories to read over the years; 1984 now takes pride of place alongside the other Delany masterpieces on my bookshelf. I only hope there's been enough public interest in this volume to warrant publishing some more of his correspondence. Personally, I can't wait.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Letters Like They Used to Write, January 20, 2002

By 

Patrick Shepherd "hyperpat" (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: 1984 (Paperback)

For those who have read his The Motion of Light in Water and Heavenly Breakfast, this book of letters from late 1983 to early 1985 provide a very nice extension to what Delany's life has been and how it has influenced his writing, both fictional and otherwise.

As indicated in the introduction, the choice of title for this book is deliberately evocative of Orwell's nightmare vision of that year, both as an indication of where Orwell got it right and where the real world has completely diverged from that vision. Within these letters, Delany shows just how completely draconian and life-meddling the IRS can be, as he finds himself without heat, trying to type with mittened fingers, scavenging cans from the street to get enough money to put food on the table for a day, trying to set his schedule to still provide a nice home for his daughter, where he must have someone else cash his royalty checks so he at least has some money the IRS doesn't immediately grab. And just as nightmarish are his problems with getting his works published, galleys corrected, artwork commissioned and delivered, all under a cloud of mis-information, missed publisher and printer dates, payment contracts that almost amount to slave labor, a phantasmagoric depiction of the Byzantine world of publishing.

On the opposite side of the coin, we see a man who has the freedom to choose a life style that the Ministry of Love would never condone, who can freely publish ideas about politics, sex, and writing that the Ministry of Information would have certainly censored. Delany's ideas in these areas are certainly insightful and he articulates his positions well, even if you don't agree with his conclusions. Some of the material here may not be everyone's taste, as he is occasionally extremely graphic in his depictions of various sexual encounters, but this material shows a Delany who is comfortable with who he is.

About my only real complaint is that we don't get to see the other side of these letters, that we only hear one side of the conversation. And sometimes it is obvious that that other side would be very interesting to be able to read. And a couple of quibbles: there are often references to people obviously known to both correspondents, but who is a complete unknown to the reader (some of these are footnoted as to who they are, but far from all), and, as letters, these works are lacking in the often poetic sense of language that Delany displays in his fictional works. But overall, these letters provide a fascinating look at a fascinating, brilliant, poetic, and sometimes very human person.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Chip's Ahoy, January 16, 2001

By 

mungo181 (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 1984 (Paperback)

Private letters by a living writer, written in a year I actually remember??? The thought alone is drool-producing. And Delany's letters are so thoughtful, incisive, gossipy... why, it makes me never want to write another letter. Please be warned, these are not for the squeamish. Delany is very open regarding his sexuality, and his sexual exploits, occurring during a time when AIDS was not considered the threat it is today. I'd recommend this book to all Delany fans, to everyone interested in gay culture, to all voyeurs, people interested in the politics of publishing, everyone who wants to know what Times Square used to be like... in short, to almost all.