Atlantis: Three Tales [Paperback]

Samuel R. Delany (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 15, 1995

Wesleyan University Press has made a significant commitment to the publication of the work of Samuel R. Delany, including this recent fiction, now available in paperback. The three long stories collected in Atlantis: three tales -- "Atlantis: Model 1924," "Erik, Gwen, and D. H. Lawrence's Aesthetic of Unrectified Feeling," and "Citre et Trans" -- explore problems of memory, history, and transgression.

Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula awards, and Guest of Honor at the 1995 World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow, Delany was won a broad audience among fans of postmodern fiction with his theoretically sophisticated science fiction and fantasy. The stories of Atlantis: three tales are not SF, yet Locus, the trade publication of the science fiction field, notes that the title story "has an odd, unsettling power not usually associated with mainstream fiction."

A writer whose audience extends across and beyond science fiction, black, gay, postmodern, and academic constituencies, Delany is finally beginning to achieve the broader recognition he deserves.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Delany, who's best known for his science fiction (Nova, Dhalgren) takes a variety of literary turns in these three novellas that chronicle the experience of the African American writer in the 20th century. The longest story, "Atlantis: Model 1924," focuses on the impressions of a 17-year-old African American who travels from North Carolina to New York to join his family. Using a mysterious unnamed character who vanishes from a rowboat beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, Delany draws a variety of parallels between the mythic aspects of the Big Apple and the legendary city under the sea, framing the young man's perspective against the achievements of such early 20th-century black luminaries as Paul Robeson, Hart Crane and Jean Toomer. In "Erik, Gwen, and D.H. Lawrence's Esthetic of Unrectified Feeling," Delany paints a portrait of the black artist as a young man, musing on the use of music lessons, art classes and New York private schools to help instill and sustain the instinct to create. "Citre et Trans" leans more heavily on plot and narrative and deals, albeit with more style and seriousness, with some of the themes of the author's recently published Hogg. Here, a bisexual African American writer, living in Greece in the mid-1960s, must confront the emotional effects of rape after his roommate picks up a pair of Greek sailors. Balanced and full of intricate layers of prose, these novellas present a potpourri of literary references, detailed flashbacks and experimental page layouts. Delany seamlessly meshes graceful prose, cultural and philosophical depth and a knowledge of different forms and voices into a truly heady, literate blend.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Although Delany is best known for science fiction (e.g., Flight from Neveryon, Classic Returns, LJ 3/15/94), the tales in this collection evoke the past. In "Atlantis: Model 1924" a young African American travels from North Carolina to New York City and revels in the richness of his new environment. "Erik, Gwen, and D.H. Lawrence's Esthetic of Unrectified Feeling" portrays a boy's education at the hands of a formalist art teacher and a farm hand who elevates profanity to an art form. "Citre et Trans" examines the lingering effects of homosexuual rape. Because of race, sexual orientation, keen aesthetic sensibility, or all of the above, Delany's protagonists are unique. Consequently, his stories focus less on external action than on changes in a character's consciousness. All three tales are elegantly wrought, but Delany's frequent experiments with split text in "Atlantis: Model 1924" frequently distract rather than enrich the narrative. For large collections.?Albert E. Wilhelm, Tennessee Technological Univ., Cookeville
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Wesleyan; 1st edition (June 15, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0819563129
• ISBN-13: 978-0819563125
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #320,973 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Extended Sam, January 13, 2002

By 

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

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Atlantis: Three Tales (Hardcover)

Delany once again has delivered something new and different with these three tales of different Sams.

The first story, Atlantis: Model 1924 deals with a teenage Sam coming to New York for the first time in 1924 and details his early experiences and impressions of this modern stand-in for Atlantis (note that Delany was born in 1942). Rife with metaphor and allegory, and told using some post-modern literary techniques including multiple story lines on the same page and marginalized notes, the defining point of this story is Sam's first trip across the Brooklyn Bridge, and the poet/writer he meets there (who is possibly an older version of Sam himself?). While not an easy story to read due to its structure, by the end of the story all the various story threads, notes, observations, and characters come together in a defining moment of epiphany.

The second story time shifts us to the early fifties, where a middle-school age Sam is introduced to the world of music and art in what was, for that time, a very progressive school. His portrait of what art really is, how its definition has changed, and its importance to himself and to the world is neatly balanced by this Sam's early introduction into the vagaries of sex. Some fine, if brief, character portraits round out this quiet story.

The last story deals with a Sam in his early twenties in Greece, and is probably the most factually based of the three stories, given that he has mentioned some of the incidents of this story in several of his other works. It is a very dark and depressing story, and details a homosexual rape and the necessity for one of Sam's lady friends to kill her dog. Some very rough material here that may not be to everyone's taste, but delivered with Delany's typical fine sense of language, pacing, and character.

All three tales have much to offer, each in completely different ways, and each presents a different 'side' of Sam. How much is autobiographical, how much is pure fiction is almost impossible to define, but the reader will finish this book with a better understanding of not just Delany but also the entire world and the social interactions that help define what it is to be human.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Recommended by Michael Cunningham, April 26, 2000

By 

Thomas G. Kohn "homergelb" (Dayton, OH USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Atlantis: Three Tales (Hardcover)

I read this book on the recommendation of Michael Cunningham (The Hours), who said, "If Samual Delany were writing in the same innovative, intelligent way and his books were not science fiction, he'd be know to every serious reader and not just a relatively small band of us."

Need I say, "I agree?"