Cultural Writing. Memoir. HEAVENLY BREAKFAST is Samuel R. Delaney's wise and vivid essay on urban communes and cooperatives in the winter of 'Sixty-seven/'Sixty-eight. It examines their function, structure, permanence, and impermanence as precisely as a sociological study. Because its method is narrative and anecdotal, however, it reads like a passionate memoir--a marvelous document from an extraordinary time. Based on journals he kept at the time, these pages recount his encounters with other communes and experimental living arrangements-some gentle, some brutal; of encounters between those inside and those outside the countercultural life; of idealism and hopes pushing against a resistant reality.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A three-dimensional look at '60s-style communes,
By A Customer
This review is from: Heavenly Breakfast: An Essay on the Winter of Love (Paperback)
Having read about a dozen of Samuel R. Delany's 30-odd books, it must be said that Heavenly Breakfast is his most straight-forward. Those used to--in love with--his convolute cogitations simply will not find them here (with the exception of about a half dozen paragraphs). The narrative is like ground glass crunching beneath your feet; you're aware of every step you take in this late '60s, East Village cul-de-sac. Indeed, the strength of this book is the fact that Delany shows us three different styles of communal living (Heavenly Breakfast being one) and while he evinces preferences, he settles you on each level so you can get the feel for yourself. Ever-present is Delany's gift to put you in the room with these people (Grendahl, Dave, Little Dave, Reema, Electric Baby among others) who bathe in a big enamel tub in the kitchen, squat to let nature takes its course in sight of each other, sleep at least four to a bed and "ball" next to one another. The problem with this book is that it's just too short. I could have spent weeks--rather than mere days--drifting through the Age of Aquarius with a struggling rock band (also named Heavenly Breakfast and the galvinizing force behind the commune). The characters are--as with most with most Delany characters--a mythical impossible millimeter from stepping off the page and offering you a toke of the joint they're passing around. For fans of Dhalgren, this is a MUST, exposing many of the real-life roots of that monolithic work. For anyone else, imagine a place that "combines the best points of a jail, a mental hospital, a brothel"... "without any of their disadvantages."
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Bedroom for Twenty,
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This review is from: Heavenly Breakfast: An Essay on the Winter of Love (Paperback)
This is the second major autobiographical work Delany published, detailing his experiences as part of the rock group/commune Heavenly Breakfast during 1967, and falling directly after the events of his Motion of Light in Water. Delany's rich prose does an outstanding job of illuminating the conditions the commune lived in: the four-to-a-bed, communal baths, kitchen arrangements for 15 or so, scrounging for food and dollars, personal hygiene, arguments, discussions, lover arrangements, drugs, and occasionally some working sessions for the band. For those who reached their maturity around this time, who felt the siren call of the counter-culture, every line of this book will resonate, will force memories of and the feel of that time. The character portraits he paints reek of authenticity; the dialogue is real; nothing is left out, no matter how filthy, degrading, lovely, exhalting, boring, unusual or commonplace. Pieces of this experience clearly were incorporated in his massive Dhalgren, and this book and the earlier Motion of Light in Water will help illuminate much of the frequently obscure situations of that book. Between the two books, Delany reveals himself as a man of great and diverse talents: songwriter/singer/guitar player, actor, author, poet (though he doesn't think much of his own work, preferring that of his then wife, Marilyn Hacker), critic, organizer, peace-maker. Rather oddly, though, Delany himself doesn't seem to be the forefront character of this piece, but more of an observer of the scene. Heavenly Breakfast, perhaps because it is so short and covers only a single year of his life, is not as rich as Motion, but is still full of his intense images and great prose: "In the other room, the woman-voice wound its obstacle course through consonant-studded invectives." Not many would describe an argument that way. A great trip down memory lane; a sure portrait of a time and place that may never come again.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
an interesting historical document from a later star,
By A Customer
This review is from: Heavenly Breakfast: An Essay on the Winter of Love (Paperback)
This is Delany at his most esoteric; he's writing about his existence as a member of a 2-room, roughly 20-person hippie commune in New York in the late 60's.It's most impressive when he matter-of-factly takes you through topics of hygeine, or sleeping arrangements, or sex, or food, or how the commune managed to have money, electricity, or fun. On the flip side, it's at its worst when he talks about the philosophical systems of the commune: its social controls, relations with other communes, and what the whole meaning of it all is. In other words, it's a bit typical of the writings about the 60s, except with the advantage of having been written by a phenomenal writer, who can write about the experience of being marginalized from a pretty authentic point of view (Delany is an African-American, gay man). Definitely not the first Delany book to read, but also a necessary book for the adventuresome fan.
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