Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia [Paperback]

Samuel R. Delany (Author), Kathy Acker (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 1996

In a story as exciting as any science fiction adventure written, Samuel R. Delany's 1976 SF novel, originally published as Triton, takes us on a tour of a utopian society at war with . . . our own Earth! High wit in this future comedy of manners allows Delany to question gender roles and sexual expectations at a level that, 20 years after it was written, still make it a coruscating portrait of "the happily reasonable man," Bron Helstrom -- an immigrant to the embattled world of Triton, whose troubles become more and more complex, till there is nothing left for him to do but become a woman. Against a background of high adventure, this minuet of a novel dances from the farthest limits of the solar system to Earth's own Outer Mongolia. Alternately funny and moving, it is a wide-ranging tale in which character after character turns out not to be what he -- or she -- seems.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Published back-to-back in 1975 and 1976, respectively, these works involve an apocalyptic society on the verge of collapse and a utopian society at war with Earth. LJ's reviewer dubbed Dhalgren an "important novel" (LJ 3/15/75).
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Delany's most controlled, and therefore his most successful, experiment to date . . . Triton is a novel of manners -- those of a rich and complex society in which the avowed highest good is the free expression of each individual's personality." --Gerald Jonas, New York Times Book Review

"Delany has been the cutting edge of the SF revolution for more than ten years . . . [He] may turn out to be as important a writer as Pynchon."--Mother Jones

"An excellent novel. The author has created an innovative and fascinating culture."--Orca

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 326 pages
• Publisher: Wesleyan; 1st edition (May 15, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 081956298X
• ISBN-13: 978-0819562982
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #304,663 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant intellectual satire in SF guise, January 21, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia (Paperback)

Trouble on Triton (as it is now retitled--the publisher just called the first edition "Triton,") is one of the finest SF novels ever written. It is also one of the best books on the 1960s ever written, though it is supposedly set much later. Delany uses the semi-utopian setting to convey much of the spirit of the East Village in New York during the sixties, when he played with a band, lived in a commune, had much experimental sex and generally found himself. See Heavenly Breakfast or The Motion of Light in Water to understand the autobiographical background to Trouble on Triton. He creates an extremely unsympathetic protagonist who is ill at ease in a libertarian utopia because he is by natural instinct an uptight conservative who's at a loss in a world where self-definitions vary wildly.

This is also from the period when Delany was first becoming profoundly influenced by modern poststructuralist philosophy, and he tries to weave certain ideas (not entirely successfully) into the novel.

This is a very, very intellectual book--not at all an easy read. But if you can enjoy a satire on white male piggishness written by a gay black genius, you'll enjoy this book. It's never gotten the audience it deserves because its ideal readers tend to be people who scorn to pick up an SF novel,particularly one with such a deliberately (and mockinglly) cheesy title as Trouble on Triton.

29 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A different view., November 30, 2001

By 

Marcella G. (Vancouver, BC, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia (Paperback)

A book is a machine to generate interpretations, as Eco wrote. Thus, not one interpretation can be the correct one, and all we can do is to add to what other people have experienced at some point while reading a book.

Due to my own life experience, I perceive, perhaps, several more levels to this novel. The first time I read it, about 20 years ago, I was 10 and didn't understand many of the subtleties. However, the fact that the main character was so out of touch with the reality around him and that he had failed miserably to adapt to his changing surroundings, and, in the end, finds a "way out" for all the wrong reasons, made me think.

And think hard.

This book forced me to re-examine my own motivations several years later, because, besides the humour (sometimes even mockery) of our current socio-political systems, the book has a point. Bron Helmstron, the main character, becomes a woman not because he feels he's one, but because he wants to please the image of women she had as a man. He becomes a woman created from an intellectual male psyche.

Of course the issue of gender is at the core of the novel. Adaptation, sexism (Bron is perhaps the last old-mindset sexist in this heterotopic future) and monosexism -that is, the loving yourself as a projection but in a different gender role.

I asked myself many questions after re-reading this book at 22 (I'm a male-to-female transsexual): what are my motivations? I'm doing this as a rebellion against the rigidity of gender in our society? Am I doing this because I'm so selfish I've fallen in love with my own image in a different gender-role? Am I doing this out of selfishness, or because I've failed adapting myself to the world? Or because I'm so utterly sexist that, by adhering to the stereotype of what femineity should be, I am trying to put order to my own world?

This is one of my "top ten" books of all times. It made me grow as a person, and discover in myself that, unlike Bron, I was going through this route because I wanted to be honest with myself, not out of selfishness or emotional laziness.

Highly recommended if you don't mind some pretentiousness and have an open mind -and some background on feminist theory wouldn't hurt.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars another masterpiece by SRD, November 21, 2000

By 

Leslie K. Weinar (Hoboken, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia (Paperback)

In reading all the customer reviews of Trouble On Triton, both negative and positive, what I found most lacking was any mention of humor. This book is a wonderful, and yes, hilarious, satire of hetero-centricism (if there is such a word). It is a must read for anyone interested in any of the following topics: art and criticism, sex and gender, science fiction. Delany is very good at facing us with our own closed minds. He stands out as one of the most talented writers in English today.