Customer Reviews

Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

It seems with Delany that you either understand him, and he becomes your favorite author, or you completely don't get it and are repulsed by all of his works. This was the first book I read by Delany -- since them I've read Dhalgren (what an awesome book) and the Neveryona series, and a bunch of his earlier works. The setting, Triton, was both believable and extremely surreal. The main character, though somewhat shallow... is absolutely fascinating and fascinatingly dense. This book is full of political, social, sexual and scientific commentary (as with all his later works)... I don't know what it was about it, but I personally couldn't put it down and stayed up all night reading it, and can't wait to re-read it. This is a beautiful and fascinating work, but not for everyone.

An intriquing character study - Delany puts you in the mind of his protagonist, and places his protagonist in an entirely plausible world (not just in the sense of planet), weird tho it be. All leavened with the cultural, philosphical etc. speculations and dialectics - many about sex of course - for which he is known. The actual sex is restrained, however (Thanks, SR!) Much more accessible than Dhalgren, tho I do not claim to understand all that is to be found or extracted from Triton. Enjoy!

This is a hell of a good book. Reading it a second time through, I was most impressed by Delaney's subtle irony--Triton is an itnensely comic novel. But it's also a profound interrogation of gender. Delaney's important, and Triton is a great read.

I read this book for a thesis paper for a class at college. It was in a word: odd. I liked how Delany describes a futuristic society. He definately makes for an interesting reading. I liked how it was all over the place and I couldn't believe what the main character Bron does at the end of the story. I feel sorry for Bron because he doesn't ever find what he is looking for. A good if long read. Not for the faint of heart either. There is cursing and explicit sex throughout. So don't give it to kids. I would reccomend reading it over a long period of time.

When this book was first published in 1976 as 'Triton', I had just finished reading Delany's 'Dhalgren' and was eager to read more from this thought provoking author. I was taken away and gifted copies of this book to my more evelope-pushing friends. Now some 35 years later, I decided it was time for a re-read. Was it realy that good, or was I simply young and easy to amuse?

If you've ever read anything by Samuel Delany, this book will be no surprise, rather a teasing piece of future fiction filled with fascinating social commentary. The art by which Delany leads his audience through his erotic veiled landscapes, filled with subtile reaction and thought provoking situations, distinguishes itself in not banging the reader over the head, rather building a natural seeming series of events and interactions which lead the reader deep into logical extrapolations of a possible human future. Sounds heady, and it is at times, but, if you just let yourself surf on these gentle waves, you'll never wish to come ashore again.

A very fine piece of literature, not to be missed. I still love it!

Dating from the mid-70s, Triton still provides much food for thought. As you can also see, the novel can still provoke some homophobic hostility. So a couple of decades on, we're not out of the woods yet - this ain't no heterotopia. Triton's strength is that it manages to turn our preconceptions upside down, especially concerning gender. Its weaknesses, I suppose, lie in the plot and in the character of Bron; yes, he is complex and not two-dimensional, but he is also intensely irritating and thoroughly difficult to identify with. I also found all that communal living claustrophobic in the extreme - if this is the future, it is surely a dystopian one. A mixed reaction, then, but I would recommend reading this novel, if only to confront one's prejudices.

TRITON is the story of Bron Helstrom, an ex-Martian gigolo residing in a male dormontory on Triton. Delany's "science" is ludicrous to say the least, but his characterizations and portraits of society breaking apart into tribes of people with similar notions or physical appearances is fascinating. Bron's exposure to some street art shakes him up and by the end of the book Bron is not the same character he was at the beginning. This book is a tough read, but it is worth the effort. If you want accurate depictions of satillite life, see Arthur C. Clarke's Odyssey series; if you want to explore the eternal mysteries of sexuality and gender, then read TRITON and join Bron on his quest for finding his place within society.