I mean that Dhalgren challenges how I approach reading and literature and my biases toward form and genre. By challenge, I do not just refer to the effort required to read and comprehend the story itself. I am indebted to Dhalgren, because it is one of those books that challenge me as a reader. The conventions that would identify it as science fiction are covert, obscured-yet I cannot imagine any other label that better describes this book.
From my experience with Dhalgren, however, I would understand if it is true. According to the article, "Critical reaction to Dhalgren has ranged from high praise (both inside and outside the science fiction community) to extreme dislike (mostly within the community)." That last parenthetical is accompanied by the dreaded "citation needed" note, so I don't know how reliable it is. A couple of visits to the book's Wikipedia article later, I finally understood the situation into which I had gotten myself. So I had this idea that it was about some kind of post-apocalyptic city, and that was it.
The back cover copy of my very old Bantam paperback edition is extremely cryptic and unhelpful (and, in fact, not all that accurate). It's lengthy and difficult to read, and if I had invested the time to read it more gradually, my opinion would probably be very different. In retrospect, Dhalgren would have made a good project book. I tend to do this with lengthy anthologies I've been doing it with the Iliad. However, every so often I'll have a "project" book that takes me weeks or months to read, in parallel with my other books. I have to, for the same reason I am so assiduous in writing reviews: I have a poor memory for these types of details. I tend to read books one at a time in quick succession.
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