The Autumnal City: Symptoms of Schizophrenia in Samuel R. Delany’s Dhalgren
If you didn’t know where my blog’s name comes from before, you’ll know now. I wrote an “extended critical essay” for Spalding’s MFA program about Samuel R. Delany’s Dhalgren. The novel’s opening lines are:
to wound the autumnal city.
So howled out for the world to give him a name.
The in-dark answered with wind.
Over the years, I’ve coerced a number of people to actually read the massive thing, and managed to find a few fans in the gaming community, so I figured I’d post the whole essay. It’s only 23 pages long, so “extended” is a bit of a misnomer.
The essay is obviously going to “spoil” some things, but Dhalgren, like all literature, really isn’t something that can be ruined by revealing plot points. It’s not a mystery with a neat answer at the end, and it may even be helpful to have a little bit of context before reading it for the first time. I’ve read the book four times and I’m still finding new things and making new connections.
Just looking over the essay and writing this post makes me want to start reading it again. For me, it’s that book I’ll read every year for the rest of my life. It’s had a huge impact on my life and the way I view the world.
The Autumnal City: Symptoms of Schizophrenia in Samuel R. Delany’s Dhalgren
Graduation Lecture on Games
I’m finally finished with my Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing degree, so I’m out of excuses for not posting more. I plan on getting back to my revision series that I started back in June, but first I want to put some stuff up that I worked on during the program.
One of my graduation requirements was to deliver a thirty minute lecture during my final residency the week before last. I decided I wanted to introduce my interest in video games as a form of storytelling, but wasn’t sure how that would be received by the program. Luckily, once I explained my idea to the program administrators and the faculty member, Robin Lippincott, whose novel I intended to use in the lecture, everyone seemed interested.
The lecture went well, though I was quite anxious about giving one to an audience of my colleagues and faculty members instead of a group of rowdy high school students. I read straight from my lecture notes, so it probably wasn’t the most engaging experience, but I used a looped video of Passage playthroughs so everyone would have something to watch. I also passed around my iTouch to allow everyone a few moments to play the game.
I used Corvus Elrod’s definitions for the game terminology in the lecture. I’m sure there could be some discussion on how I explained game dynamics vs. mechanics, and my interpretation of the game itself, but everyone seemed to understand the explanation. There was a moment at the end of the lecture when I asked for questions that I was sure no one had any to ask because they were so thoroughly confused, but then the hands went up, and I ended up having to talk to many people after the lecture. Hopefully I didn’t lead them astray.
So without further ado, here is my lecture, including awkward pre-written jokes that mostly inspired laughter (though it may have been forced and sympathetic! The one involving pirates and ballet dancers was met with silence):