Dark Reflections

This book is centered on Arnold Hawley, an aging Black gay poet living alone in New York. Divided in three parts, the first part titled The Prize shows the very unsavoury side of publishing and the disappointments and struggles of being a writer and artist, Arnold is in his 50s and later 70s in near-poverty/poverty. The second part entitled Vashti in The Dark is about the bizarre, short-lived and , in the end, traumatic marriage Arnold gets in in his mid thirties, and the third part The Book of Pictures about the suppression of sexuality and developing insecurities and self-hatred Arnold experiences in his young age. With the development of the story and each segment, brings more understanding to the protagonist.

Aunt Bea becomes show more Arnold’s guardian when his parents die, she’s a caring woman whose search for knowledge and love for the arts inspires the same in Arnold. Yet there’s an environment of decorum and respectability which at the time of Arnold’s youth cannot give Arnold the answers and knowledge that he needs. As a child, precocious as he is, Arnold asks a doctor about the frequency of homosexuality to which he is answered that the case is one in five thousand and non-existent in Black people and although he reads from the books available to him in libraries, the information he finds is insufficient. All this is before the Stonewall riots of the late 1960s and when Arnold finally finds the answers he needs that might have remedied the loneliness and repression he has carried for years leads to this rather painful truth and sad observation:

“One night, when he leaned the book against the lamp’s bronze base and turned off the light on his bedside table, Arnold lay awake thinking: “How … cruel! Even if it is the most debilitating of conditions (which, were it anywhere near as common as Dr. Kinsey said, made it seem unlikely): how cruel , to take us as children and impose such isolating loneliness. Tonight, Arnold thought, in Pittsfield and in Queens and in Appleton and in Fishtown and God-knows-where-else, children are awake, in bed, as I am now, pondering their approaching deaths from this … disease, in the midst of a loneliness sharp enough to clog their ears and scatter their eyes and cloy their throat with grave dust. And, as he had not in a while, Arnold began to cry. Why, why, why lie to them as I was lied to?”

Perhaps in a way Arnold Hawley is the answer to the question which is difficult to think about, let alone reflect on: What and who would I be if the knowledge that was crucial in my development arrived late, or even worse, never arrived at all?

Delany has written an incredible book, the complexity of its protagonist, the structure of the novel and the revelations in it among them what it means to be a Black writer in the literary world, sexual repression and homophobia, and the loneliness and the struggles of an artist, I’m still reeling from this. What a wonderful journey discovering more and more with a writer that’s fast becoming a favourite. show less

Samuel R Delaney does mainstream fiction. I'm afraid to say anything about this book because whatever I say might make it sound boring, which it profoundly isn't. So ignore this review and just go read it for yourself.

Still reading? OK, then. The protagonist is a shy, black, gay poet who reminisces about his youth and navigates aging in a world he is keenly observant of and emotionally distant from. The novel is compassionate, tragic, heroic, ordinary, chastely erotic, wickedly funny, vividly descriptive, playfully serious, intellectual, historical. His memories are twined non-chronologically with observations and opinions about poetry, black history, gay history, small press publishing, poverty, New York City, and more.

Arnold Hawley, black poet, lives through a lot, particularly in New York City, where he lives most of his life. Most of his career he is able to support himself on a college professor's salary (adjunct - no benefits), but when he retires he has to stretch his limited income. But this is just a subtheme of the book.

In this book, Delany explores the experience of being black in a world, and in a field, where whites make the rules and where expectations differ. He is told not to use his photo on his books because it might turn people away. In spite of his living without monetary success and suffering fools gladly, Hawley seems to take it all in stride. He's curious. He's interested. He's a poet.

I've been a fan of Delany's work for at least 30 years, a great admirer of his courage and imagination, and his dense, poetic writing style. His latest novel is not his usual science fiction or fantasy, but the spare, almost painfully realistic story of a black poet who bears many similarities to Delany himself. It was not always a pleasant or easy read, but it was beautiful and affecting.

At times depressing, this is a novel about loneliness and how it can completely invade our lives if we allow it to do so, and how growing old can make it even worse. Also about "tapes" and how we run them in our lives and how they can run us...