Silent Interviews: On Language, Race, Sex, Science Fiction, and Some Comics―A Collection of Written Interviews

by Samuel R. Delany

A collection of substantial written interviews.

Samuel R. Delany, whose theoretically sophisticated science fiction and fantasy has won him a broad audience among academics and fans of postmodernist fiction, offers insights into and explorations of his own experience as writer, critic, theorist, and gay black man in his new collection of written interviews, a form he describes as a type of "guided essay." Gathered from sources as diverse as Diacritics and Comics Journal, these interviews reveal the broad range of his thought and interests.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Literary Criticism, Cultural, Theory, Race, Queer

334 pages, Paperback

First published October 14, 1994

About the author

Samuel Ray Delany, also known as "Chip," is an award-winning American science fiction author. He was born to a prominent black family on April 1, 1942, and raised in Harlem. His mother, Margaret Carey Boyd Delany, was a library clerk in the New York Public Library system. His father, Samuel Ray Delany, Senior, ran a successful Harlem undertaking establishment, Levy & Delany Funeral Home, on 7th Avenue, between 1938 and his death in 1960. The family lived in the top two floors of the three-story private house between five- and six-story Harlem apartment buildings. Delany's aunts were Sadie and Bessie Delany; Delany used some of their adventures as the basis for the adventures of his characters Elsie and Corry in the opening novella Atlantis: Model 1924 in his book of largely autobiographical stories Atlantis: Three Tales.

Delany attended the Dalton School and the Bronx High School of Science, during which he was selected to attend Camp Rising Sun, the Louis August Jonas Foundation's international summer scholarship program. Delany and poet Marilyn Hacker met in high school, and were married in 1961. Their marriage lasted nineteen years. They had a daughter, Iva Hacker-Delany (b. 1974), who spent a decade working in theater in New York City.

Delany was a published science fiction author by the age of 20. He published nine well-regarded science fiction novels between 1962 and 1968, as well as several prize-winning short stories (collected in Driftglass [1971] and more recently in Aye, and Gomorrah, and other stories [2002]). His eleventh and most popular novel, Dhalgren, was published in 1975. His main literary project through the late 1970s and 1980s was the Return to Nevèrÿon series, the overall title of the four volumes and also the title of the fourth and final book.

Delany has published several autobiographical/semi-autobiographical accounts of his life as a black, gay, and highly dyslexic writer, including his Hugo award winning autobiography, The Motion of Light in Water.

Since 1988, Delany has been a professor at several universities. This includes eleven years as a professor of comparative literature at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, a year and a half as an English professor at the University at Buffalo. He then moved to the English Department of Temple University in 2001, where he has been teaching since. He has had several visiting guest professorships before and during these same years. He has also published several books of criticism, interviews, and essays. In one of his non-fiction books, Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (1999), he draws on personal experience to examine the relationship between the effort to redevelop Times Square and the public sex lives of working-class men, gay and straight, in New York City.

In 2007, Delany was the subject of a documentary film, The Polymath, or, The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman. The film debuted on April 25 at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival.

Reviews

[Jonfaith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Writing is how I do my thinking. Thus, if you want to understand what I think, ask me to write—not to speak.

Interesting ruminations on largely the possibility of interviews (philosophically speaking) and the porous definitions which ascribe genre distinctions to SF. Tedious at times, largely because of the overlap, partially because Delany doesn't suffer the hasty assessment.

Delany on Derrida is never annoying but it does beg the question, why.

[David M]

I'm of the opinion the poststructuralists didn't actually do a very convincing job killing off the subject. In polemics with his contemporaries, circa the late sixties, Paul Ricoeur can be found saying, C'mon, guys, don't you know Chomsky has superseded Saussure?

Delany seems to hold a different view. He often speaks of 'French Theory' (as it's called) with the zeal of a convert. He seems to find in it a theory to legitimize his artistic practices as a science fiction writer. I'm a bit wary.

However, I will say that the one of these interviews does make me want to read Levi-Strauss. Delany comes off as unfailingly articulate, interesting, and erudite throughout. Despite my philosophical quibbles, I plan to keep reading him.

[Griffin Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Axioms are not objects. They are sentences.) (pp. 32)

...and from here we are already within the web of Delany responding to written interview questions in writing, allowing for responses that simply would never happen within the happenstance of the spoken exchange. There are quotations, a long introduction on the written interview as practice, a great deal on how reading/genre/writing work, textual examinations, manipulations of the text itself, alternations of style to affect content, and (this perhaps to be expected) great anecdotes.

Delany's erudition is put on full display ranging in topics from Wagner/Baudelaire as the progenitors of what we know as modernism, to the true story of SF's publishing history and significant movements, to the debates of representation-in-fiction as it relates to the AIDS crisis and the BDSM scene.

What seems to be crucial to all of his arguments is the idea of the marginal, and marginal space as the place where things really do happen. In his interview chiefly concerning Feminist SF's influence on the Cyberpunk movement (Some Real Mothers... :The SF Eye Interview), Delany writes of the conception of cyberspace as a "paraspace":

We have to note that our paraspaces are not in a hierarchical relation—at least not in a simple and easy hierarchical relation—to the narrative's "real," or ordinary, space. What goes on in one subverts the other; what goes on in the other subverts the one. They change their weights all the time, throughout their stories. So calling it a subspace—with the prefix's strong suggestion of subordination—is wrong. A paraspace, or even an alternative space, with its much weaker—and more problematic—question of position and troubling supplementarity, is more to the point. [...]
This alternative space is a place where we actually endure, observe, learn, and change—and sometimes die. With these paraspaces the plot is shaped, as it were, to them. And inside them, the language itself undergoes changes—the language the writer uses to describe what happens in it is always shifted, is always rotated, is always aspiring toward the lyric (pp. 168).

I don't think it is taking too much liberty (indeed, Delany has an entire interview in Part II with his own fictional self [if you will remember from the 'introduction' to the Return to Nevèrÿon series that supposedly grounds it within the real of the archaeological Culhar' fragment], K. Leslie Steiner) to read this idea of the paraspace and what Delany in other places describes SF as the "paraliterary" as a tool toward understanding the textual function of genre within/between the bounds of SF and the literary (or mainstream culture and the marginal culture) as differentiated and atomically bound ideas—Delany notes that "'the mainstream'[...] is fine as long as you realize the paraliterary texts make an ocean" (pp. 32). It is this which is the most deeply affecting, sometimes unifying and sometimes troubling, thematic aspect of this arrangement of written interviews which seems to shout: READ ME AS A TEXT NOT SIMPLY AS A REALITY.

In passing, Delany references William Gibson's slick shifting of literary affect as being bricolage (pp. 174). Though it could be construed as incidental to the casual reader, it seems beyond a doubt a point reference to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's introduction to her translation of Derrida's Of Grammatology, where she writes: "The reasons for bricolage is that there can be nothing else" (xix, TI, OG). I only write "beyond a doubt" because that very introduction of Spivak's is the epigraph for Delany's first book in the Nevèrÿon series, Tales of Nevèrÿon, and his chief commentary on close-reading, lit-crit, and deconstruction all use Nevèrÿon, if not as starting point, as a place to pass through on the way to somewhere else. It is here then that the text begins to creak and strain, and recombine brilliantly: Delany is using the narrative of the interview, "two fictive characters both of which are creations of hand and neither of which has necessarily ever sounded on the air" (pp. 286) to problematize collected interviews as a genre of text—to be the bricoleur utilizing all things as criticism (and criticism as all things) in the same manner he gives Gibson the credit of doing in SF. But ultimately, as Spivak reminds us, there can be no other way to face the problem of mystifying power in the texts of government, colonialism, and history: we must use everything—save that, we must use all that we are able.

Now, it isn't all lit-crit deconstruction here. There are great anecdotes for those interested in Delany and his life, there is great historical information on SF and its historical changes, there is a great deal of humor and empathy and joy. This book is impressive in all aspects, not least for me in its approach to deconstruction as a central troubling of all texts however seemingly stable. If you like Delany in his later work (Nevèrÿon and on) you will love this, and you will find Delany as smart and insightful as he ever has been.

[Shane Eide · Rating 5 out of 5]

www.emergenthermit.com

Many writers have preferred the written interview to the face-to-face interview. If we’re to take Nabokov at his word when he says, ‘I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like a child,’ then one couldn’t blame him too much for preferring the former. William Gaddis seldom gave interviews and requested that they be written, and often, no longer than ten questions, which would eliminate such winning nuggets of curiosity as, ‘on which side of the paper do you write?’ or ‘how hard to you press your pen on the paper?’

Samuel R. Delany, the interviewee of this collection (save one where he does the interviewing), when asked why he prefers the written interview, concludes a lengthy response with the following:

‘I’m a writer. When I want to think with any seriousness about a topic, I write about it. Writing slows the thought process down to where one can follow them—and elaborate on them more efficiently. Writing is how I do my thinking. Thus, if you want to understand what I think, ask me to write—not to speak.’

Almost all of his responses are lengthy. He answers each question with great care and consideration. Given the nature of his answers, one can’t help but feel that this is an author who is far too interested in the questions he is being asked to give room to the kind of hemming and hawing one does in a live interview—which causes us to stop well before the suspicion that he’s just some recluse that doesn’t like to talk to people.

Delany is best known as a Science Fiction writer—which he is very careful to identify with, as opposed to a writer of ‘speculative fiction.’ He goes great lengths in these interviews to articulate why he thinks that different genre distinctions more represent a way of reading rather than a way of writing. Very hermeneutic in nature, the collection takes interesting turns as simple questions turn into deep studies of such all-encompassing subjects as ‘the city,’ which is only explored in such depth in order to determine the origins of the Sword and Sorcery genre (of which much is discussed in relation to Delany’s Neveryon series). In a game of textual interplay and rigorous historical mapping, Delany concludes that the Sword and Sorcery genre is, ultimately, about the transition from a barter economy to a currency economy. Undermining academic definitions of Science Fiction, Delany likewise concludes that the whole genre of Science Fiction is ultimately founded on the transition from a currency economy to a credit-based economy.

His answers are so careful and all encompassing that we start to believe all the lucid connections he has put much thought into, even if they only represent his interpretation at the end of the day—as is the case with his theory that most of the imagery in Sword and Sorcery and epic fantasy stems more from Richard Wagner’s opera than it does from anything else.

Calling Delany ‘well read’ would be a bit of an understatement. As he talks about Science Fiction and its place in history, it’s then necessary for him to get onto the subject of literature as a whole. He remains adamant about the fact that Science Fiction is a form of ‘paraliterature’ that has operated outside of ‘literature,’ both commenting on it—often completely unaware—and overlapping with it. While many of Delany’s contemporaries—like Michael Moorcock and Thomas M. Disch among others—were very much concerned with that very overlap between ‘literature’ and Science Fiction, Delany remains interested more in teasing the different genres apart in order to trace them to their roots. He is a thinker who is interested precisely in difference and how objects relate to one another and at roughly what points they integrate and separate.

According to Delany, all hard definitions concerning genre come about through ‘over-determination.’ This is the same when one tries to define ‘literature’ just as it is with Science Fiction and all ‘paraliterature.’ When curiosity is raised as to why he is so adamant about calling what he writes Science Fiction, he responds:

‘I’ve never proclaimed my work SF, proudly or humbly. I assume most of my published fiction is SF—and I assume most of my readers feel it is too. But that’s like a poet assuming she writes poems, or a playwright assuming he writes plays.’

He gives very interesting reasons why fantasy that occurs within ‘literature’ isn’t enough to put it on the Fantasy shelf—Kafka being one example. When we read The Metamorphosis, something extraordinary happens. Gregory Somsa wakes up and has turned into a giant insect. Delany takes into account that one can determine what kind of writing this is by other writings—whether they are that of people who have studied Kafka or whether they are the other writings of Kafka himself—just as one can determine what kind of writing it is by the work it sits next to on the shelf, the kind of publishing house it comes from and the kinds of printing it has gone through. One comes away from this discourse thinking that ‘genre’ as a subject is a lot woollier than the academic world gives it credit for, and if one wants to say anything about it, one must look at it in many different contexts.

The voracious reader’s mouth will surely water as Delany gives the interviewer reading tips on where to start reading Derrida if one’s not sure, along with many other texts and how they both relate to and inform the reading experience of one another. The ambitious reader will perhaps feel a hint of recognition as Delany describes how reading Levi-Strauss’s ‘Sunset’ at a slowed-down pace helped stretch his brain into a place where it would then be prepared for a second reading of Foucault’s Madness and Civilization. Some interesting thoughts occur around the AIDS epidemic as Delany talks about incomplete (even backward) studies and statistics on the subject. Discussions of race, class, and sexuality abound as well, and this inevitably all ties back to all things literary. He even delves into why ‘difficult discourse’ is more useful when approaching certain subjects.

This is highly recommended not only for Delany’s fans, or people curious about the subject of genre, but for anyone who cares very much about language, literature and history. It’s also a good example of how to articulate and place very difficult thoughts one might have into cogent interpretations.

www.emergenthermit.com

[spoon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes brilliant and thought-provoking, often feels masturbatory. The essay on comics is complete and utter trash.

[Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The depth of both Delany’s intelligence and his passion for writing are readily apparent in these interviews.

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-read. Going to plow through all Delany's nonfiction again (slowly). The ways he thinks about criticism, and genre, and language, and culture, and sexuality are all very important to me and sometimes it's good to go back to the source. (He's more-or-less impossible to summarize, though. Go read some for yourself.)

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was mostly good.

I appreciated a core idea about the value of conducting/revising interviews as written pieces!

Delany leans too heavily on responding to interview questions by disagreeing with the premises within the questions. This often leads to really interesting ideas, but it just feels like a little tiresome.

I can't imagine recommending this book of interviews to someone who doesn't already love the author. I am slowly working through all of his published books. (I've read about 40 of them.)

I particularly like the bit where he does an interview on the occasion of this book coming out that is conducted between himself as Delany and himself under a pen name. I would like a whole book of that.

[Anya · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an amazing collection of interviews that unfortunately got rather too far into writing, being a writer, and all that is connected. I was interested to read about Chip Delany, but mostly found myself skimming through the interviews on topics I wasn't personally interested in. I'd recommend it to a lot of people, although it is far removed from his sci-fi writing.

[Paolo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic compendium of interviews by the great Samuel R. Delany. His mindblowing, sadly out-of-print collabo with Howard Chaykin is chronicled in great detail here, with a few pics of the panel art, itself alone worth the price of admission.

[elissa]

back on the shelf. for now.

[Emanuil · Rating 5 out of 5]

За многократно препрочитане.

[Bill Brydon · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Transcribers in an attempt to smooth over such awkwardnesses have repeatedly rendered my statements meaningless by juggling the terms for euphony or for what they consider general flow. Thus, careful accounts of my critical notions are frequently bolixed by transcription. Then there is simply the problem of the transcriber’s ear. I recall one interview in which I spent a few paragraphs talking about the rhetorical relation, in fiction, between récit, dialogue, and action. But what got printed was a garbled passage on “racy dialogue in action.”