In attempting to summarize Samuel R. Delany’s 400+ page essay collection, Shorter Views, I find the task of “summary” impossible, if not suspect. Each expansive piece of criticism offered in the volume (and this is ultimately, a collection of works too short to be published in the companion piece, Longer Views) could easily be discussed in 20 minutes without being summarized totally. Also, I think Delany might suggest that such ideas of summarizing are, ultimately, suspect in themselves. In any case, I have decided to offer a collection of short responses to some of the essays in the volume that I feel are most useful and offer the most pleasure to the critical reader. Further, I hope to have structured my essay around expounding what I see to be the general linking project of the entire volume. As we can see from the cover, Shorter Views, is subtitled “Queer Thoughts and the Politics of the Paraliterary.” In these responses to Delany’s essays, I will articulate what I see as a fundamental and intimate relationship between queerness and paraliterature, as both seek to articulate non-normative behavior patterns.
Martha Umphrey describes “queer” as “strange or making strange, of questionable character or the performing of that questionable character.”{{Martha M. Umphrey, “The Trouble With Harry Thaw” in Queer Studies: An Interdisciplinary Reader ed. Richard Corber and Stephen Valocchi (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003), 27.}} She continues: “queerness signals the fluidity and contingency of deviance, a broad category of outlawry that is defined in relation to the ‘normal’ in any specific historical moment.”{{Ibid.}} For Umphrey to queer a discourse is to engage in outlawry, to become a trickster loose in the range of accepted or normalized actions, utterances, and affects. Ultimately, this is the critical position from which Samuel R. Delany writes in the various essays collected as Shorter Views. While only the first section of the book is officially about queerness, I argue that outlawry underscores both of the major thematic sections of the collection.
For Delany, the paraliterary involves more than just the genres not considered serious by the critical establishment: he sees a field of literary possibilities outside the margins of normal, a queer set of fictions. Likewise, the two concepts—queerness and paraliterature—bleed across the constructed sectional divides in multiple points. Essays about queerness in the first section invariably touch upon science fiction (and other paraliteratures) just as the section on the paraliterary inevitably encounters the transgressive during discussions of Hogg and The Mad Man. I think, therefore, that Shorter Views is more a collection of essays on outsider status that merely conveniently chooses to divide its presentation into sections about queer sexuality and non-canonical genre fictions (two major characteristics of Delany’s life and work).
One final note, before actually beginning: I’ve noticed, in attempting to enact my method of studying Shorter Views, that most of my arguments tend to bleed into other essays. Ultimately, I find the idea of actually being able to analyze an individual essay as a unique and closed system of meaning to be almost impossible. Instead, many of my essays borrow ideas from other essays and, as such, seem to more accurately serve as traces of individual concepts throughout the network of the larger collection of textual nodes. I think this is something Delany intended in the structuring of this collecting.
To speak of the paraliterary is to fundamentally also, at the same time, speak of the literary. It would seem, perhaps, at this point in this “summary” advisable to define both “paraliterary” and “literary,” but, as Delany tells us, both terms actively defy definition through their very existence. Delany, in this essay, seeks to build up a concept of the social object, those things which “instead of existing as a relatively limited number of material objects, exist rather as an unspecified number of recognition codes … shared by an unlimited population, in which new and different examples are regularly produced.”{{Samuel R. Delany, Shorter Views (Hanover, CT: Wesleyan UP, 1999), 239.}}. As the bodies of code that make up social objects are constantly in flux due to the ongoing production of “new and different examples,” a definition based on necessary and sufficient conditions of such an object is ultimately doomed to always be too narrow. Therefore, Delany suggests, that “description” instead of “definition” may be a more productive mode of criticism for scholars of the paraliterary. Having stated that, I think we can describe the paraliterary as referring to a body of work that is excluded from the code-base that describes literature. Genres such as science fiction, mystery, pornography, and, even, academic criticism can be thought of as paraliterature. Similar to queerness (as we have previously defined it), paraliterature is that which opposes the literary normal.
Part of the problem, as Delany sees it, with paraliterature is its constant need to legitimate itself in the eyes of the literary establishment (whatever that might be). For Delany this primarily takes the form of critical efforts towards the creations of definitions (which we have previously seen are problematic) and the authoring of genre histories. An obsession with origins and trajectories ultimately distracts from the real work of criticism:
##If, realizing the way in which the two meanings of definition(like the two meanings of art) create an unwinnable game of round-robin chasing-after-one’s-tail, critics of the paraliterary could retire the notion of definition once and for all, if they could restrict themselves to the far more modest-seeming task of describing our objects of concern (like comics, SF, pornography …), describing never-before-noticed aspects, pointing out the most interesting examples, describing the myriad and fascinating ways in which these aspects react with one another and how they interact with readers and the world, we would produce a far less arrogant, far more interesting, far less self-crippling, and finally far more powerful criticism.##{{Delany, 237-8.}}
As we can see, Delany is arguing that as definition can only be provisional for a genre like SF (failing to describe some texts that should be included or including texts that may not belong at all). As Delany points out, the vast majority of literary critics long ago gave up arguing about the definition of literature, rather choosing to do the (largely) more interesting work Delany described above. Delany tentatively seems to suggest, as well, that only through practices mentioned in the earlier passage will paraliterature begin to be taken more seriously, as contemporary critical methods come to be focused on the genres of paraliterature, instead of the rather embarrassing attempts at “serious” critical analysis that continue to seek legitimation through the authoring of totalizing origin myths.
Speaking of Delany’s own understanding of “the social object” is increasingly difficult reading through Shorter Views as his own usage of the concepts he labels as such continually shift. For instance, we are told, variously throughout the book, that a genre is both a practice of reading and a practice of writing (but never a practice of reading and writing). For instance, in the essay “Pornography and Censorship,” Delany tells us: “we can probably describe pornography as those texts which arouse, either by auctorial intention or by accident.” {{Delany, 293.}} Almost immediately before this description of pornography, though, we are told that pornography is “a practice of writing.” {{Delany, 292-3.}} Despite Delany’s anecdote about the composition of Equinox (that he wrote the entire book “even … the nonsexual parts”{{Delany, 295.}} while in a state of sexual arousal), it seems as though pornography is, actually, specifically described best by an action on the part of the reader. Further, while we are aware of Delany’s own assertion that generic descriptions can be totalizing, this description of the genre of pornography (based on reader arousal) may possibly include texts in its purview that are largely regarded as non-pornographic.
I think the escape from this possible generic quagmire may lie elsewhere in the text (as is the case with most essays in this complex web of an anthology). In “On the Unspeakable,” Delany constructs a model for that which is unspeakable as something that is never absolute, always determined by the speakers in a conversation. For example, Delany writes: “what is speakable between client and accountant is unspeakable between newly introduced acquaintances at a formal dinner part.”{{Delany, 62.}} In other words, unspeakablity is not a universal criteria. We are led to believe similar things about pornography itself, based on Delany’s description, I think. Delany seems to suggest (after asserting something else (and I plan to return to this problem)) that pornography can be described as a practice of reading that specifically focuses on sexual arousal. In other words, the trite description of pornography Delany invokes (“I know it when I see it”) may in fact be more accurate than anyone previously thought: that which we read (or view) that arouses us is pornography (a bodily “knowing” when we see it).
That said, though, Delany’s insistence that pornography is a practice of writing is troubling. I say this, especially, after noting that most of the discussion of pornography (besides Delany’s anecdote about writing Equinox) is situated around the responses of readers to the genre. I am especially worried because the assertion that pornography is that which arouses and a practice of writing seems to suggest that pornography is that which arouses the author. As much as I would like to be worshipful of a text I ultimately admire deeply, I feel that this assertion is simply wrong. Based on Delany’s own arguments, pornography should be best described as a practice of reading. Further, I think categorizing the genre in this way opens up new possibilities for discourse, as it largely undercuts many of the forces that seek to stifle the creative expression of the sexual. This is a turn Delany sadly does not take in the essay, especially when one considers that the second portion of “Pornography and Censorship” is about the social forces aligned to smother the pornographic.
“On the Unspeakable” is probably the most unsettling essay in the entire collection. In addition to the presence of graphic depictions of public sex and the seamy underbelly of 1980s-era Times Square, the essay is psychologically unsettling for the reader by simply begging the question: “How does one read this text?” Structured, as you will recall, in two parallel columns, approaching the essay is fundamentally disorienting. At the start, the left column is concerned with the language of theory: “tropes”, “representationally”, and “extralinguistic” are all words in the first half page of the text of the left column. In the right column, we are thrust into an explicit sexual act in which someone is masturbating and eating semen. Beyond the obvious sexual character, we have no real concept of what is occurring in the right column and find the nameless, disembodied hands and cock to be fundamentally unsettlingly (at least, expecting criticism in a critical essay, we find our expectations satisfied by the left column. The right column is more psychologically problematic). Given this explosion of the pornographic and theoretical, I first attempted to read the columns in parallel, reading ahead in the left column and then reading ahead in the right. By page two of the text, the right column was discussing Rose and Red, without given me any hint as to who these two characters were. Realizing that a parallel reading was impossible, I began to despair: what was I to do in order to make sense of this textual maze. Like an impatient mystery reader, I skipped to the essay’s end, hoping that some hint might lie in the conclusion. Soon, I noticed that the end of the left column on the last page matched the start of the right column on the first page. Having figured out the methodology demanded by the essays columnar structure, I began to digest the text. I did not find the experience pleasant.
In reading “On the Unspeakable,” I found myself jumping across columns, forgetting the requirement to read all the left column and then all the right column. Constantly, I find myself at the bottom of a page suddenly finding a description of a Porno Theatre, when a completion of a thought on attraction was actually expected. In reading this essay, Delany’s theory of the unspeakable began to make sense. As he states “the unspeakable is always in the column you are not reading.”{{Delany, 65.}} As the text weaves its way from a sexually explicit narrative of Times Square life to a theoretical consideration of discourse, incorrect column jumps reveal the aspect of the unspeakable Delany most seeks to amplify: it is not a set of definite actions but dependent on the context. Shockingly, I find in reading this essay that the sex is, as expected, out of place in discussion of theory but (perhaps shockingly) the theory is out of place when I accidentally stumble on top of it during a depiction of sex. As Delany states, “what is speakable between a client and prostitute in the balcony of a 42nd street theater is unspeakable between man and wife of thirty years.”{{Delany, 62.}} As we have seen elsewhere in Shorter Views, once again, the ability to define a social object such as “the unspeakable” emerges as impossible, as it is fundamentally tied to the context of a given conversation. Finally, we see that the determination of proper speech is an ongoing and cyclic process that changes as we wander through the physical/temporal space of our everyday lives, like the reader lost in the textual maze of “On the Unspeakable” itself.
Having seen Delany render history suspect in telling the origins of literary genres (in “The Politics of Paraliterary Criticism”) and authorial figures (in “The Paradoxa Interview”), it is interesting to see what the author does when his attentions turn to a more personal origin story: his own sexual history. In “Coming/Out”, Delany gives readers a collection of moments from his own childhood sexual odyssey (“between age seven (1949) and age fifteen (1957)”{{Delany, 74.}}). In so doing, he is attempting to analyze the emergence of his own identity and see how it relates to the post-Stonewall narrative model of “coming out.” Ultimately, through analyzing the change of coming out as meaning entering gay society and coming out as meaning declaring of homosexual identity to straights, Delany wants to see if his own story (or stories, to be more accurate), fits in with the post-Stonewall model of gay identity emergence.
I think, ultimately, though, Delany wants to show that this emergence is not a singularity—a radical reconfiguration of life—but a collection of ongoing events and anecdotes. As Delany states about the stories he is about to tell:
##None of them marked a before or after point, distinguishing absence from presence. Rather, each is notable because it was a point of change, a point where what was present before was still present in rearranged form.##{{Delany, 68.}}
A personal history about gay identity for him is not about a singular moment of becoming gay (like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon). Rather, Delany sees his own identity (and its construction) as a series of smaller event in which his sense of self-hood reconfigured. These stories do articulate a cohesive narrative of Delany’s identity, but do so in a way that is disjointed and allows for more play. For instance, he includes narratives concerning heterosexual couplings that are both pleasurable and unenjoyable. In other words, he is not telling one story: rather we experience, in “Coming/Out,” a multitude of related anecdotes that causes the story of Delany’s coming/out to emerge as a systemic effect.
We are offered a description of coming/out (in Delany’s model) as “an aware attitude, a vigilant disposition, and|? an open mood.” {{Delany, 98.}} This model of history—as a systemic byproduct of temporally disconnected events—is what I find so fascinating in this essay. I think, given the arguments about paraliterary origin myths [and|] fabricated authorial biographies presented in other essays throughout the book, Delany is trying to posit a new way of looking at history itself. From paraliterature to personal narrative, Delany is arguing against dialectic history [and|] for a genealogical model of exploring the past. More than that, however, (as we see it repeatedly modeled throughout the book) Delany is arguing that the best way we can get at constructing pasts is through a loosely connected web of stories, a rhizome of anecdote.
This rhizomatic, anecdotal model of the past works in explaining Delany’s own experience of coming/out and as a replacement for the clumsy histories authored about various paraliterary genres. Rather than claiming SF emerges with the writing of Frankenstein, as Brian Aldiss attempts, Delany would work towards a narration of SF’s past that seeks to talk about all interconnections (literary and paraliterary) that go into the ongoing production and shaping of the genre of SF. Instead of marking an absolute beginning and listing a progression of authors of merit (Bester, Sturgeon, Delany, Varley, Gibson, for instance), a rhizome of anecdote would attempt to capture some critically interesting aspect of the dense jungle that is SF in 20th century life. In Conclusion, by using the telling of a network anecdotes, Delany models a conception of history that can escape totalizing political discourse.
Having offered readings of four essays in Shorter Views, I question the efficacy of concluding here. By not directly interrogating twenty-one of the other (excellent) works offered in this collection, I feel that I may be doing some injustice to Samuel R. Delany. I say this, though, with the understanding that I could have spent the 20-or-so minutes allotted this presentation in discussion of the last chapter of the book, “Some Remarks on Narrative and Technology,” an expansive collection of twenty-two related and incredibly dense points that address the poetic and the scientific in the texts of life. In attempting to conclude these remarks on the interconnectivity of queerness and the paraliterary, I would like to draw attention to 20 of the narrative and technology essay. It reads:
##20. As science is an aspect of technology, poetry is an aspect of narrative: It is such an evident aspect of narrative that, from time to time, it has been foregrounded and highlighted and hypostasized, at least on the social level, into a thing in itself, just as, in the same manner, science has been hypostasized.##{{Delany, 428.}}
I wonder if we can read this injection of the poetic into the narrative as a symptom of Delany’s larger concern with the paraliterary genres. Delany, throughout the collection, repeats Derrida’s assertion that genre never arrives pure and I wonder if, here, at the end of this collection (hidden away behind shorter fiction reviews) we can see a larger implication of Delany’s critical project: the construction of text (free from genre, reading, writing, editing, etc.) as the penultimate social object. By showing how poetry is a hyper-specialized form of narrative, Delany seems to suggest that narrative and poetics are both symptoms of the same creative production: text. Further, in the constant slippage between “reading” and “writing” in his discussion of pornography, or his account of the fictionalized biography of Stephen Crane, or his assertion that, ultimately, without readers a text does not exist and its writing is irrelevant, I think Delany is arguing that text is the ultimate social object and that other aspects of it and practices engaged with it are just hypostasized nodes of the field of textuality.