Dhalgren

Dhalgren, a science fiction novel by Samuel R. Delany, begins with this immortal line. What follows is an extended and increasingly hallucinatory trip through a city divorced from reality and reason. Cut off from the rest of the country, the city is a place unlike anyother. Multiple moons sit in the evening sky, during the day the sun grows exponentially large and street signs and landmarks shift constantly.

The makeshift narrator to the story is the nameless, left-shoeless drifter nicknamed Kidd. Poet, hero, liar, the Kidd is a facinating realization of the very instincts of the city itself.

It is not until the final chapter of Dhalgren that the meaning of the entire experience is laid down, and even then it is elusive.

William Gibson calls Dhalgren "A riddle that was never meant to be solved."

Perhaps that's all the more reason to try...