The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village

by Samuel R. Delany

Book Overview

Winner of the Hugo Award for Non-fiction
The unexpurgated edition of the award-winning autobiography

Born in New York City's black ghetto Harlem at the start of World War II, Samuel R. Delany married white poet Marilyn Hacker right out of high school. The interracial couple moved into the city's new bohemian quarter, the Lower East Side, in summer 1961. Through the decade's opening years, new art, new sexual practices, new music,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0816645248
• ISBN13: 9780816645244
• Release Date: April 2004
• Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
• Length: 584 Pages
• Weight: 1.73 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.8" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Black and White and the Color of the Cat at Night

Samuel Delany has, through the years, greatly enriched the field of science fiction through his spectacular novels such as Nova and Babel-17 and short stories such as "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones". He has also done a great deal to bring the world of science fiction back into the field of recognized literature through essays and articles that have shown its richness, its ingenuity, its relationships with other forms of literature, and its ability to, at its best, illuminate the human condition in a fashion impossible in other forms.This is an autobiographical rendering of his life from about age 14 to age 22. As might be supposed from his fictional writings, Delany is revealed to be both brilliant and highly unconventional. From his inter-racial marriage to Marilyn Hacker (who would later win a National Book Award for her poetry) at a time when such marriages where practically unheard of, to his awakening sexual predilections, this book is fascinating in its straight-forward directness, never avoiding describing events in detail regardless of how much the events were taboo or not mentioned in polite company. Set with Delany's inimitable style, his ability to evoke pictures with words and seasoned with excerpts from some of Marilyn's (and his own) poems, Motion paints an indelible portrait of the tail end of the 'beat' era and the beginning of the 'hippie' movement. I found myself saying, yes, that is exactly how it was (even though Delany is six years older than me), as his work evoked some of my own memories of my early years away from home, living in a rat-trap with little income, the first experiences of actually living with a woman, the community of young people that wove around and over you, the passions and idealisms of youth.On top of this, Delany lays forth the genesis of his early works, both their writing and his difficulties in getting them published. Some of the characters and situations of his novels take on a new light after reading this, seeing how much of himself Delany put into those characters. We find that Delany also has other talents besides writing: musician (once headlined above Bob Dylan), actor, and poet. As they say in the movies: Warning: this book contains explicit sex scenes, both heterosexual and homosexual. Those who are offended by such should not read this book. But those who do read it will be rewarded with a great tale of life told with pin-point accuracy and all the emotion of great poetry.This book took the 1989 Hugo for best science-fiction related non-fiction work, and it fully deserved it. --- Reviewed by Patrick (hyperpat)

maybe lives don't come in just one size

One of the most engaging and thoughtful memoirs I've ever encountered. Delany writes of his life as a young writer and lover in Greenwich Village from about 1959 until 1963. I, too, was gay and sexually active in the Village, though a few years later, but the atmosphere wasn't all that changed and I remembered a lot of the places and feelings Delany described. Unfortunately, I (or probably anyone else who was around) did not have his sophistication and insight at age 20 or so, nor did I have the unbelievable luck (I think it was luck, at least in part) to have Delany's experiences and meet as many unbelievably interesting characters, many of whom became famous, as did Delany. Unless you are bothered by casual sex, including anonymous homosex, I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't find this book a fascinating and thoughtful read.

It READS, literally, like the motion of light in water

This is probably my favorite memoir of all time. The prose is sinuous and reflective, and reflects on much more than sex and science fiction writing. The cast of 'walk ons' in Delany's life is astounding; including Bob Dylan, W.H. Auden, and Albert Einstein (yes, Einstein). The poet Marilyn Hacker, his wife at the time, plays a prominent role in these pages and indeed Delany is one of the astutest critics of poets that I've read, which is all the more astounding since it's one of his very minor concerns! Delany is a major--and one of the tragically under-rated--figures in American literature--and this book not only shows the genesis of his writing, but cements his place in its own right.

A gripping and superlative memoir

I've lived a much different life than Samuel Delany--he black, I white; I straight, he gay (or at least bisexual in this book). But race, sexuality and the place of the would-be writer in the world--while all straightforwardly addressed in his text--are all but colors on the palette of simple (and not so simple) LIFE that Delany so well expresses throughout. This is the only memoir I've ever read that straightforwardly addresses the elasticity of memory itself. While Delany seems to be doing a bang-up job in recalling his early years of marriage (paralleled with numerous accounts of homosexual and bisexual encounters), it is a bit remarkable that he claims to remember so much so well. Is he remembering or just reconstructing? It's not for me to say, and in any event he has fashioned a superlative look back at a New York I wasn't born into yet, and probably would barely recognize if I saw it. While threaded with Delany's characteristic images of desolation and death, this is a far more optimistic work than others of his I've seen (fantasy and non-fantasy), and remarkably big-hearted and lovable. Delany's affectionate portraits of his friends--everyone from fellow students to neighbors to reformed murderers he picks up for sex in the streets--makes for compelling reading, and he manages to get the reader to like these guys like Delany does. In the often emotionally barren landscapes of books like DHALGREN, human interaction is difficult and fractious. Delany's memoir is the opposite, a richly human landscape wherein even the worst behavior appears, in context, to be richly layered with emotions far more complex than mere cruelty. Having so little in common with Delany when I began the book, I felt at book's end that despite the obvious gulfs that exist between us as people, they would none of them be unbridgeable. That's as it should be; and only a highly generous and perceptive writer such as Delany could have written such a book.

Not your usual Delany

For Delany fans used to wading through his dense and complex narratives, this accessible autobiographical work will be either a disappointment or a relief. Delany presents a fascinating picture of his life in New York married to poet Marilyn Hacker, experiencing the burgeoning artistic world of Greenwich Village, and becoming a successful science fiction writer. The book also explores memory (its accuracies and inaccuracies), madness, and sexual identity. A good companion to this book is the autobiograpohical Heavenly Breakfast, written much earlier, but set in a time after these events. Guess what science fiction author-cum-folk singer once got top billing in a show with Bob Dylan