Atlantis Surfaces
2015-05-31 08:29![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
asher553In the midst of what I hope will be my last and final dealings with the Got-Junk people for the foreseeable future, I was weeding through a box of old books for any titles that I might want to save from the discard bin. I actually found one that I'd been looking for just last night: 'Atlantis' by Samuel R. Delany. [http://www.amazon.com/Atlantis-Three-Samuel-R-Delany/dp/0819563129/]
I thought of it because I had started re-reading 'Having Our Say' by the Delany sisters Sadie and Bessie, Harlem centennarians who had lived together for their whole lives. [http://www.amazon.com/Having-Our-Say-Delany-Sisters/dp/0440220424] (Bessie passed on in 1995 and Sadie in 1999.) They were, in fact, aunts to the famous science fiction writer, who was the son of their youngest sibling, Samuel Ray Delany Sr. (1906-1960). The title story (of three) in 'Atlantis' is SRD Jr.'s envisioning of his father's world in 1924. So I thought it would be fun to read them side-by-side to compare these memoirs (in SRD's case, an imagined memoir) from the same era, the same community, and the same family.
I thought of it because I had started re-reading 'Having Our Say' by the Delany sisters Sadie and Bessie, Harlem centennarians who had lived together for their whole lives. [http://www.amazon.com/Having-Our-Say-Delany-Sisters/dp/0440220424] (Bessie passed on in 1995 and Sadie in 1999.) They were, in fact, aunts to the famous science fiction writer, who was the son of their youngest sibling, Samuel Ray Delany Sr. (1906-1960). The title story (of three) in 'Atlantis' is SRD Jr.'s envisioning of his father's world in 1924. So I thought it would be fun to read them side-by-side to compare these memoirs (in SRD's case, an imagined memoir) from the same era, the same community, and the same family.
