Dhalgren (S.F. MASTERWORKS)

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of modern American life have been discarded, he receives a sort of welcoming gift, a wrist band from which seven general socioeconomic, cultural and environmental conditions include factors such as disposable income, taxation, and availability of work Delany: Less so, which is to say, I think we're learning how to live in our modern cities, and I think we're paying more attention—I certainly am—to what our leaders are actually doing and realizing that we have to be much more responsible towards making the leaders do the right things. And we have the world's most irresponsible leader right now (Donald Trump [45]). And I think, and I hope, that's going to produce changes with the next election. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Since he likes publicity so much, he's very good at shooting himself in the foot. But that, I think, is the way that goes. Forest Research. (2010) Benefits of green infrastructure: Health and well-being. Accessed 18 May 2017. ↩

men and women and has sex with them, alone or in various combinations, but seems most connected emotionally to Young people who are NEET are considered to be at greater risk of poor physical and mental health, being unemployed, and having low quality and low wage work in later life [footnote 12].Long stretches of Dhalgren follow a few key groups. There is the Richards family that is trying to preserve the sense of normality at all costs. There is a gang known as Scorpions, who wear chains like the one the Kid found and lamps that project huge holographic images that conceal them – strange insects or lizards or fantastical shapes – making them a terror in the streets. Income and health are strongly associated. The proportion of individuals in the UK falling below the Minimum Income Standard ( MIS) increased between 2008 to 2009 and 2013 to 2014, followed by a small decline to 29.7% in 2015 to 2016. A higher proportion of children were in households living below this standard (44.3%) than working age adults (29.0%) and pensioners (15.4%). Department for Work and Pensions. (2017) Improving Lives, Helping Workless Families. Accessed 14 June 2017. ↩ After this incident, Kid meets June Richards. The Richards family tries to lead an unchanged bourgeois existence in the midst of Bellona’s chaos. George Harrison reportedly raped June during the riots that occurred during Bellona’s mysterious catastrophe. Kid comes to realize that the so-called rape was an act of mutual desire filled with mythological portents. Good or bad health is not simply the result of individual behaviours, genetics and medical care. A substantial part of the difference in health outcomes is down to the social, economic and environmental factors that shape people’s lives [footnote 1]. These factors are collectively described as the wider determinants of health.

The Unreveal: All over the place. What happened to Bellona? What is the Kid's full name? What does Dhalgren mean? What are the optical chains actually? Even things that initially look like answers (such as the factory full of optical chains and red eye-caps) just raise more questions. Is this flow of reflection, poetic prose and crazy action a continuous loop that keeps replaying in the Kid’s mind? It made me think a bit of the recent TV series, Legion, in which it’s hard to tell reality from mental distortion from time travel. Dhalgren resists any easy formula, but moment by moment it offers absorbing richness and dozens of well-drawn characters. Dreadful Musician: Inverted Trope; Lanya is a very good harmonica player, to the point where she can even play discords on a harmonica, which as Kid points out is impossible.The entire book, really. In every way. Special mention goes to the opening sequence and the woman the narrator meets, has sex with, and then watches as she turns into a tree. There is strong evidence to suggest that access to green spaces has a beneficial impact on physical and mental wellbeing through both physical access and use [footnote 29]. Access to green space is unequally distributed across the social gradient, with poorer communities generally having less access [footnote 30]. I went to New York this weekend, down on Friday, home on Sunday, to see the play Bellona, Destroyer of Cities, an adaptation of Samuel Delany’s Dhalgren (1975). I am planning to review the play, but first I want to talk about the book, which I re-read on the train on Friday. Lampshade Hanging: Any explanation given for the strange things that happen will usually just lampshade the fact that it doesn't really explain anything. The most obvious example is probably when Kid finds the crate of red eye caps.

Because of his youthful appearance and apparent naivete, the man is given the name of Kid (later to become Kidd, and the one or two incidental uses of unusual technology notwithstanding. It's not space cowboys. It's not to wound the autumnal city. So howled out for the world to give him a name. The in-dark answered with the wind. Gunnery: So do you see any similarities between the world you created in Dhalgren and the city of Bellona and the world that we're in now?Dhalgren is a really weird book. The weirdest thing is that it was a bestselling cult classic. Now I love Delany, but I find it the most impenetrable and the second least likeable of his books. I tried to read it several times as a teenager and couldn’t understand it. I finally made it all the way through, and I’m pretty sure I’ve read it all the way through twice before, very much on the principle of “maybe I’m old enough for it now.” Well, maybe I am old enough for it now, because I didn’t have any trouble reading it this time. I think Delany has written much better books, but even minor Delany is worth the time. But if one Delany book had to be a bestselling classic, why this one?

Remaining in education, employment or training after school is associated with a reduced risk of a range of negative mental and physical health outcomes, as well as better employment prospects [footnote 16]. In 2016, 6.0% of 16 to 17 year olds in England were not in education, employment or training, or their activity was not known. 5. Income Department for Education. (2016) Early years foundation stage profile results: 2015 to 2016. Accessed 14 June 2017. ↩ a b c d e Samuel R. Delany (writing as K. Leslie Steiner), "Some Remarks toward a Reading of Dhalgren" in The Straits of Messina, Serconia Press, Seattle: 1989 ISBN 0-934933-04-9 Air quality is a central feature of the environment. A number of air pollutants have adverse effects on health. Some of the strongest evidence is for effects of fine particulate matter (PM2.5). Exposure to PM2.5 increases mortality risk, particularly from heart and lung conditions [footnote 6], [footnote 7]. Cozy Catastrophe: Many of the people who didn't evacuate Bellona are perfectly content to stay there, though they could leave at any time if they wanted to.Ellis A, Fry R, Office for National Statistics. (2010) Regional health inequalities in England. Regional Trends 42: 60. Accessed 14 June 2017. ↩ Income and work are 2 of the most important determinants of health and wellbeing. Unemployment has been falling in England, down to 5.1% in 2015, but this proportion increases to 8.4% for people living in the most deprived areas, more than double that of people in the least deprived areas (3.4%). The quality of available work can also play a part in health outcomes both physically and mentally. PHE. (2015) Public Health Matters: Ensuring all children have the best start in life. Accessed 14 June 2017. ↩ Dhalgren takes place in the fictional city of Bellona, a city that once had a population of two million but because of a strange disaster (a series of fires? a race riot?), there are only about a thousand inhabitants left there. In general, Bellona is a pretty dangerous place to find yourself: people die unexpectedly; acts of violence or debauchery occur randomly and often; and a gang of thugs, called the Scorpions, run the streets by night. To stay safe, it’s best to wear an orchid, a bladed weapon that I imagine looks like the Wolverine’s fist, if you have one.