Editing Dhalgren (section)

===Circular text, multistable perception, echoes, and repeated imagery===
Delany has pointed out that ''Dhalgren'' is a circular text with multiple entry points. Those points include the schizoid babble that appears in various sections of the story.<ref name="SomeRemarks" /><ref name="SexObjectsSigns">Samuel R. Delany, "Of Sex, Objects, Signs, Systems, Sales, SF, and Other Things" in ''[[The Straits of Messina]]'', Serconia Press, Seattle: 1989 {{ISBN|0-934933-04-9}}</ref> Hints along those lines are given in the novel. Besides the Chapter VII rubric mentioned above (containing the sentence "I have come to <!--not a mistake-->to wound the autumnal city"—the exact sentence that would be created by joining the novel's unclosed closing sentence to the unopened opening) the most obvious is the point where Kid hears "grendal grendal grendal grendal" going through his mind and suddenly realizes he was listening from the wrong spot: he was actually hearing "Dhalgren Dhalgren Dhalgren" over and over again.<ref name="OnDhalgren">Jean Mark Gawron, "On ''Dhalgren''" in ''Ash of Stars; On the Writings of Samuel R. Delany'', edited by James Sallis, University of Mississippi Press, Jackson: 1996 {{ISBN|978-0-87805-852-5}}</ref> The ability of texts to become circular is something that Delany explores in other works, such as ''[[Empire Star]]''.

Delany conceived and executed ''Dhalgren'' as a literary [[multistable perception]]—the observer (reader) may choose to shift his perception back and forth. Central to this construction is the notebook itself: Kidd receives the notebook shortly after entering Bellona. In the first several chapters of the novel we see, on several occasions, exactly what Kid reads when he looks at the open notebook. The notebook appears to take over as the main text of the novel starting at Chapter VII, coming almost seamlessly after Chapter VI. However, though Chapter VII reads as though it is written by Kid, many of the passages shown in earlier chapters appear verbatim in Chapter VII. Yet for Kid to have read those passages earlier, the passages must have been written ''before'' he received the notebook. In fact, the last few pages of the novel show Kid leaving Bellona. The last sentence of that departure sequence is the incomplete one that conceivably loops back to the beginning of the book. However, earlier in the novel the notebook falls to the ground and Kid reads the last page. The reader sees exactly what Kid reads: the last four sentences of the novel, word for word. This happens well before a point in the novel where Kid specifically states that he only wrote the poems, and "all that other stuff" was already in there when he received the notebook. However, those four sentences are part of a longer section at the end of the novel which, when read, was obviously written by Kid. This means he left Bellona—taking the notebook with him, for how else would he be able to write about his departure—prior to that notebook being found inside Bellona and given to him. Delany has specifically stated that it is not a matter of settling or deciding which text is authoritative. It is more a matter of allowing the reader to experience perceptual shifts in the same way that a Necker cube can be viewed.<ref name="SomeRemarks" /> Akin to the hints regarding its circular nature, ''Dhalgren'' also contains at least one hint towards the perceptual shifts: Denny's book of [[M. C. Escher]] prints.<ref name="RitesOfReversal">Mary Kay Bray, "Rites of Reversal: Double Consciousness in Delany's ''Dhalgren''" first appearing in ''Black American Literature Forum'' (Vol. 18, Number 2, Summer 1984)</ref> Additionally, Jeffrey Allen Tucker has written that Delany's unpublished notes regarding the writing of ''Dhalgren'' contain direct references to the novel itself working as a [[Möbius Strip]], and makes a direct connection to Escher's "Möbius Strip".<ref name="ASenseOfWonder">Jeffrey Allen Tucker, ''A Sense of Wonder: Samuel R. Delany, Race, Identity, and Difference'', Wesleyan University Press: 2004 {{ISBN|978-0-8195-6689-8}}</ref>

Within the looping text that comprises ''Dhalgren'', many other textual plays on perception can be found. Imagery and conversations, some hundreds of pages apart, closely echo each other. One case in point: The scenes on the bridge mentioned in the "Plot Summary" above. In another, light sliding across the face of a trucker driving at night is echoed in the description of light sliding across the face of a building. The repeated motif of a scratch down the lower leg of several female characters at different points in the novel is yet another example.<ref name="DoubtsDreams">Samuel R. Delany, "Of Doubts and Dreams" in ''Distant Stars'', Bantam Books, New York: 1981 {{ISBN|0-553-01336-X}}</ref>