Delany`s Tales of Neveryon evokes complex questions about the relationships between language, knowledge, power, and desire. Three moments and one thread stand out to me –although there are certainly many others that are equally significant in different ways–for their significance in thinking about utopia/utopianism: the first is Gorgik`s double memory of vanishing slaves and clanking coins that occurs near the beginning of his tale but is inserted and then abandoned with a seamlessness that renders it uncanny; the second moment involves the mirror game Old Venn demonstrates to/with the children and its lessons about truth and perception; and the third is the fireside chance encounter and conversation between Raven and Norema and Gorgik and Small Sarg that occurs in the final tale. The thread of story-telling is implicated in some capacity in each of these moments, and is also present in many other places throughout the text. I`m not going to try here (though perhaps I will elsewhere) for an in-depth analysis of what is going on in each of these moments, but will just attempt to articulate some of the questions that they raise for me in terms of thinking about utopia and the utopian impulse, and the relationship of utopia to history and memory and to desire.
The narrative`s articulation of Gorgik`s double memory (involving the sight of dejected slaves and the nearby sound of coins clinking) seems to function to create a connection between money/wealth and subjection at the outset of the text, but this relationship is complicated by the mysterious disappearance of these shackled slaves on the child Gorgik`s re-entrance to the same room hours later. The narrative`s staging of this almost dream-like memory, especially followed by Gorgik`s strange encounter with the (perhaps)- slave boy in the square, brings up questions for me about the representation of time and memory. Where is this double memory situated in relation to Gorgik`s imagination, and how does it situate him? How does it condition his ideals of freedom and desire? Is the slave boy a double for Gorgik, or a symbol of his fate/future? What is the significance of his ability to break his collar in terms of thinking about the psychic shackles that bind and what it means to imagine other ways of either escaping or negotiating these binds? And then, how does this scene figure the relationship between the money system and desire? I can say with near certainty that Samuel Delany`s vision of utopia would not be absent of desire—but do the operations of desire in some way necessitate/engender/rely upon(?) asymmetrical relations of power?
The scene by the fire in which Gorgik tells Raven and Norema about his and Small Sarg`s relationship also brings up similar questions. Gorgik tells the women, “We are both free men. For the boy the collar is symbolic—of our mutual affection and our mutual protection. For myself, it is sexual—a necessary part in the pattern that allows both action and orgasm to manifest themselves within the single circle of desire” (238). He denies that it carries any social meaning for them—except that is “shocks, offends, or deceives”—despite the fact that in many ways it functions in the world in which they live as the paradigmatic sign of power (in a different way than the rult does, I suppose).
So, this collar serves (also) as a sign of submission and subordination, but the dynamics of Gorgik and Small Sarg`s relationship subverts this sign, and reveals its ultimate meaninglessness. Further, this subversion is enacted through Gorgik`s relaying of its intentionality to Raven and Norema, which may speak to the power of story-telling to create new forms of relationships (more on this in a moment).
But going back, I am also thinking about the operations of desire that Gorgik`s relationship to Young Sarg reveals. Are these two men more “free” because of their open subversion of the sign of power (the collar), or does Gorgik`s need to wear it in order to initiate desire bespeak his continued subjection to this symbol? His wearing of the collar during sex (sex that is on some level taboo) serves as a kind of abjection of self, which he needs in order to be stimulated; but at the same time as it offers him a certain freedom through sex and the body, it problematizes the notion of an inherently liberating desire. Desire is intimately connected with utopia; both are engendered and sustained through the conditions of their impossibility. One might even say that utopia/utopian thinking always emerges from desire (an insatiable/impossible longing for wholeness), though I`m not yet prepared to claim that this is true. But then I come back to the question voiced above: does desire always involve asymmetrical power relations, if not between subjects than between the subject and his/her means of expression? And what is the relationship (represented here; or otherwise) between desire and love?
Skipping around, back to storytelling: We might think of story-telling as itself embodying a utopic impulse, which seems to be an especially salient theme in the first few tales. The act of telling a story is an inherently transformative—and on some levels, one might argue, subversive—act. To tell a story is to create a bridge between realms of experience, and a gap where new meanings can arise; and it is also to alter the course of history, and in so doing, the present and future as well. To tell a story is to (re)claim a kind of agency, which may also represent transformative possibilities for the subject. I wonder, however, what the limits of storytelling are in terms of reimagining/rearticulating the world? Story-telling in most any form involves a harnessing of creativity combined with a willingness to imagine things not as they are but as they could be—but how far can this take us? What, indeed, is language`s potential to actualize a utopian space? And how can we conceptualize this space? Is this a different kind/mode of utopia entirely than more concrete visions of utopia? Because utopia by definition cannot exist, must it always involve a linguistic dimension? I had to return my library copy of Trouble on Triton, so I don`t have access to the Foucault quote Britt read at the end of last week`s class, but I found it very provocative in thinking about the relationship between language, form, and utopia; and it brought up questions that I would like to continue to think about.
I won`t talk about the mirror scene here because I`m afraid I may be rambling. I apologize for any incoherence, which can be blamed on too much time spent writing at my computer today! But I`d certainly be interested to hear others` thoughts on any of these questions/threads…
Sorry! I didn`t mean for this post to get so out of control!!
Thinking about Gorgik and Sarg’s relationship–especially Gorgik’s desire to wear the collar, I couldn’t help but think of psychoanalytic theory (in particular Jessica Benjamin). But more concretely, I’m curious about Gorgik and Sarg’s relationship as it is a restaging of Gorgik’s (first I suppose) sexual relationship–the one that took him out of the mine and into the castle. Is Delaney suggesting, as you point out Faune in the way he creates and has characters speak about this relationship, that domination/subordination in (sexual) play can be less troubling then power elsewhere? Can/ do sexual relationships become a space of alterity where power dynamics can be playful rather than oppressive?
These are really thought-provoking questions. I agree that there is an implicit inextricable link between the images of the vanishing slaves and clanking coins. I take this to be Delany’s highlighting the connection between all forms of slavery and capitalism.
I think you ask exactly the right questions with respect to freedom and desire. The operations of desire do seem to necessitate asymmetrical power relations. Indeed, Gorgik’s capacity to enact desire is inseparable from the symbols of his bondage. For him, true freedom would be their disaggregation. I read Delany here as making a statement with respect to the legacies of slavery. As a slave, Gorgik’s objectification was symbolized by the collar. The legacies of slavery, in the form of psychic trauma, persist even as the visible, outward signs of slavery fade away.
Great post, and thoughtful comments. You’re all on to a central question/problem that Delany posits throughout the book (one that animates the entire four books of the series): to what extent does the collar signify past psychic traumas, especially those linked to slavery, and to what extent does the collar become a symbol, or fetish, that, in the context of desire, gets taken up in an entirely new systems of signification? In other words, to what extent do the traces (and scars) of slavery matter for Gorgik’s own sexuality and sexual practive? The narrative also poses this equally complicated, and I would argue irresolvable, question: do the master/slave dynamics of BDSM recall or echo master/slave relationships of slavery; or do the positions of “master” and the “slave” gain autonomy from the history of slavery within the history of (queer) sexuality? And how might these situations signify differently for racialized subjects engaged in such practices? As you suggest, Faune, the focus on both power and race in Neveryon cautions us against taking a naively utopian view of both sexuality and “transgressive” sexual practices. As in Triton, Delany is pushing up against both conservative/prudish views of race and sexuality as well as a naive promotion of “sexual freedom.”