Godina izdanja: Ostalo
ISBN: Ostalo
Jezik: Engleski
Autor: Strani

lepo očuvano

Samuel R. Delany

verovatno prvo izdanje

Bantam Books, 1979.

RETKO!


Semjuel R. Delani

**„The Tales of Nevèrÿon“** je zbirka povezanih priča smeštenih u mitski, ali neodređeni praiskonski svet Nevèrÿona, koji na prvi pogled liči na klasični fantasy ambijent, ali se brzo otkriva kao duboko **filozofsko, političko i društveno promišljanje** same prirode mita i pripovedanja. Delany koristi motive mačeva, gradova, putovanja i junaka kako bi preispitao ustaljene obrasce epske fantastike.

Kroz niz priča koje se međusobno prepliću, autor istražuje teme **jezika, moći, roda, seksualnosti, ekonomije i identiteta**, često razgrađujući očekivanja čitalaca o tome šta fantasy „treba“ da bude. Nevèrÿon nije idealizovani svet heroja, već kompleksno društvo u kojem mitovi nastaju, menjaju se i služe kao sredstvo kontrole, ali i oslobađanja.

Knjiga kombinuje elemente fantasyja, spekulativne fikcije i književne teorije, uz snažan metatekstualni sloj — priče su često predstavljene kao rekonstrukcije, zapisi ili tumačenja izgubljenih legendi. Zbog toga se „The Tales of Nevèrÿon“ smatra jednim od najznačajnijih i najuticajnijih dela **postmodernog fantasyja**, namenjenim čitaocima koji traže žanrovsku književnost sa dubinom i intelektualnim izazovom.

Tales of Nevèrÿon is Delany`s deconstruction of the sword-and-sorcery subgenre. It`s Robert E. Howard`s Conan by way of Joanna Russ` Alyx and Jacques Derrida`s Of Grammatology. (Delany`s critical writing about the Alyx stories, which incorporated his take on Howard, fed directly into these tales.) It takes place in a metafictional neolithic past where we can see the origins of civilization -- of things like writing and money -- and where all binaries -- black and white, barbarian and civilized, slavery and freedom, male and female, straight and gay, truth and fiction -- are reversed, refracted, and exploded. They are stories about the problem of knowledge. You might say they are agnostic stories -- about the absence of final or total knowledge. They are stories haunted and informed by absence. Tales of nowhere and nowhen.

We are first introduced to Gorgik, who is a slave in a mine who is taken up for a sexual dalliance by the noblewoman Myrgot. Gorgik`s experience at the royal court, where Myrgot soon loses interest in him, gives him the basis to embark on a varied career that exposes him to every level of society, high and low, making him a unique embodiment of the civilized world. In the next tale we`re introduced to Norema, an island girl who is taught by an aged female scientist named Venn. Norema`s conventional life is disrupted by catastrophe as she reaches majority, and she leaves the island for the mainland. In the third tale we meet Small Sarg, a barbarian prince who is enslaved and purchased by Gorgik to become his lover, much as Myrgot had done with Gorgik earlier, but to far different effect. In the fourth tale Norema goes on a trade mission representing a businesswoman, and she meets a masked woman warrior named Raven whose mission is to assassinate the nobleman that Norema is supposed to do business with. In the fifth and final tale we discover Gorgik and Small Sarg conducting a war to liberate the slaves, and they encounter Norema and Raven in the forest for an inconclusive conversation.

By this point in his career Delany was a master story-teller. He knew exactly what tropes he was playing with and what readerly satisfactions he was denying or delaying in a tantalizing game of striptease, in which the story is slowly laid bare to reveal a mysterious void full of unending plenty. What is so masterful here, too, is how his philosophical and analytical abstractions are continually grounded in the grittiest, sweatiest, meatiest, most sensual physical details you can imagine. This is a world teaming with the complex variety of human experience and history, production and reproduction. It`s a world constantly transforming and evolving and reflecting on itself, in which our understanding of what is happening or who the characters are is challenged again and again.

It`s a hall of mirrors, infinitely reversing the image of a curious collection of objects: a rusty astrolabe, a rough rubber ball, a metal slave collar, a two-bladed sword, a three-legged clay pot, a great winged lizard. It`s a collection of words that doesn`t contain the stories after all, but sets them free. They are living still in our own lost civilization, if you know where to look for them.

epska fantastika martin igra prestola derida o gramatologiji