Reading this was a little like reading The 120 Days of Sodom-- not so much because it has lots of outrageous, gross, scatological sex scenes, but because the author is pushing the limits of reality and tolerability in pursuit of an abstract principle. But in Delany's case, I think the principle is anti-Sade: it's about freedom rather than control. The title character may have encouraged some people to more or less destroy their lives, but they're having a good time doing it, and he's developed an innovative ethic of consensual slavery: it's only OK to sell yourself if the price is exactly one penny.

What's really jarring (assuming you can get past the obvious stuff) is that it starts out as a realistic novel, and gradually turns into what Delany calls a "pornotopia" where the sexual process has taken over completely. The scene that begins this process, where the narrator walks up to some homeless men in Central Park and propositions them to their great surprise (and his own), is very strange and moving-- it's a science-fiction effect. ( )

Maybe not since De Sade has the achievement of the pornotopic novel been fully realized. The pornotopia, a literary genre in which the pleasures of sex supplant the moral frameworks usually found within the world of a novel, is a little explored or employed genre. Unlike De Sade, Delany's pornotopic fantasy bursts with empathy and makes a point of transcending class barriers, dropping down into the gutters and the dirty sidewalks where acts of urophagia and coprophagia are rampant. Still, for all of its wild sexual events, the novel is grounded in human tenderness and the value of interaction, sexual and nonsexual, between individuals. Add to all of this an intriguing mystery about the demise of the young philosopher Timothy Hasler, who was no prude himself, and you have a sprawling and multifaceted novel unlike anything else in contemporary queer literature. ( )