appears several times throughout Delany’s non-Nevèrÿon work, notably in The Mad Man [1994], "Enoch" is mentioned in Genesis as the first city built by man, specifically by Cain’s son, Adam and Eve’s grandson, after whom it was named. In Delany's work, “Enoch” is never a big city. Rather it is a very old and small city—often much older than it thinks it is—which has forgotten its own historical origins.) These are the people who have the least sense of their own history. Their perfectly sensible wants conspire, nevertheless, to defeat their own best interests, and the only role they can conceive of in which Pryn can stay among them is that of the town prostitute. It is the most devastating section of the novel. An added irony is that this section is written using all the characters from that central myth of romanticism, “Tristan and Isolde” (with Pryn playing the part of Isolde), employing elements from many of the versions, including the story of “Tristan’s Leap,” and the tales of Malot, King Mark, and Bragenge from Wagner, and even the dwarf Frocsin, from Jean Cocteau’s film version from the forties, “The Eternal Return” (1943). In Delany’s version, apathy and despair have replaced passion and romance. Only the power of Pryn’s own imagination gives her a weapon to fight free from the seductions of these simple people’s basic goodness and her own ensnarement in their fundamental hopelessness. References Further reading Tucker, Jeffery A. A Sense of Wonder: Samuel R. Delany, Race, Identity and Difference, chapter 3: "The Empire of Signs: Slavery, Semiotics, and Sexuality in the Return to Nevèrÿon Series". Wesleyan University Press, 2004. 1983 American novels 1983 fantasy novels American fantasy novels Novels by Samuel Delany Novels set in prehistory