Don't read too much into that star rating. This is one of those books where I--at some point--considered every interval between 1* and 5* as a possibility. The fact remains, however, that it is a masterpiece, and it deserves to be recognized as such. 
 Let me preface the rest of this review: make a list in your head of everything that might be considered "objectionable content." (You know what I'm talking about.) Got it? Good. Now, I can pretty much guarantee that every item on that list occurs at least once in this book. 
 Or, if you really want a breakdown list of what I mean: (view spoiler)[ Explicit sex of every permutation you can imagine, and description of even more, often with unclear consent, rape/rape culture, racism, language, violence, drugs, the toilet, blasphemy... And those are the broad strokes. Again, you name it, it's in here. (hide spoiler)] 
 Still with me? Alright, so now we can get into why I didn't run away screaming. 
 Dhalgren is a behemoth of a book, and accordingly intimidating. It's not the length, as such (800 pages is nothing to sneeze at, of course, but there are longer books that are easier reads), so much as the prose and content that forced me to pause every dozen pages or so and mentally go over what I thought I knew. 
 (This seems an appropriate moment to highlight [The] Kid[d]--our amnesiac and mentally ill protagonist-narrator. In short, "the unreliable narrator" in his most obvious form) 
 With the exception of the third chapter, there is no plot in the traditional sense of the word. Events spiral back over themselves, imagery recurrs (slightly changed from its first depiction), and reality itself fragments as the context that Kid has built to explain the world around him fragments and dissolves in the second half of the book until, at last, the end of the book loops around to become something very like the beginning. The thought occured to me, as I passed the halfway point of the book, that if Cubism had a prose equivalent, it would probably look something like Dhalgren. 
 If it sounds frustrating.... well, it is. But it's also very beautiful, even as it strips bare and examines some of the ugliest parts of humanity and urban decline, with all of the apparant senselessness that involves. 
 Oh, yes. Speaking of urban decline, Delaney does fit into my 'context-critical' category. If you're not aware that The City/Bellona is a stand-in for the inner-city collapse in the U.S. of the late 60s and early 70s, this book is probably 10x harder to get through. One thing Delaney's not good at is veiling his metaphores. If you missed the symbolism the first time, don't worry, he'll beat you over the head with it at least thrice more for good measure. 
 William Gibson called Dhalgren "A riddle that was never meant to be solved." I'd have to agree. Really, so much has been written about this book--good and bad (PKD hated it)--that I'm not sure what I add to the conversation. Still, I can say that the impulse to reread it, to try and puzzle out its meanings, is very strong. 
 ...maybe in a few years. 
 I suppose I enjoyed it. At least, I don't regret reading it, and I do think it's an amazing piece of work. However, I can't think of a single circumstance under which I would recommend it to someone. "You know what you should read? Dhalgren." The imagined conversation is absurd. If you want to read it? Great. I won't discourage you. But I hope it never becomes required reading anywhere.