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| Telepathy isn't as fun as expected. Source: Here |
“It was like that all the time, in those years: an endless trip, a gaudy voyage. But powers decay. Time leaches the colors from the best of visions. The world becomes grayer. Entropy beats us down. Everything fades. Everything goes. Everything dies.”
With a title like "Dying Inside" you'd be forgiven for not wanting something quite so morose to read in your spare time. It's also a book that only just scrapes a sci-fi categorization - set in then-contemporary 1970s America, virtually the only science-fiction aspect is the telepathy of the main character. As a note of warning to anyone thinking of picking this book: perhaps not the best read if you happen to be suffering a crisis of faith, because this book does not let up.
Dying Inside is a science-fiction novel written by Robert Silverberg and published in 1972. At the time, science fiction was very heavily influenced by the New Wave movement, which eschewed the traditions of previous pulp science fiction, choosing to focus on "soft" as opposed to hard SF and set apart from its predecessors by a greater degree of experimentation and introduction of a more literary sensibility to sci-fi narratives.
The main thrust of the plot follows our protagonist David Selig, an ordinary man distinguished from others by virtue of his telepathic abilities, finding himself slowly losing that special power. A fairly small self-contained story about an extraordinary man coming to grips with the loss of his telepathy, who certainly isn't a sympathetic figure - having squandered his ability for his own personal gain and a miserable, self-pitying, self-loathing presence.
You'd think that combination would sour you on Selig almost immediately; but it is a testament to Silverberg's skill as a writer for me to be proven so utterly wrong. The novel itself is episodic, beginning with the present-day narrative where Selig is making ends meet ghostwriting essays for college students, reading their minds so he's able to better plagiarize on their behalf. Moving from past to present we get to learn more about our protagonist and the people he interacts, from his mistrusting sister to child psychologist to his various girlfriends and even a fellow telepath.
Silverberg's prose is utterly enchanting here - this was one of those books that once started, I simply could not put down, how vivid and mesmerizing it was and how easily it jumps from mood to mood without the slightest hint of whiplash or disorientation. It speaks volumes how a tale about a disaffected depressive who misuses his telepathy can be made so compelling.
The fundamental themes of this book, communication, the fear of human connection and the isolation that results from it, issues of aging and the decline that follows aren't themes that usually appear in sci-fi, and certainly ring more than true for many people. Seeing these handled deftly, sensitively and in a way that allows the reader to judge David Selig's story for themselves is remarkable, particularly in a genre still associated today with its pulpy roots in the early 20th Century.
Dying Inside is one of those rare works that transcends genre and has rightly earned its reputation as a sci-fi classic and a shining gem of the New Wave. I can't recommend it enough.
The main thrust of the plot follows our protagonist David Selig, an ordinary man distinguished from others by virtue of his telepathic abilities, finding himself slowly losing that special power. A fairly small self-contained story about an extraordinary man coming to grips with the loss of his telepathy, who certainly isn't a sympathetic figure - having squandered his ability for his own personal gain and a miserable, self-pitying, self-loathing presence.
You'd think that combination would sour you on Selig almost immediately; but it is a testament to Silverberg's skill as a writer for me to be proven so utterly wrong. The novel itself is episodic, beginning with the present-day narrative where Selig is making ends meet ghostwriting essays for college students, reading their minds so he's able to better plagiarize on their behalf. Moving from past to present we get to learn more about our protagonist and the people he interacts, from his mistrusting sister to child psychologist to his various girlfriends and even a fellow telepath.
Silverberg's prose is utterly enchanting here - this was one of those books that once started, I simply could not put down, how vivid and mesmerizing it was and how easily it jumps from mood to mood without the slightest hint of whiplash or disorientation. It speaks volumes how a tale about a disaffected depressive who misuses his telepathy can be made so compelling.
The fundamental themes of this book, communication, the fear of human connection and the isolation that results from it, issues of aging and the decline that follows aren't themes that usually appear in sci-fi, and certainly ring more than true for many people. Seeing these handled deftly, sensitively and in a way that allows the reader to judge David Selig's story for themselves is remarkable, particularly in a genre still associated today with its pulpy roots in the early 20th Century.
Dying Inside is one of those rare works that transcends genre and has rightly earned its reputation as a sci-fi classic and a shining gem of the New Wave. I can't recommend it enough.
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