i didn't enjoy this book often, and though it's not very long, it was a slog to get through.

reading 'dying inside' was much like watching the performance of a stereotypically grim-faced soviet gymnast. the technique exhibited is near-perfect and utterly precise, but there's no connection with the spectator, no interaction transmitting joy for the art. considered by some to be silverberg's masterwork (and perhaps autobiographical), 'dying inside' is intensely focused on just one question: what happens when a man who has been able to read minds all of his life slowly finds himself losing that talent in middle age? most typically, genre fiction uses those "what if" questions to springboard off into a wider story, but here the focus remains entirely on the question itself. the protagonist's unexplained power sets him apart from family and peers, shapes his whole life, and grinds him down as it starts to slip away from him. we never really feel what it's like to have this ability, we only watch David working through it. it's a very quiet, deeply intimate (voyeuristic?) book; it surprises me how something dealing so messily with emotion ends up feeling so...emotionless. there are moments of shining brilliance ("Axiom: It's a sin against love to try to remake the soul of someone you love, even if you think you'll love her more after you've transformed her into something else."), but the whole is gazing too far inward to engage those of us spectating. that soviet gymnast may be utterly in their personal heaven, exhilarated by what they can do, but without some sort of connection, we can't tell from here.