Dying Inside in The Alternative Worlds

Jan 15, 2012 mark monday rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: new-wave, new-dimensions, z-robert-silverberg

Dying Inside is a sterling example of 70s New Wave science fiction. it is about a telepath whose powers are fading. dude is a miserable, depressive asshole who whines endlessly about his life. the end.

wait a sec, maybe that sounds like a bad read to you? well my friend, let me tell you... throw that impression away! this is a marvelous book from beginning to end. it is thought-provoking, often delightful, often hard-edged, completely enjoyable. Silverberg is such a masterful writer and many time Dying Inside is a sterling example of 70s New Wave science fiction. it is about a telepath whose powers are fading. dude is a miserable, depressive asshole who whines endlessly about his life. the end.

wait a sec, maybe that sounds like a bad read to you? well my friend, let me tell you... throw that impression away! this is a marvelous book from beginning to end. it is thought-provoking, often delightful, often hard-edged, completely enjoyable. Silverberg is such a masterful writer and many times i had to stop and reread different passages to better enjoy the beauty of his prose and the intelligence of his ideas. that sharp wit! the story is never monotonous and always resonant. LOVED IT.

it is an episodic novel, moving freely from past to present and back again. we meet our not-so-loveable narrator David Selig, his child psychologist, his girlfriends, his sister and the rest of his family, and a fellow telepath. our loser-ish hero makes his marginal living ghost-writing papers for college students, so there are several anecdotes where we see inside a couple students' minds. our hero is an unrepentant jerkoff, so we also get to read his often excruciating views on women and blacks (his thoughts on black empowerment were particularly troubling). we are shown a couple of his essays, one on Kafka and the other on the Electra complex, and they are fairly interesting - as standalones and as commentary on the narrative itself. each chapter is its own separate, challenging, wonderful little experience. my favorite parts include: a dry and rather evil session with our child protagonist as he toys with an overly-literal child psychologist; an exceedingly creepy and effective 'bad trip' (i think we can safely assume that telepathy does not improve LSD); and best of all, a brilliant flashback to our lonely telepath's youth, as he relaxes in a field, moving through the perspectives of a bee, a fish, two kids getting laid in a forest, and a surprisingly spiritual old farmer.

of particular interest is the the novel's other telepath - the confident, capable, cheerfully guilt-free Nyquist. the chapters about the relationship between the two are particularly illuminating in illustrating how Selig's main problem is not so much his telepathy but his fear of openness, of genuine human connection. Selig's problems do not come from his gifts, but rather from his own neuroses. and so the narrative is basically an accounting of how Selig grows to understand his own issues and then tries to move past them.

in his many other fantasy & scifi novels, Silverberg has proven himself a visionary master of often hallucinatory prose. his ideas can be sublimely poetic, so ambiguous as to be almost intangible, so far-reaching that they can be a real challenge to digest. one of the really fun things about Dying Inside is seeing how Silverberg harnesses his talents for what is basically the prosaic, diary-like musings of a not-that-special guy with some very special powers. Dying Inside is bursting with creativity - as if the author is illustrating how stories can be told in ways that are new, fresh, effervescent. Selig is mordant, jumpy, neurotic and highly sexual, by turns cynical and empathetic, and... hilarious! his narration is often a real treat and the free-flowing, occasionally stream-of-conscious thoughts have a chatty, relaxed, loose-limbed kind of appeal that makes the novel smooth yet tangy going down. and it's not just the distinctive, nakedly honest narrative voice that makes this novel so appealing; many chapters practically overflow with playful, jazzy approaches to style and structure and there are plenty of sophisticated insights, delivered both broadly and in deadpan. Silverberg's generous imagination busts the seams of the narrative; the result is a refreshing tonic.

"Nyquist, pausing a moment to detect and isolate Selig's sense of uneasiness, mocked it gently... I think what really scares you is contact, any sort of contact. Right? Wrong, Selig said, but he had felt the point hit home. For five minutes more they monitored each other's minds..."

a version of this review is a part of a longer article on Robert Silverberg posted on Shelf Inflicted. ...more

107 likes · Like · see review

Jul 06, 2009 Sandi added it

Shelves: fantasy, 2009, library-books-read

I finished Dying Inside this morning and I'm still not sure what to say about it. Perhaps I should start by saying that I don't believe this is science fiction at all. I kept looking for the science part and it just wasn't there. I believe that it would have been classified as general fiction if it hadn't been written by a famous science fiction author.

I have to say that I have met few fictional characters that are more pathetic than David Selig. He's not pathetic because he's losing his telepat ...more

17 likes · Like · see review

Dec 30, 2011 Nicky rated it liked it

Shelves: speculative-fiction

This is the first book I've managed to sit down and read straight through in quite a while, so I have to acknowledge here the quality of it first: it is one of those books that reminds you that speculative fiction of all stripes can be just as reflective on the human condition as any navel-gazing literary fiction. The characters are for the most part not very likeable -- there's something despicable in all of them, and especially in the narrator, Selig. But there are some amazing bits too: Selig ...more

15 likes · Like · see review

Apr 13, 2009 Sarah rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sf

Sometimes it's difficult to separate form from content. This is a well written book that explores a good concept - the downside of being able to read the minds of others - thoroughly. It's soft sf, content to explore the psychological and social ramifications of the gift/curse without providing explanation of how David Selig came into possession of it. In short, right up my alley.

So why the lukewarm rating? For starters, I found the book fairly dated. I have read my share of timeless SF, but th ...more

12 likes · Like · see review

Jan 09, 2012 Simon rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: sf-masterworks, sf, 2012-wwe-grand-master

After reading a couple of only average Silverberg novels, it's great to have my faith in the author's ability reaffirmed by reading another of his greats.

Like The Book of Skulls this is almost only incidentally SF, that is more character driven than anything else. Yes, it is about someone who is a telepath, one of the classic tropes of the genre, but it is never really rationalised or understood. But that wasn't really the point, rather it was about how someone coped with being different from ev ...more

10 likes · Like · see review

Jul 28, 2011 Maree rated it liked it

Shelves: grand-masters-challenge-2012

I enjoyed reading about Selig and I like how the author wrote a different kind of story than what we're used to when it comes to people born with special abilities. Instead of using his gift, Selig squanders it in my mind, using it to write term papers in students' voices because he understands how they think, or to pick up women who he knows will go home with him. Even his one telepathic friend has learned how to make money in investments, as he can read intentions like a book. But Selig just b ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Mar 16, 2012 Daniel Roy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: sf, wwe-gmrc, sf-masterworks

Dying Inside should be required reading for everyone who ever doubted that SF is a legitimate form of literature (perhaps second on the list after Flowers for Algernon). It's not so much a story, as a psychological portrait of a man on the brink of self-loss, as he struggles with age and the withering of his own potential.

David Selig, the protagonist of Dying Inside happens to possess the ability to read others' minds; but it's a credit to Silverberg's craft that Selig's character, rather than b ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Mar 07, 2011 Ryandake rated it did not like it

in the preface to this book, silverberg says he wrote it in 9 weeks. i'm thinking he should have taken more time, a lot more time. or written it for himself, to deal with the psychological demons he had going on at the time, and then popped it in a drawer for 10 years to let it mellow.

it's a pretty horrible little book, with a few nice moments.

ok, so the main character is able to read minds. this has warped his personality. and now, approaching middle age, he finds himself to be losing his "powe ...more

Like · see review

Jun 24, 2011 Michelle rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, book_club, award_winner, ebook, grand_masters, superpowers

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 ha ...more

2 likes · Like · see review