Conceptual Fiction: Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg

Conceptual Fiction is a regular feature, contributed by Ted Gioia, focusing on major works of fantasy, science fiction, magical realism and alternate history. These books are celebrated in recognition that literary experimentation with ways of conceptualizing reality has been as important as experimentation with language in creating fiction of lasting value. Dismissing these books as genre or escapist works has created a blind-spot in literary studies that this feature aims, in some small part, to rectify.

In the final month of a turbulent decade, Robert Silverberg came up with the title for his novel Dying Inside. “I found myself wondering,” he recalls, “whether the phrase ‘dying inside,’ taken literally, might generate some useful fictional idea.” This odd method was a proven opening gambit for our author. In the past, the prolific Silverberg—for a stretch in his early twenties, he generated a million words per year—often found that titles came before the story, and paved the way for a plot.

The whole genre was struggling with plots at the time. Much had changed during the 1960s, but science fiction books had hardly budged—most of them still were caught up in the pulp fiction formulas that had been around since before World War II. In this instance, Silverberg decided that his best way of creating a vivid fictional future was by tapping into the raw energy of the present moment. The result was one of this author’s finest novels—a book that might have developed a cult following at the time if it had been packaged and marketed with a little more panache.

Ballantine’s paperback edition featured a slimy monster on the cover—an illustration that would puzzle anyone who read the book, and dissuade many from buying it in the first place. Hidden inside the binding was a story that defied most conventions of the genre. How many other sci-fi books of the period serve up LSD trips gone bad, student protests, racial tensions, muggings, the sexual revolution and Richard Nixon? Silverberg aimed to enhance the verisimilitude of his story by latching on to these contemporary elements. At the same time, he wanted to build his story without relying on (in his words) “science fiction’s customary gaudy trimmings.”

Article Author: Ted Gioia

Ted Gioia is a writer and musician. He is the author of Delta Blues, The History of Jazz and, most recently, The Birth (and Death) of the Cool.

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