Sometimes he tries too hard. The frequent literary allusions in this book—Beckett, Eliot, Yeats, Aeschylus, etc.—don’t always work. At one point, the book devotes six pages to an exegesis of the novels of Kafka, and though our author tries valiantly to connect this to the overall story, both on the level of plot and symbolism, the effect comes across as forced. Even so, Silverberg is mostly on the mark, and his willingness to take chances in a genre that often settles for flashy and obvious effects, sets this book apart.
This is most apparent in the equivocal response of Selig to his loss of telepathic powers. Silverberg’s hero has mixed feelings, and the prospect of “dying inside” is not without its promise of rebirth into something purer and better. Issues of aging and decline, maturity and grace—rarely dealt with in any popular fiction, and with a few exceptions (such as Flowers for Algernon) almost completely neglected in sci-fi—are the key themes at work here. They are handled so deftly and vividly that one inevitably wonders about the connections between David Selig the character and Robert Silverberg the author.
Silverberg has played down the autobiographical angle. Yet when he submitted the manuscript to Betty Ballantine, she expressed her concern—based on her sense that the protagonist of the story was a stand-in for the writer. "While I admire the book," she wrote, "I am also worried about you." Certainly readers today will find it hard not to link this story with at least some elements of the author's own personal history.
Although Dying Inside did not recieve much acclaim at the time of its first release, it has build an audience the hard way—slowly and over a period of years. Its gradual recognition as a classic is well deserved. Working in a genre that suffers from the curse of perpetual adolescence, our author shows that senescence can also be the basis for a gripping story. This was heavy stuff for sci-fi back in the day. It still is now.
Article comments
1 - David Scholes
I'm intrigued by Siverberg's approach of offtimesletting the title come before the story. Perhaps only the truly great writers can succeed with this approach?
One does wonder what may have been achieved at the time had the book been packaged and marketed with more panache. Perhaps by some of todays marketing experts.
I've recently been published myself in the US. Just a modest collection of short science fiction and one or two alternate history stories.
The book is on Amazon and many of the major sites and the link to my author page.
Cheers