Dying Inside

Brilliantly clear, concise, and strong in voice, this is a stunning biopic of a man that has one-way telepathic power. David Selig spends his life receiving the thoughts and feelings of other, but nobody can either do the same for him, at least this way true during the early part of his life. The novel starts during his middle-aged years when his power is mysteriously on the decline, limiting his ability to connect with other people in the way that is most familiar to him.

It's a testament to Silverberg's strength as a storyteller that the central SF conceit of this novel is so rooted in reality that I hardly feels unreal at all. His prose is, as always, seemingly effortless. Witty and beautiful, the novel flies past your eyes with a sense of purpose unmatched by many authors. Silverberg's characterization of Selig is one of the best I've read in quite a while, and the heart of the novel. What we see is a flawed, unsympathetic, judgemental, and narcissistic person whose pain is relatable on so many levels. His inability to communicate with others alienates and isolates him, and when he uses his powers he feels like a peeping tom, a snake that pries into peoples brain without consent. There are many situations in which Selig is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. It's a moldering, squandered life that he leads, and we feel that in every sense of the word. Of course, this is all through his perspective, how he feels about himself. Dying Inside is the story of one mans self-hatred as the only thing that separates him from his peers slowly slips through his fingers. All of this is a critique on the 'modern' life of single men, but I can't help but wonder how much of these experiences were personal to Silverberg himself.

There are unfortunately some downright dated characterizations too, specifically when it comes to the one black character, and the parade of female characters that David dates and subsequently has sex with. It's clear the year in which it was written played a heavy roll in these generalizations, and a contributing factor into why I don't give it higher score. I haven't read Portnoy's Complaint, so I really can't say how much inspiration Silverberg took from it, but I gather that it's quite a lot.