Dying Inside

Very dated 1970s sci fi, written well, kinda fascinating, kinda tediously offensive. Overall, I did enjoy it, (oddly?!), though this basically failed ALL social justice tests of the modern era. David Selig, the protagonist, is a sexist, racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic loser and caricature of the neurotic 1970s New Yorker. He's a lonely misanthrope. Oh yeah, and he can read minds. Which lets him mostly confirm his misanthropy: everyone around him is ALSO mostly a hideous, anti-human caricature of whatever group he associates them with.

The threadbare plot is that Selig is slowly and mysteriously losing his telepathic abilities. There are long, loong meditations on mortality and Fine Literature. There is an acid trip. There are loooots of voyeur-type sex scenes. There is some Freud. It's 1970s New York!

Anyway, despite all of the above, I won't lie: I kinda dug this, man. I was hip to it. Is that what they say? I dunno. It was so richly atmospheric about a specific time and place; I could practically SMELL the pot, I could SEE Columbia's campus and the gritty height-of-crime streets. I also spent most of the book kinda thinking I was in cahoots with Silverberg: yeah, this Selig guy is a real asshole, eh? I also kinda like reading very dated sci fi; it makes me wonder about how dated OUR books (and tweets and social media fads) will be in 30-40 years time. Ursula LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven was also super fun in its super datedness.

Also, Peter Sarsgaard in his late 70s Milgram beard should definitely play Selig. Though, oh God, never make this into a movie.