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    Dying Inside
    Dying Inside
    Dying Inside
    Ebook275 pages5 hours

    Dying Inside

    By Robert Silverberg

    3.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    • Telepathy

    • Self-Discovery

    • Relationships

    • Identity

    • Communication

    • Chosen One

    • Love Triangle

    • Inner Struggle

    • Mentor

    • Power of Love

    • Love at First Sight

    • Mind Over Matter

    • Telepathic Communication

    • Coming of Age

    • Redemption

    • Mind-Reading

    • Family Relationships

    • Love

    • Self-Acceptance

    • College Life

    About this ebook

    In 1972, Robert Silverberg, even then an acknowledged leader in the science fiction field, published a book that was immediately hailed as a masterpiece.

    More than three decades later, Dying Inside has stood the test of time and has been recognized as one of the finest novels the field has ever produced. Never wasting a word, Silverberg persuasively shows us what it would be like to read minds, painting an unforgettable portrait of a man shaped by that unique power; a power he is now inexorably losing.

    Acclaimed upon first publication by SF critics and mainstream reviewers alike, Dying Inside is overdue for reintroduction to today's SF audience. This is a novel for everyone who appreciates deeply affecting characterization, imaginative power, and the irreplaceable perspective unique to speculative fiction of the highest order.

    At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateMar 3, 2009
    ISBN9781429956772
    Dying Inside
    Author

    Robert Silverberg

    Robert Silverberg (b. 1935) sold his first science fiction stories to the lower-grade pulps in the mid-fifties, moved swiftly to the three prestigious magazines (Astounding, Galaxy and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction) and as his style deepened and themes expanded in through the next reached the first rank of science fiction writers. He is regarded as the greatest living writer of science fiction, an SFWA Grandmaster, ex-President (in the 1960’s) of that organization, winner of five Nebulas, four Hugos and many other domestic and foreign awards. Among his famous novels are Dying Inside, The Book of Skulls, Downward to the Earth, A Time of Changes; his novella Born with the Dead (1974) is perhaps the finest work of that length published within the genre. Shifting to a predominating fantasy in the late 1970’s (Lord Valentine’s Castle and the attendant Majipoor Series), Silverberg continued to write science fiction and won a Nebula in 1986 for the novella Sailing to Byzantium, and Hugos for the novelettes Gilgamesh in the Outback and Enter a Soldier: Later, Enter Another. He was editor of the long-running original anthology series New Dimensions and of important reprint anthologies such as The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Alpha, and The Arbor House Treasury of Modern Science Fiction. 

    Read more from Robert Silverberg

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    Reviews for Dying Inside

    3.5/5

    373 ratings15 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5

      Mar 4, 2020

      The story about a man losing his telepathic powers as he ages is intriguing but the writing about women and people of color has not aged well. At all.
    • 5/5

      Feb 21, 2016

      My favorite of his books, and I think his masterpiece. The story of a man who can read minds, and is a complete and utter loser both in spite of and because of his "gift." Still heartbreaking when his abilities begin to fade, and told in painfully honest first person style. I found this Easton Press Signed edition thanks to Abe Books, and it's a treasure.
    • 4/5

      Mar 23, 2021

      This is an excellent book. It uses telepathy to explore issues of connection and separateness among humans using one individual, Selig as its case study. And what happens when the ability to read minds fades and dies? What does that do to our seeming connection to others when we can read their minds? I say seeming because when the power does die, Selig feels both isolated yet perceives others to be more comfortable with him. So do our own powers, whatever they may be connect us with others or do the actual cause our own isolation from the rest of humanity as we become more self-absorbed with ourselves? I think this is the central question of this book that remains open but suggests lightly a possible answer. Interesting SF in that the only SF concept is the possibility of telepathy in one in particular but by no means the only one Earth in the novel. That one required suspension of disbelief is Silverberg’s one instrument that he uses to probe the human condition. A very literary SF novel. I greatly enjoyed it.
    • 3/5

      Apr 8, 2015

      The premise is good, and the slow degradation of the main characters sense of self was quite engrossing through the first half of the book. However, the second half becomes a bit self indulgent.
    • 4/5

      Aug 23, 2012

      A beautiful book, as all books written by Silverberg usually turn out to be. It deals with David Selig, who was born with the ability to read minds, and the trouble he has when he realizes his gift is fading away. What we're dealing with is not the expected life of a superman, in fact he regards his gift as a curse due to the various difficulties it had put him through. And now that the power is dying inside him, he feels he's losing his identity with its passing away.

      I loved everything about that novel. Characterization is top notch, the writing's fluid, and the story itself is a beauty, despite being a bit too dark and depressive most of the time. Which suited my current mood perfectly, I must add.

      One thing that might irk readers unfamiliar with Silverberg's books is the open ending, as most of his books have no sharp ending event putting a neat close to the story line. More realistically though, he deals with the characters and the changing process they have to go through. Again, I had no problem with that.

      There's not much I can say about the story itself. You have to drink it in yourself. Recommended.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 2/5

      Dec 17, 2013

      Dying Inside - Robert Silverberg **

      I have come to the conclusion that Robert Silverberg is an author that I can either love or hate. Unfortunately this book fell into the hate category.

      I really enjoyed reading Invaders from Earth and Tower of Glass so went a bought a few more of his books, Son of man was the next one that I picked up and thought it was awful, I hoped maybe this was just a glitch and tried Dying inside next. Although not as poor as Son of man I still struggled to get through it.

      We follow David Selig, a telepathic with powers that are fading away (hence the title). Selig is a funny character he relies on his 'gift' to earn a living but also views it as his biggest curse. We are allowed to relive some of the key areas in his life and how his telepathy came to help or hinder his situation. Girlfriends and family members unknowingly allow him into the darkest recesses of their mind including how they feel about him. I thought I would really enjoy this story and hoped the book would have a lot to offer, but for me I just got very bored.

      The main story of the book is focussed around Selig's modern life, he is trying to ilk out a living by writing exam scripts for students so that they can effectively cheat. This is where Silverburg really lost my attention as a reader, whole chapters are dedicated in solely reciting the essays word for word. I am unsure if this was just the author being pretentious/self indulgent or he thought it would actually add to the tale. I was bored to tears.

      I am now at a crossroads with reading anymore of his novels. I have never come across an author before where I find such a diversity in his works and such a range of likability. Maybe I will try one more.... and just keep my fingers crossed.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5

      Apr 9, 2013

      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's moment of communion (and that's a very apt word to use) with a farmer, as a teenager, for example, where he feels another man's oneness with the world.

      Selig is, of course, self-indulgent and, well, navel-gazing, but the central idea is interesting without having to involve spaceships exploding or government conspiracies. The only problem for me was that I vividly remember someone telling me they read it as a book-length allegory about male impotence, so there was that to stop me taking it seriously.

      Silverberg is a fine writer, there are some amazing passages and the relationships between his characters are complex -- Judith is fascinating, at once transparent to Selig and therefore the read, yet I don't think we ever really get a read on her. The moment where she cries for her brother surprised me in its genuineness.

      The whole portrayal of Judith's reaction to Selig's ability to read her mind rings very true. I have actually had people say they can read my mind, and it does leave you feeling unclean, as though you can never have privacy. I hope there are no telepaths, and I wouldn't want to be one either.
    • 4/5

      Apr 1, 2013

      3.75 stars

      I felt like the telepath, the mind-reader, the voyeur while reading this novel. Silverberg sucked me in to the mind of David Selig so completely that I had to force myself to take a break from the book after hours of voracious reading to come up for air and perspective. It appears to be the autobiography of a telepath, but reads like a confession of mind crimes, social ineptness and stunted maturity. He fears his gift is fading and dying, and he flops impotently against the impinging silence.

      Silverberg succeeded in evoking many emotions from me with David Selig's monologue - frustration, depression, outrage, compassion.

      I'm not sure what I was expecting when I started reading this novel. It is definitely not traditional science fiction, but it is very well written, keeping my attention, almost exclusively, the entire weekend.

      And for once, I did not read the Foreward until I finished the book. It contained information that would have spoiled the experience of Dying Inside with David Selig.
    • 3/5

      Jan 20, 2011

      Turns out Dying Inside is a bit of a tough book for me to rate. I picked it up with very high expectations. The concept seemed very interesting - a man born with telepathic abilities suddenly finds those abilities fading when he enters middle age.But while "Dying Inside" is a fairly interesting character study, I never grew to like David Selig, the main character, and therefore, had a very hard time empathizing with him. His entire life, he's held a pity party for himself because of his "curse". He's incredibly judgmental of the people in his life and therefore, keeps them all at a distance. I believe that Silverberg was trying to show how having so much information about people (their inner thoughts and feelings) actually can create isolation...not closeness. However, he never gives David any redeeming traits - there's just nothing there to like about this guy, and so I end up feeling like David's isolation is self imposed and avoidable.That's not to say the book itself doesn't have some redeeming qualities. Silverberg does force the reader to contemplate questions about how we identify ourselves, and to contemplate how our attitude can determine whether something is a gift or a curse, a blessing or a burden. I just wish David would've been a character I could have felt some sympathy for.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5

      Mar 4, 2020

      Mixed thoughts. Instead of getting rich quick, a Jewish ghostwriting telepath develops paranoid and voyeuristic tendencies. Mostly a first person narrative, the protagonist enters a downward spiral of depression as he struggles to cope with a dwindling power he finds oppressive. There are numerous flashbacks and imaginary flashforwards, reflecting his inability to live in the present. A limited social life and failed relationships weigh him down, adding to his misery and causing him to become increasingly reclusive.

      Dying Inside is science fiction in name alone. Silverberg needlessly name-drops famous authors and academics throughout, marring an otherwise solid psychological drama.
    • 3/5

      Jan 14, 2019

      David gets paid to write university papers for college students. He has been telepathic (he can read minds) all his life. He is now in his 40s(?), and his “gift” seems to be disappearing. He looks back on the good and bad his telepathy has brought him and is trying to deal with the seemingly inevitable loss of it.

      Overall, it was ok. The 1970s definitely came through in the book (it was originally published in ‘72): sex and drugs. I enjoyed some of the relationships David had – the rocky relationship with his adopted younger sister, adopted when David was 10 years old; and his long-ago relationship with Kitty were particularly interesting to me. Some of the rest of it wasn’t as interesting, though. I’m not sure why the author felt it necessary to include some of the university papers her wrote for students; I found those boring and mostly skimmed those. The edition I read was published in 2008 and there was a good introduction by the author as to how the book came about.
    • 5/5

      Oct 11, 2018

      Profoundly intimate novel about a man with a psychic gift to read minds. The focus is surprisingly academic and biographical for such a fantastical premise. A man who could have almost anything he wanted, his future limited only by his imagination, ends up gritting college kids selling term papers. He is hopelessly self-involved, bitter, and just a little bit self-destructive. He is also blessed with this gift, or perhaps cursed with it, and as time progresses when begin to see a terrible new truth; it is failing him. The gift that sets him apart, or perhaps keeps him separated from humanity might just be leaving him. A heart-wringing journey through a petty man‰Ûªs life and the wasted potential of a god.
    • 3/5

      Mar 31, 2013

      Beautifully written and moving, but maybe too much in the tradition of the self-absorbed, self-pitying writers that the book consciously models itself on? And, oh goodness, the seventies were strange. I'll have to think about this one.
    • 3/5

      Jul 6, 2012

      I read this whole book, cover to cover, and enjoyed every moment of it immensely. That being said, something about how the argument distilled did not sit well with me.
      The book did not, as I feel it was supposed to, argument the impossibilities (due to socio-cultural circumstances) of telepathy but dealt specifically with how one person could not manage to handle it. It would be like reading a novel of a person who had the most brilliant talent as a painter, but could not manage to execute anything with it. That the protagonist manages to meet another person like him who is utilizing his talents, but in a way that seems cheap, does not help the argument very much.
      Still Silverberg is wonderful, if not a little hung about over sex.
    • 5/5

      Apr 4, 2008

      One of he best books on telepathy I've ever read. The changes that happen as the year progress seem to strike a cord with the issue of aging in general.

    Book preview

    Dying Inside - Robert Silverberg

    One

    _____________

    So, then, I have to go downtown to the University and forage for dollars again. It doesn’t take much cash to keep me going—$200 a month will do nicely—but I’m running low, and I don’t dare try to borrow from my sister again. The students will shortly be needing their first term papers of the semester; that’s always a steady business. The weary, eroding brain of David Selig is once more for hire. I should be able to pick up $75 worth of work on this lovely golden October morning. The air is crisp and clear. A high-pressure system covers New York City, banishing humidity and haze. In such weather my fading powers still flourish. Let us go then, you and I, when the morning is spread out against the sky. To the Broadway-IRT subway. Have your tokens ready, please.

    You and I. To whom do I refer? I’m heading downtown alone, after all. You and I.

    Why, of course I refer to myself and to that creature which lives within me, skulking in its spongy lair and spying on unsuspecting mortals. That sneaky monster within me, that ailing monster, dying even more swiftly than I. Yeats once wrote a dialogue of self and soul; why then shouldn’t Selig, who is divided against himself in a way poor goofy Yeats could never have understood, speak of his unique and perishable gift as though it were some encapsulated intruder lodged in his skull? Why not? Let us go then, you and I. Down the hall. Push the button. Into the elevator. There is a stink of garlic in it. These peasants, these swarming Puerto Ricans, they leave their emphatic smells everywhere. My neighbors. I love them. Down.

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