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334 A Novel Thomas M Disch 9780375705441 Books

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334 A Novel Thomas M Disch 9780375705441 Books

Thomas M. Disch’s 1974 novel, a mix of science fiction and Zola-like social realism, eyeballs 334 East 11th Street, New York City, home to a teeming mass of miserable, poverty-stricken occupants of a 21st century multistory apartment beehive. - Thomas Hobbs's philosophy of life as nasty, brutish, and short on a continual supply of amphetamines. Sorry to report, much of Disch's disturbing futuristic world has become harsh reality for huge chunks of our current-day population.

Forty-eight chapters, five long and forty-three short, feature interlinking snapshosts of a dozen or so men and women bound by their common plight of sordidness and desperation. To share a glimpse of what a reader is in for, below are commentary on two of the chapters: first, a longer one, a tale about college student Birdie Ludd in battle with the forces of darkness; and the second, a shorter tale, a vivid sketch of an outing at a most unusual art exhibit:

THE DEATH OF SOCRATES
Degrading Education, One: Birdie Ludd has finally made it out of high school (P.S. 141) into one of New York City’s colleges only to sit in class listening to a professor on a TV yack nonstop about the life of Dante and how nearly everyone according to the Italian author’s Inferno will be tormented in hell, most certainly all the Jews. When a Jewish girl in the class says that doesn’t seem fair, the professor’s assistant simply replies there will be a test on the covered material. As Birdie is quick to recognize, none of what he is being force fed has any relevance to his everyday life and since teaching is done by television, there is absolutely no possibility of dialogue or a lively interchange of ideas; rather, he is required to simply swallow and regurgitate what he is given.

Degrading Education, Two: Summoned to the front office, a Mr. Mack informs Birdie his score on the mandatory state test of “twenty-seven” was a mistake and Birdie is now being reclassified as a “twenty-four,” which means he will not be allowed to father any children. Poor Birdie! He complains it isn’t his fault his father has diabetes. But we learn there are more factors to consider, things like Birdie lacking any exceptional service for the country or the economy. Additionally, we read how Birdie losses points because of his father’s unemployment pattern but gains a few points “by being a Negro.” Goodness, sound like Disch’s futuristic world has the deck stacked against blacks. What else is new? Perhaps not so coincidentally, Philip K. Dick's novel Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, also published in the 1970s, maps out genetic engineering geared to eliminate the US black population.

Degrading Education, Three: Birdie pens an essay for class entitled Problems of Creativeness, that ends “Another criteria of Creativeness was made by Socrates, so cruelly put to death by his own people, and I quote, “To know nothing is the first condition of all knowledge.” From the wisdom of that great Greek Philosopher may we not draw our own conclusions concerning these problems. Creativeness is the ability to see relationships where none exist.” Read carefully, this essay reveals a highly imaginative, creative, intelligent mind buried under bad English and disastrous inner city public education. Thus the title of Disch’s tale, The Death of Socrates, bestows a double meaning. As they say, a mind is a terrible thing to waste – and observing the social forces crushing Birdie Lund’s brilliant mind makes for one sad, profound story.

Crowd on the Anthill: Although Birdie is squashed and squeezed by cramped urban seediness, our young man has the capacity to perceive beauty radiating, glowing on the inside, even in dumb vending machines and blind, downtrodden faces. And, as to be expected, he has to continually fight through mass media and pop culture saturation – singing the words of commercials and viewing the movement of autos and ships as if moments from movies and television shows.

Extreme Military Service: One of the saddest endings I’ve ever encountered: Highly intellectual, sensitive, aesthetically attuned Birdie Lund feels trapped no matter which way he turns. As a last resort, he sees but one option open to him. Here are Disch’s concluding words: “The same afternoon, without even bothering to get drunk, he went to Times Square and enlisted in the U.S. Marines to go and defend democracy in Burma. Eight other guys were sworn in at the same time. They raised their right arms and took one step forward and rattled off the Pledge of Allegiance or whatever. Then the sergeant came up and slipped the black Marine Crops mask over Birdie’s sullen face. His new ID number was stenciled across the forehead in big white letters: USMC 100-7011-D07. And that was it, they were gorillas.”

A & P (2021)
Lottie is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, at an exhibit were there are rows and stacks and pyramids of cans, boxes, meats, dairy, candy, cigarettes, bread, fruits, vegetables – all with individual brand names. Juan is so delighted just to be with her here at the museum. For Lottie, this is a time of perfection, one she wishes she could hold forever: “The real magic, which couldn’t be laid hold of, was simply that Juan was happy and interested and willing to spend perhaps the whole day with her. The trouble was that when you tried this hard to stop the flow it ran through your fingers and you were left squeezing air.”

Juan picks up a carrot that has the look and feel of being real but, of course, as part of the art exhibit, the carrot is not real. Visitors were given instructions as they entered the exhibit on what they would see and how to appreciate the art. The food and containers and cans are all fake, no matter how “real” they look – the Met’s tape said so, thus it must be true. But Juan insists, at the top of his lungs, that the carrot is real. One of the guards strides toward Juan and both he and Lottie are thrown out.

We can all recognize how this unusual art exhibit takes Andy Warhol’s Brillo Boxes and Campbell Soup Cans and expands the concept quantitatively. Arthur C. Danto has written extensively on how Warhol’s creations herald in the “death of art” in the sense that objects of art are no longer separate from everyday objects, no longer special pieces like landscape oil paintings or marble sculptures; rather, the art world defines what is and what is not art. Traveling uptown from his downtown cockroach infested 334 mega-apartment, Juan doesn’t buy into the art world’s artificial distinction. Damn, it’s a carrot! A subtle Thomas M. Disch comment on the would-be state of the visual arts in the years following Warhol and the “death of art.”

Again, these are but two of forty-eight chapters. I hope I have whetted your appetite to sample more of Disch's novel. Special thanks to Goodreads friend Manny Rayner for alerting me to this forgotten classic.


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334 A Novel Thomas M Disch 9780375705441 Books Reviews

As futures go, this one isn't particularly pleasant to read about, and doubtless some of this follows from Disch's choice to portray the mercilessly-oppressed lower-class citizens of New York City's Lower East Side. They're not particularly likable, lovable, or interesting, and you'll be moved to moments of frank disgust as you contemplate what they're missing.
The interest, then, must lie elsewhere. For this reviewer, it was found in the web of inferences about Disch's proposed future society - if Milly the airline stewardess/high school sex counselor makes her husband bear her child, what does it say about her philosophies and priorities and the way they are shaped by economic necessities? This seems to be Disch's point, sometimes; other times, especially during the contrived sex scenes, it's not clear at all what he's getting at. And he's hardly a master wordsmith, or even more than a barely-competent prose-stylist, so you have to fight through some rather barren language to get at these things.
However, the heart of SF is idea. So if you care to travel for a moment into a carefully-imagined future world and experience the sense of a time-traveler displaced from your habitual norms, this book will bring you the ideas you need!
This is one of Disch's best books, yet I do not feel it often receives the respect it deserves. At least in part, that's because it's not a conventional novel, but rather a mosaic novel constructed out of a series of stories he published back in 1971-72 in places like _New Worlds Quarterly_, _Quark_, and _New Dimensions_.

Also to consider is that the overall effect of this portrait of a speculative New York in the near future is fundamentally dypstopian. It is pretty clearly a projection of social trends evident at the time of writing wedded to a few what-if speculations. The writing is full of energy, but some of the characters give the impression that Disch was indulging in a bit of Schadenfreude at the expense of his hapless collection of fictional losers. It's entertaining, but it can be a bit down-beat, I fear.

Looked at as a collection of longer stories, the book is impressive in its own right. The enigmatic "Angouleme," an exquisitely-written child-chiller tale, is maybe the best example of Disch's short fiction. The black-humor "Bodies" contains some outright slapstick comedy, and a basic speculative premise that seems prescient in the light of the AIDS epidemic of our own times. The story "Emancipation" is a marvelously observed and imagined story, whose fundamental premise still strikes me as somewhat wonky.

The long, non-linear novella, "334," that closes the book is the most challenging work I think Disch has ever written. The writing is interesting and lucid, but the sequence-and-order of the episodes requires some time to assimilate, and the fragmentary nature of the episodes is reminiscent (in a way) of the paste-up method employed by Burroughs in _Naked Lunch_ or that used by people like J. G. Ballard. It's a rewarding work, but it may not be to the taste of fans of traditional sf.

Finally, taken as a whole, the mosaic effect created by all these stories -- interlocking in locale and sometimes in characters -- produces in the end a unified effect of Disch's vision of the possible future he imagined. It's a dark vision, but it carries absolute conviction and integrity. It's a first-rate book, and it deserves to be read.
Thomas M. Disch’s 1974 novel, a mix of science fiction and Zola-like social realism, eyeballs 334 East 11th Street, New York City, home to a teeming mass of miserable, poverty-stricken occupants of a 21st century multistory apartment beehive. - Thomas Hobbs's philosophy of life as nasty, brutish, and short on a continual supply of amphetamines. Sorry to report, much of Disch's disturbing futuristic world has become harsh reality for huge chunks of our current-day population.

Forty-eight chapters, five long and forty-three short, feature interlinking snapshosts of a dozen or so men and women bound by their common plight of sordidness and desperation. To share a glimpse of what a reader is in for, below are commentary on two of the chapters first, a longer one, a tale about college student Birdie Ludd in battle with the forces of darkness; and the second, a shorter tale, a vivid sketch of an outing at a most unusual art exhibit

THE DEATH OF SOCRATES
Degrading Education, One Birdie Ludd has finally made it out of high school (P.S. 141) into one of New York City’s colleges only to sit in class listening to a professor on a TV yack nonstop about the life of Dante and how nearly everyone according to the Italian author’s Inferno will be tormented in hell, most certainly all the Jews. When a Jewish girl in the class says that doesn’t seem fair, the professor’s assistant simply replies there will be a test on the covered material. As Birdie is quick to recognize, none of what he is being force fed has any relevance to his everyday life and since teaching is done by television, there is absolutely no possibility of dialogue or a lively interchange of ideas; rather, he is required to simply swallow and regurgitate what he is given.

Degrading Education, Two Summoned to the front office, a Mr. Mack informs Birdie his score on the mandatory state test of “twenty-seven” was a mistake and Birdie is now being reclassified as a “twenty-four,” which means he will not be allowed to father any children. Poor Birdie! He complains it isn’t his fault his father has diabetes. But we learn there are more factors to consider, things like Birdie lacking any exceptional service for the country or the economy. Additionally, we read how Birdie losses points because of his father’s unemployment pattern but gains a few points “by being a Negro.” Goodness, sound like Disch’s futuristic world has the deck stacked against blacks. What else is new? Perhaps not so coincidentally, Philip K. Dick's novel Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, also published in the 1970s, maps out genetic engineering geared to eliminate the US black population.

Degrading Education, Three Birdie pens an essay for class entitled Problems of Creativeness, that ends “Another criteria of Creativeness was made by Socrates, so cruelly put to death by his own people, and I quote, “To know nothing is the first condition of all knowledge.” From the wisdom of that great Greek Philosopher may we not draw our own conclusions concerning these problems. Creativeness is the ability to see relationships where none exist.” Read carefully, this essay reveals a highly imaginative, creative, intelligent mind buried under bad English and disastrous inner city public education. Thus the title of Disch’s tale, The Death of Socrates, bestows a double meaning. As they say, a mind is a terrible thing to waste – and observing the social forces crushing Birdie Lund’s brilliant mind makes for one sad, profound story.

Crowd on the Anthill Although Birdie is squashed and squeezed by cramped urban seediness, our young man has the capacity to perceive beauty radiating, glowing on the inside, even in dumb vending machines and blind, downtrodden faces. And, as to be expected, he has to continually fight through mass media and pop culture saturation – singing the words of commercials and viewing the movement of autos and ships as if moments from movies and television shows.

Extreme Military Service One of the saddest endings I’ve ever encountered Highly intellectual, sensitive, aesthetically attuned Birdie Lund feels trapped no matter which way he turns. As a last resort, he sees but one option open to him. Here are Disch’s concluding words “The same afternoon, without even bothering to get drunk, he went to Times Square and enlisted in the U.S. Marines to go and defend democracy in Burma. Eight other guys were sworn in at the same time. They raised their right arms and took one step forward and rattled off the Pledge of Allegiance or whatever. Then the sergeant came up and slipped the black Marine Crops mask over Birdie’s sullen face. His new ID number was stenciled across the forehead in big white letters USMC 100-7011-D07. And that was it, they were gorillas.”

A & P (2021)
Lottie is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, at an exhibit were there are rows and stacks and pyramids of cans, boxes, meats, dairy, candy, cigarettes, bread, fruits, vegetables – all with individual brand names. Juan is so delighted just to be with her here at the museum. For Lottie, this is a time of perfection, one she wishes she could hold forever “The real magic, which couldn’t be laid hold of, was simply that Juan was happy and interested and willing to spend perhaps the whole day with her. The trouble was that when you tried this hard to stop the flow it ran through your fingers and you were left squeezing air.”

Juan picks up a carrot that has the look and feel of being real but, of course, as part of the art exhibit, the carrot is not real. Visitors were given instructions as they entered the exhibit on what they would see and how to appreciate the art. The food and containers and cans are all fake, no matter how “real” they look – the Met’s tape said so, thus it must be true. But Juan insists, at the top of his lungs, that the carrot is real. One of the guards strides toward Juan and both he and Lottie are thrown out.

We can all recognize how this unusual art exhibit takes Andy Warhol’s Brillo Boxes and Campbell Soup Cans and expands the concept quantitatively. Arthur C. Danto has written extensively on how Warhol’s creations herald in the “death of art” in the sense that objects of art are no longer separate from everyday objects, no longer special pieces like landscape oil paintings or marble sculptures; rather, the art world defines what is and what is not art. Traveling uptown from his downtown cockroach infested 334 mega-apartment, Juan doesn’t buy into the art world’s artificial distinction. Damn, it’s a carrot! A subtle Thomas M. Disch comment on the would-be state of the visual arts in the years following Warhol and the “death of art.”

Again, these are but two of forty-eight chapters. I hope I have whetted your appetite to sample more of Disch's novel. Special thanks to Goodreads friend Manny Rayner for alerting me to this forgotten classic.