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reprinted from bookface 5/6/2010, ’cause fuck ‘em, i wrote it and i’ll goddamn post it.

Thomas Disch, 334

I’ve been reading Disch’s 334, which was written in the 1970s and takes place in the early-21st century. It’s obviously supposed to be a dystopia on the welfare state and postindustrial malaise, but all I can think is “damn! that’s an impressive social safety net they’ve got.” I only *wish* our 21st century society took care of poor people as well as the rotten, broken, Big Gov’ment society of the novel does. Clearly Disch did not see Ronald Reagan coming.

Otherwise, as a future-history it’s scary prescient — not so much on the technological specifics (conspicuously absent) as in its portrayal of a technological civilization in steady decline. Maybe it’s just the mood I’m in lately, as I watch the oil slick bearing down on the gulf and contemplate the unlikelihood of actual financial regulatory reform, but it feels very much of-the-moment. All of which leads me to ask: what does it say about the present day that the dystopian imagination of 35 years ago was off the mark only insofar as its pessimism about the benevolent tyranny of the nanny state now reads as naive optimism?

Apart from that, and despite some goofy but mostly forgivable reactionary impulses (Disch is noticeably freaked out about the sexual revolution & its ramifications, among other gender-related social trends), it’s a superbly crafted and fairly challenging piece of writing — comparable in a lot of ways to Dos Passos’s Manhattan Transfer, if not an outright homage. Highly recommended for fans of literary SF (emphasis on the former: it’s legible as SF only in that it takes place in the future and posits very modest technological developments — no flying cars here).