Mr. Disch,
a well regarded science fiction writer, poet, playwright, and critic, here
gives us a critical history of the scifi genre that resembles nothing so
much as a drive-by shooting. When he's done, the field is lettered
with the shattered reputations of the field's hacks (from John
Norman to Newt Gingrich), quacks (from L. Ron Hubbard to Whitley Streiber),
feminists (Ursula K. LeGuin & company), fascists (Robert Heinlein),
technophiles (Greg Egan), proselytizers
(Orson Scott Card), and so forth
and so on. Among the offenses cited, besides bad writing, are
a tendency to pander to the sexual fantasies of young men, a willingness
to exploit things like UFO crazes and apocalyptic beliefs, extreme right-wing
politics, extreme left-wing politics, dumbing down for the mass audience,
jargoning up for the academic crowd, employing ludicrous science, jingoism,
racism, sexism, speciesism, etc. Hardly anyone comes off well--himself,
H.G.
Wells, Philip K. Dick,
J.G.
Ballard, Iain M. Banks,
Joe Haldeman
and a very few more, plus Edgar Allan Poe
gets an ambivalent nod, given credit not only for inventing science fiction
but for embodying it entire in his work, both its good and its bad aspects.
Mr. Disch is particularly drawn to Poe as perpetrator of hoaxes,
a talent he think central to science fiction. In fact, he believes
lying to be central to our national character:
America is a nation of liars, and for that reason
science fiction has a special claim to be our national literature,
as the art form best adapted to telling the lies
we like to hear and to pretend we believe.
In Mr. Disch's view, Poe and his successors mastered the art of telling
people what they want to believe. And in stories like Mesmeric
Revelation and The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, he finds
Poe to have anticipated nearly every theme that would be developed by subsequent
writers:
1. Mesmerism
2. Dreams come true
3. Chip-on-the-shoulder superiority
4. Genuine visionary power
5. Great special effects
6. Sophomoric humor
7. Divine madness
Over the course of the book he shows how these themes have been employed
for good and ill, by various writers, the overwhelming majority of whom
he believes have exploited their readers dreams without living up to the
admonition that forms the title of Delmore Schwartz's first collection
of poems, In Dreams Begin Responsibilities, which Mr. Disch alludes
to in the title of this book. Too often he finds his subjects dodging
responsibility in favor of popularity, easy money, fadishness, and personal
political predilections.
Inevitably the folks who come off worst here are the fans who let authors
get away with this stuff. At best Mr. Disch portrays them as kind
of reminiscent of the guys from your high school's A.V. club, with delusions
of superpowered children, women who want to be dominated and alien races
just waiting to be wiped out. At worst, they're militiamen like those
from the Oklahoma City bombing or the members of the Heaven's Gate or Aum
Shinrikyo cults. That is, they're totally gullible, susceptible to
either homicidal or suicidal suggestion. And always they're the oft-caricatured
geeky losers who attend Star Trek conventions.
As you can tell by now, this is a very dark vision of science fiction--one
of the rare bright spots (according to Mr. Disch anyway) coming when it
helped us learn to live with the atom bomb. Equally bleak is his prediction
for the future, when movies and television, now that their effects can
match our imaginations, take over from books. In the end what keeps
us reading, even as he's telling us that most of what we're reading about
is junk, is the quality of Mr. Disch's analysis and the sheer bravado with
which he attacks his own peers, predecessors, and heirs. There's
something here to alienate just about every reader, but the very equal
opportunity nature of the drubbings he administers makes it hard to stay
mad. If he's laying into an author you like or a political philosophy
you admire, have no fear, on the next page he'll have moved on to authors
and ideas you loathe. One admires the high moral seriousness to which
he summons science fiction, but despairs as he says it's not happened in
the past and isn't going to happen in the future. He kind of reminds
you of the American colonel in Vietnam who opined: "We had to destroy the
village to save it", except that Mr. Disch adds that the village is doomed
anyway. This may be too upsetting for scifi fanatics but for the
casual fan or the merely curious reader it's an enjoyable performance to
behold.
(Reviewed:04-Oct-02)
Grade: (B-)
Websites:
Thomas Disch Links:
-TRIBUTE: Remembering Thomas M. Disch: In his many dark, satirical, heretical books, the pioneering science fiction author contemplated death with elegant despair (Elizabeth Hand, Jul. 11, 2008, Salon)
-Interview: Thomas M. Disch (David Horwich, 30 July 2001, Strange Horizons)
Book-related and General Links:
-Featured
Author: Thomas M. Disch: With News and Reviews From the Archives
of The New York Times
-EXCERPT:
First Chapter of The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of
-LETTER:
What a relief to read Christopher Hitchens. (Thomas M. Disch, The Nation)
-NOVELLA:
Understanding Human Behavior (Thomas M. Disch, 7/30/01, Strange Horizons)
-SHORT
STORY: After Postville (NY Press)
-SHORT
STORY: PAINTING EGGPLANTS (Thomas M. Disch, NY Press)
-SHORT
STORY: The Discovery of the NuIlitron: Results of an Experiment
Conducted by Thomas M. Disch and John T. Sladek
-SHORT
STORY: Descending (Thomas M. Disch, 1964, SciFi.com)
-SHORT
STORY: Fun With Your New Head (Thomas M. Disch, 1968)
-POEM
: A Sabbath Prayer (Tom Disch, Theology Today)
-POEM
: Morning Prayer (Tom Disch, Theology Today)
-POEM:
Mahler's 8th (Tom Disch, Theology Today)
-POEM:
Landscape with Tempietto (Tom Disch, Theology Today)
-POEM:
Memoirs of a Primrose (Tom Disch, Poetry, April 2001)
-POEM:
Everyday Life in the Dutch Republic (Tom Disch, Partisan Review)
-POEM:
A Bookmark (Tom Disch, Writer's Almanac)
-POEM:
Ode to a Blizzard (Tom Disch, Poetry Magazine)
-POEM:
Color in American History (Tom Disch, Poetry Magazine)
-POEM:
Convalescing in London (Thomas Disch)
-POEM:
Ballade of the New God (Thomas M. Disch, Strange Horizons)
-POEM:
Clouds (Thomas M. Disch, Strange Horizons)
-POEM:
The Rapist's Villanelle (Tom Disch)
-POEM:
Entropic Villanelle (Tom Disch)
-POEM:
Waking Early New Year's Day, Without a Hangover (Tom Disch)
-Sermonettes
(Thomas M. Disch)
-LIBRETTO:
FRANKENSTEIN: An opera in three acts (music by Greg Sandow, libretto
by Thomas M. Disch)
-TRANSLATION
: The Brave Little Toaster (1980) in Spanish: El valiente tostadorcito
(traducción de: José Luis López Angón)
-REVIEW:
of Macbeth (Thomas M. Disch, February 19, 1990, The Nation)
-REVIEW:
of Later Auden By Edward Mendelson (Thomas M. Disch, Washington
Post)
-REVIEW:
of Robert Creeley: A Biography by Ekbert Faas (Thomas M. Disch,
Weekly Standard)
-REVIEW:
of Present by Alfred Corn (Thomas M. Disch, Boston Review)
-REVIEW:
of THE COLLECTED STORIES OF ARTHUR C. CLARKE By Arthur C. Clarke
(Thomas M. Disch, LA Times)
-REVIEW:
of William Gibson and Bruce Sterling's 'The Difference Engine' (Thomas
M. Disch, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW
: of Chapters into Verse: Poetry in English Inspired by the Bible
By Robert Atwan and Laurance Wieder (Tom Disch, Theology Today)
-REVIEW:
of Cities of the Red Night by William S. Burroughs (Thomas M. Disch,
NY Times Book Review)
-INTERVIEW:
Thomas M. Disch (David Horwich, 7/30/01, Strange Horizons)
-INTERVIEW:
What is American About American Poetry? (Tom Disch, American Poetry
Society)
-INTERVIEW:
Tom Disch (David Lehman, September 1999, Cortland Review)
-CHAT:
Thomas M. Disch on June 17, 1999 (Event Horizon)
-PROGRAM
NOTES: Ben-Hur by Thomas M. Disch
-PROFILE:
"Thomas M. Disch" (Charles Platt, June 1980)
-PROFILE:
The Dish on Thomas Disch (Tom Heacox, william & Mary)
-BIO:
Thomas M(ichael) DISCH 1940- (Globe Books)
-BIO:
Thomas M. Disch (b 1940) (Amazon.com)
-ARTICLE:
Archdiocese Orders Play to Vacate Church (MERVYN ROTHSTEIN, September
20, 1990, NY Times)
-ARTICLE
: Inspectors Try to Close Play Opposed by Church (RONALD SULLIVAN,
October 16, 1990, NY Times)
-SPEECH
: "Literature, Bowling, and the Labor Day Group" (George R.R. Martin,
Delivered at LASFS Showcase, Los Angeles, CA, May 2, 1981)
-LETTER:
from Phillip K. Dick to the FBI "informing" on Disch (October 28, 1972)
-SCHROEDINGER'S
CAKE: Thomas M. Disch Website - Novelist, Poet, Critic
-ARCHIVES:
"thomas disch" (Find articles)
-ARCHIVES:
Thomas M. Disch (Entertainment Weekly)
-REVIEW:
of The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of by Thomas M. Disch (Alexander Star,
NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of (CHRISTOPHER LEHMANN-HAUPT, NY Times)
-REVIEW:
of The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of (John Leonard, The Nation)
-REVIEW:
of The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of (Gregory Benford, Reason)
-REVIEW:
of The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of ( Frank McConnell, San Jose Mercury
News)
-REVIEW:
of The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of (John Clute, SciFi.com)
-REVIEW:
of The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of (Brian Doherty, The American Enterprise)
-REVIEW:
of The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of ( L.D. Meagher, CNN)
-REVIEW:
of The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of (David Pringle, infinity Plus)
-REVIEW:
of The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of (Jonathan Harvey)
-REVIEW:
of The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of (Russell Bell)
-REVIEW:
of The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of (Duncan Lawie, SlashDot)
-REVIEW
ESSAY : Fun with Your New (Vintage) Disch (Fred Bush, 7/30/01, Strange
Horizons)
-REVIEW:
of Camp Concentration by Thomas M. Disch (Craig E. Engler, SciFi.com)
-REVIEW:
of 334 by Thomas M. Disch (Brooks Peck, SciFi.com)
-REVIEW:
of 334 by Thomas M. Disch (Strange Words)
-REVIEW:
of Clara Reeve (LAURIE STONE, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of Getting Into Death by Thomas M. Disch (EDMUND WHITE, NY Times Book
Review)
-REVIEW:
of On Wings of Song by Thomas M. Disch (GERALD JONAS, NY Times Book
Review)
-REVIEW:
of Neighboring Lives (ANTHONY BURGESS, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of The Brave Little Toaster (Anna Quindlen, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of The Businessman (Marion Zimmer Bradley, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of The M.D. (GAHAN WILSON, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of The Sub by Thomas M. Disch (SCOTT SUTHERLAND, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of The Priest (TERRY TEACHOUT, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of The Priest (Tom DeHaven, Entertainment Weekly)
