While I cannot say this is great, it is good. It is different from most SF, in that it is not plot-driven but focuses on character, specifically on a neurotic New York ex-Columbia University student, David Selig, who ekes out a marginal living in the 1970s writing term papers for a paltry sum for undergrads.

The title refers to the fact that Selig is losing his powers. Born with the ability to read the thoughts of others, in his forties he faces a precipitous decline of this ability. He confronts mortality in this unusual way, as he prepares for the frightening prospect of addressing his fellow humans with only the sorts of information that people commonly have.

This is a bit of Silverberg as Philip Roth, it is entertaining, especially if you can either be amused by or overlook his ubiquitous tendency to entertain himself with overly specific sexual details.

There is an almost comic caricaturing of Selig's late twentieth century intellectual and artistic sensibilities, that works well. For instance, Selig's musical preferences tends to"'pretty austere stuff, thorny, inaccessible: Schoenberg, late Beethoven, Mahler, Berg, the Bartok quartets, Bach passacaglias. Nothing that you'd be likely to whistle after one hearing."

And other bookish preferences that will elicit a wry smile, perhaps, from other similar late twentieth century bookish types. Written in 1972, it is rife with the unique flavor of urban American culture of the period: the drug parties, the early and avid response to the sexual revolution, a certain profligacy and flair in dress and show, a rejection of rigidity and formality replaced by an emerging casual style in relationships, etc.

I believe it is Silverberg's most ambitious work, in that I divine actual literary pretensions here, and I think the extent to which he succeeds recommends this first among his many other works which are less introspective and psychological.

I imagine Silverberg imagining something along the lines of that had he not already been pegged as an SF writer, this book might have been accepted as legitimate fictional social commentary. But I like to imagine stuff like that.

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. ( )

David, the book's protagonist, is a telepath of no mean ability.

Now middle-aged, it seems he is starting to lose his powers, and they will no longer be able to tell him what women are thinking, help him win fights, or accomplish other tasks beyond the means of most people.

So, the theme here is can a superhuman deal with becoming an ordinary mortal and adjust to a different life. Quite different as looking at things that way hasn't been done in many books I can think of, as the major element of the story.

http://superprose.blogspot.com/2006/12/dying-inside.html ( )

David, the book's protagonist, is a telepath of no mean ability.

Now middle-aged, it seems he is starting to lose his powers, and they will no longer be able to tell him what women are thinking, help him win fights, or accomplish other tasks beyond the means of most people.

So, the theme here is can a superhuman deal with becoming an ordinary mortal and adjust to a different life. Quite different as looking at things that way hasn't been done in many books I can think of, as the major element of the story.

http://superprose.blogspot.com/2006/12/dying-inside.html ( )

David, the book's protagonist, is a telepath of no mean ability.

Now middle-aged, it seems he is starting to lose his powers, and they will no longer be able to tell him what women are thinking, help him win fights, or accomplish other tasks beyond the means of most people.

So, the theme here is can a superhuman deal with becoming an ordinary mortal and adjust to a different life. Quite different as looking at things that way hasn't been done in many books I can think of, as the major element of the story.

http://superprose.blogspot.com/2006/12/dying-inside.html ( )