Dystopias have been around for a long time—one might even
successfully argue since Dante’s Inferno,
perhaps even the Bible or others canonical texts. Frankenstein
is a strong qualifier, as is Gulliver’s
Travels. But it remains the likes of
Nineteen Eighty-four, Brave New World, The Handmaid’s Tale, and other such novels to represent the focus on
oppressive systems and the potential misuse of technology and position for
authoritarian means in the modern socio-political context. Orwell, Huxley, and
Atwood’s novels garner the lion’s share of the attention (thank you high school
required reading), but there remain numerous high quality dystopias on the
market worth every bit of the same attention.
From Ian Macleod’s The Summer Isles to J.G. Ballard’s High-Rise,
Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Wild Shore
to John Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar
(or The Jagged Orbit, or The Sheep Look Up, or…), there are many
other stories delving into the various ways in which humanity limits itself
willing and unwillingly. Another such
novel/collection to add to the list of must-read dystopias is Thomas Disch’s 334.
The number of an apartment block in near-future New York
City urban conglomerate, 334 is less
a single story and more story strands.
Five novellas concluding upon a short novel that braids the novellas
together, Disch remains focused on character throughout, highlighting the
manner in which even the simplest change from our current system (or as it was
in the late 60s and early 70s when Disch was writing the stories) can/will have
widespread effect on social and personal standing for the ordinary Joe (and
Josephine). Like Ian Macleod’s The Summer Isles, 334 is a subtle dystopia that the less discerning reader may have
trouble parsing or appreciating.
A story that implements eugenics in non-macabre yet highly
disturbing fashion, “The Death of Socrates” tells of a young university student
named Birdie. In love, Birdie dreams of
marrying and starting a family with Millie.
Learning one day that his Regents score is too low, however, puts a
strong damper on his chances of getting permission to start a family, and so he
decides to find a way to get a higher score. A very, very believable view
toward class stratification by demographic data. A story that is outright macabre, “Bodies”
tells of a watchman at a hospital and the scam he runs selling corpses and body
parts to brothels with necrophiliac customers.
Though macabre in import, Disch avoids the gory, sexual details to focus
on the social and human implications of the people doing the trade, and why.
A nod to Philip K. Dick’s The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and perhaps the best story in
334, “Everyday Life in the Later
Roman Empire” tells of a woman living a double-life: one in reality and one in
a hallucinogenic rendition of ancient Rome.
The beauty of the story is in how it lacks the standard cues that
indicate when the story has switched settings.
Each blends seamlessly into the next to create a dream-like experience
that represents what such a drug-induced possibility would be like (versus what
any cold and dry, hard sf hand-waviness could do). The woman faced with an important decision
regarding the placement of her son in a school, Disch uses her escape into the
hallucinogenic world to highlight just how human humans can be.
Remarkably seeming more at home in 2018 than 1972,
“Emancipation: A Romance of the Times to Come” is the story of a marriage which
elects to use the latest gynecological techniques. The child gestated outside the womb, and the
husband biologically altered to participate in child rearing in a way currently
not possible, Disch again avoids the potential minutiae of technical detail and
instead focuses on the characters, their hopes for their child, and what love
means in the context of advanced medical practices. A disturbing story, “Angouleme” is something
of a shorter version of Burgess’ A
Clockwork Orange, but with a different ending (doesn’t equal “happy”). About a small cadre of young teenagers, led
by Bill Harper, aka Little Mister Kissy Lips, who live in the blocks around
building 334, together they philosophize and plot to kill an old man who lives
in the neighborhood. Disch’s focus on
both the intelligence/experience of these youth relative to the youth of 1972 and
the potential horrors the lack of real-world experience could unleash, seeing
what some maladjusted teens actually do in high schools in 2018 makes Disch’s
story look like a cakewalk. As stated, a troubling story nevertheless.
I come up empty looking for a proper metaphor, such is the
time-hopping, incorporated experience that is the final story/sub-novel in 334.
The title story, it looks in detail at the people from the Hanson family,
most of whom are side-characters in the preceding stories. More interleaved vignettes than a linear
progression of sub-stories, “334” accomplished a number of things. It creates a tighter web of characters in the
334 setting, represents stories in
itself, and anchors Disch’s agenda in the collection, primarily to parallel the
decline of Rome to that of the modern West.
Adding a layer that the figureheads of the modern dystopia do not go out
of their way to emphasize,
In the end, 334 is
a slow burning novel/collection that builds momentum like a glacial floe. What seems relatively standard dystopia at
the outset steadily and subtly spreads itself into a much broader vision of
society, technological evolution, and the unchanging aspects of the human
panoply that will and does react to said changes. The focus wholly on the characters,
their lives, and the actions and decisions in the near-future New York setting
Disch expands ever so slightly from our own, the value at heart is the
exploration of a Spenglerian mindset toward technology, perceived advancement,
and certain unchangeable, underlying truths.
Perhaps in a few centuries it might be looked back upon as one of the
key dystopias of the 20th century?
The following are the six stories collected in 334:
The Death of Socrates
Bodies
Everyday Life in the Later Roman Empire
Emancipation: A Romance of the Times to Come
Angouleme
334
Still perhaps Disch's finest novel.
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