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A review by octavia_cade
334 by Thomas M. Disch
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
This was great - one of those sci-fi novels that masquerades as general fiction, almost. It's set in a future apartment building (admittedly, the future it's set in is now, but then this was written back in the 1970s, I believe), and the actions of the individuals and families in the building are presented in an almost mosaic form. There's no real overarching plot, and the different chapters, some of which essentially work as short stories, can sometimes be only marginally related to each other. It's also fairly dystopian: one of those imagined futures where rationing (of everything from housing to babies) is one of the cornerstones of society.
That's where most of the genre elements stop, to be honest. The people who inhabit the building are working class people in public housing, and the resulting storylines are highly domestic: kids so bored they're causing mayhem, family arguments over which school to send a particular child to, an elderly lady who develops a crush on her social worker, the practice and refusal of eviction. I think if you had to actually live with any of these people they'd drive you round the bend, but the point is that they're ordinary, so ordinary that driving round the bend is inescapable, and will be so no matter who they (or any of us) live with. As I said, there's not a great deal that actually happens, but the whole of it's still so entertainingly lively that I don't much care. The first chapter, particularly - it's about a feckless young man throwing away opportunity after opportunity because he's lazy and not very clever - is especially well-drawn.
I'm tempted to get a copy of my own once this is back in the library. Or at least find more by this author to read, because this felt fresh and likeable, even if it's fifty years old at this point.
That's where most of the genre elements stop, to be honest. The people who inhabit the building are working class people in public housing, and the resulting storylines are highly domestic: kids so bored they're causing mayhem, family arguments over which school to send a particular child to, an elderly lady who develops a crush on her social worker, the practice and refusal of eviction. I think if you had to actually live with any of these people they'd drive you round the bend, but the point is that they're ordinary, so ordinary that driving round the bend is inescapable, and will be so no matter who they (or any of us) live with. As I said, there's not a great deal that actually happens, but the whole of it's still so entertainingly lively that I don't much care. The first chapter, particularly - it's about a feckless young man throwing away opportunity after opportunity because he's lazy and not very clever - is especially well-drawn.
I'm tempted to get a copy of my own once this is back in the library. Or at least find more by this author to read, because this felt fresh and likeable, even if it's fifty years old at this point.