Customer Reviews

The Voyage of the Proteus: An Eyewitness Account of the End of the World

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It has been quite some time since Disch's last novel, _The Sub_, so I looked forward to this book, although the page count made it clear in advance that _The Voyage of the Proteus_ was really more novella than novel. Still, Disch is Disch (tautologically speaking), and I generally find all of his fiction worth reading.

Disch's characteristic irony is here in abundance, as well as his poet's talent for the incisive sentence. The set-up uses the machinery of an historical/mythic/time-travel story, but the work seems more a meditation on our penchant for self-destruction -- perhaps that's too strong, and one should say, "penchant for shooting ourselves in the foot, repeatedly," with the implication that this probably qualifies as madness or stupidity or both.

The book juggles elements of Greek myth and our present and future in a playful fashion, seeming more like poetic reverie than the ham-fisted political-satiric fiction that PW seemed to expect. As the Publisher's Weekly review points out (however tediously), the book draws parallels between the destructive actions and cognitive deficiencies of rulers (Priam, Agamemnon, GWBush) and cultures (Trojan, Mycenean, Knossos, the USA today and in the near future). To read it as political satire is, I think, a mistake. It is not that simple to reduce such a book to the formula of satire. It's a poet's book, and feels more "personal" and "lyrical" than any of Disch's more recent fiction.

I liked it a lot, and recommend the book, but want to caution that it's not a conventional story of the sort expected by (for example) sf readers. The Publisher's Weekly review of this book is bestial, but devoted readers of Disch and admirers of intelligent fiction should not let that deter them from seeking it out.

This book could also be thought of as teaser: Disch's first full-length novel since _The Sub_ is due out later this year: _The Word of God_. We may reasonably expect some of the same elements in that book.

Welcome back, Tom.