Disch, the Tea Parties, and the City

by Will on May 5, 2010

Here’s a good essay on Thomas Disch, the acclaimed (and slightly crazed) science fiction author. Disch is was an interesting character for all sorts of reasons, but his disdain for rural populism and cosmopolitan liberalism is what I found most appealing:

George Wallace and Adolf Eichmann are two figures who recur in Disch’s work, early and late, and they symbolize the two halves of America that now appear in far sharper relief than they did at the time Disch started writing: town and city, one rural, populist, and xenophobic, the other liberal, technocratic, and heartless. Disch frequently treated them in isolation, but they reinforce one another, antagonists that form a unified system. Together, they constitute the American success story, by which Disch means its inhumanity.

Tagged as: science fiction, Thomas Disch

Will writes from Washington, D.C. (well, Arlington, Virginia). You can reach him at willblogcorrespondence at gmail dot com.

{ 4 comments }

1 Mike Schilling May 5, 2010 at 8:50 am

Disch is an interesting character

Was, alas. He died in 2008.

2 Will May 5, 2010 at 8:53 am

@Mike Schilling, Good catch.

3 William Brafford May 5, 2010 at 3:36 pm

Thanks for linking to this — I’m a huge Disch fan.

4 JosephFM May 6, 2010 at 10:00 pm

Thanks – 334 is one of my all time favorites.

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