334/334/Part I

The first part of the 334 novella is subtitled Lies.

Summary

The three Hanson siblings are living in close quarters with their mother, and dealing with various problematic relationships. Mrs. Hanson meets an awkward social worker, Len Rude.

1. The Teevee

(2021 - Mrs. Hanson - fantasy)

Boz was engaged to the girl at the other end of the corridor

The girl is Milly Holt. It's later established that this takes place not long after "The Death of Socrates".

the soaps

As the World Turns was a real soap opera. If it were still running in 2021, it would have been on the air for 65 years; actually it ended in 2010. The other two shows are fictional.

2. A & P

(2021 - Lottie - fantasy)

A & P is an East Coast supermarket chain.

The meat was the hardest to believe

Scarcity of meat and other agricultural products is a major feature of the novel's setting. 334 was not the first science fiction novel to suggest that people in a capitalistic, technologically advanced future might come to accept a relatively low quality of life; earlier examples of this sub-genre include Make Room! Make Room! (now better known as Soylent Green) and The Space Merchants. As in those novels, these shortages are not explained as the result of any particular disaster or ecological change, so one can assume they are simply due to overpopulation.

the museum deserved to be bombed

It's possible that Lottie has unintentionally predicted the bombing that will take place four years later in "Everyday Life in the Later Roman Empire"; that would mean that the fake supermarket exhibit was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

3. The White Uniform

(2021 - Shrimp - fantasy)

the steady flow of cars and trucks and buses and bikes

334 is possibly unique in science fiction of its time in having no unfamiliar transportation technology.

a nurse's white uniform

The traditional uniform with a white apron, dress, and cap, was still in common use in the 1970s. In most US hospitals, nurses now wear some variation on "scrubs" of various colors, with the white uniform reserved for students.

4. January

(2021 - Shrimp - another POV)

open sessions of The Asylum

It's unclear what The Asylum is. The name is a proper name rather than a generic description; rather than a mental hospital, it seems to be a social group or alternative community that practices a specific kind of group therapy, as shown in scene 34. It may be a reference to Synanon.

she didn't even drink Koffee

The phrasing here indicates that most people don't regard Morbehanine, the active ingredient in Koffee, as a "drug" in any serious sense— similar to how caffeine is thought of now.

people are conditioned by authoritarian family structures

This is a familiar strain of left-wing radical theory going back hundreds of years; whether the novel offers any support for this view is open to question. Of the two families that are depicted in any detail, the Holts have a bullying father figure, while the Hansons are closer to each other but are very disorganized and mostly don't obey their parent. The character who has been pushed around the most by the government, Birdie, regards his father as a distant, powerless near-stranger.

5. Richard M. Williken

(2024 - Shrimp - another POV)

Alkan or Gottschalk or Boagni

Charles-Valentin Alkan and Louis Moreau Gottschalk were mid-19th-century Romantic composers and pianists.

taking messages ... "One-five, five-six"

Williken's phone greeting probably means his apartment number is 1556 (the Hansons live in 1812). He answers this way instead of with his name because he's taking messages for people he illegally rents his space to.

John Herbert MacDowell

A composer and stage director who was part of the New York Poets Theatre in the 1960s.

6. Amparo

(2024 - Lottie - another POV)

7. Len Rude

(2024 - Mrs. Hanson - another POV)

the Anderson debacle ... Mrs. Miller

Len's supervisor is Alexa Miller, from "Everyday Life in the Later Roman Empire". "Anderson" is an earlier case Len was assigned to, who had some kind of dramatic breakdown. Though we hear no more about the character, it's likely that this is the Mr. Anderson at 334 E. 11th that Alexa Miller described as a "poor tedious old man"; if so, Alexa's avoidance of assigning blame here may be partly self-serving, since she had seen Anderson herself without suspecting any problems.

8. The Love Story

(2024 - Mrs. Hanson - fantasy)

a novel he'd been assigned

It's unclear whether this refers to any existing novel; the elements described— a pregnant woman sitting on a man's lap, a sex scene on a wobbling sofa, and an heiress named Linda— don't ring any bells.

to mix up a glass of milk

Another reminder that many food products are only available in artificial or, in this case, dehydrated form.

9. The Air Conditioner

(2024 - Lottie - fantasy)

10. Lipstick

(2026 - Lottie - fantasy)

one of Brother Cary's periodic nonappearances

Brother Cary is a leader of the church services Lottie attends in scene 26.

11. Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

(2026 - Shrimp - fantasy)

O powerful western fallen star!

From Whitman's "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," alluding to the Lincoln assassination. The Leaves of Grass movie the Hansons are watching seems to be a combination of historical drama with a recitation of the poems.

Don Hershey again in his Santa Claus beard

Hershey is apparently playing Whitman later in life, since he had no such beard at the time he wrote Leaves of Grass.

ever so many generations hence ... What is then between us?

These lines from "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,", as well as others that aren't quoted here, could serve as a statement of intent for Disch's whole novel. Whitman imagines that New Yorkers of "A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence" will have similar experiences to him: they will enjoy sunsets and the daily activity of the city, they will be moved by anger and lust, they will be aware of themselves as individual bodies and as members of a crowd. As a portrait of mostly routine daily life in a city of the future, and of people driven by simple wants and weaknesses, 334 is a direct response to Whitman's call for empathy across time.

Of course, in contrast to Whitman's earnest Romanticism, 334 is also bitterly satirical; in that regard, and in the collage style of this novella, it is closer in spirit to John Dos Passos. Dos Passos greatly admired Whitman and referred to "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" as an inspiration for his sprawling slice-of-life novels, but had a darker, more complicated view of his characters and of society, especially in his later years; born four years after Whitman's death and continuing to write until his own death in 1970, he was a human bridge between the traumatized but hopeful America of Whitman's day and the fragmented society Disch lived in. Though Disch never (as far as I know) openly referenced Dos Passos's work, it's likely that he had it in mind, especially since John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar (1968) had recently made a splash with a different, flashier science-fictional homage to the same tradition.

Shrimp's heart splattered like a bag of garbage

In the ending of this scene, Whitman's empathy meets Disch's irony head-on: the Hanson family totally fails to respond to Whitman's message of human connection— or, for that matter, to find anything interesting in his poetry at all— and yet the strong response that Shrimp does have, an unbearable mix of love and envy toward Amparo for her brief moment in the spotlight, is her most vulnerable moment and one that almost anyone can identify with.