The Sirens of Titan
THE SIRENS OF TITAN (Kurt Vonnegut) - Four Stars
The brilliance of Vonnegut, to me, was his mastery at writing very, very serious stories using an extremely casual, friendly, conversational narrative voice. It was evident in Slaughterhouse-Five, it was evident in Mother Night, and it's certainly evident in The Sirens of Titan.
Sirens... uses a common Vonnegut hook, in that the novel superficially appears to have a fantastical science-fiction plot. The richest, most depraved man on Earth is offered a trip into deep space with a beautiful woman. What he doesn't know is that his entire future has already been planned out, and he can only follow the path that his been set for him like a rat in a maze.
In reality, the book is a cynical condemnation at the ease with which human beings can be manipulated: by commercialism, the military, and (most importantly in the novel) religion. The book questions the very concept of free will, and poses the idea that maybe the entire purpose of the human race is to fulfill a minor task for a third party (one that is still unknown to humanity). (The influence of Vonnegut's idea can be found, most notably, in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, where the Earth was nothing more than a computer an alien race was using to solve a problem.) In addition, the book points out how readily human beings will sacrifice one another to make a point or achieve a goal.
And of course, Vonnegut wields a sharp, ironic blade. In the middle of a story about manipulation, the religion that gets founded on Earth is The Church of God the Utterly Indifferent: a church that claims that God absolutely does not care in the least about the actions of man, and that most of man's efforts are inconsequential. And through this Vonnegut's humanist beliefs are exposed: if mankind weren't so worried about what happens after we die, we could probably be a lot more decent to each other while we're alive.
The brilliance of Vonnegut, to me, was his mastery at writing very, very serious stories using an extremely casual, friendly, conversational narrative voice. It was evident in Slaughterhouse-Five, it was evident in Mother Night, and it's certainly evident in The Sirens of Titan.
Sirens... uses a common Vonnegut hook, in that the novel superficially appears to have a fantastical science-fiction plot. The richest, most depraved man on Earth is offered a trip into deep space with a beautiful woman. What he doesn't know is that his entire future has already been planned out, and he can only follow the path that his been set for him like a rat in a maze.
In reality, the book is a cynical condemnation at the ease with which human beings can be manipulated: by commercialism, the military, and (most importantly in the novel) religion. The book questions the very concept of free will, and poses the idea that maybe the entire purpose of the human race is to fulfill a minor task for a third party (one that is still unknown to humanity). (The influence of Vonnegut's idea can be found, most notably, in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, where the Earth was nothing more than a computer an alien race was using to solve a problem.) In addition, the book points out how readily human beings will sacrifice one another to make a point or achieve a goal.
And of course, Vonnegut wields a sharp, ironic blade. In the middle of a story about manipulation, the religion that gets founded on Earth is The Church of God the Utterly Indifferent: a church that claims that God absolutely does not care in the least about the actions of man, and that most of man's efforts are inconsequential. And through this Vonnegut's humanist beliefs are exposed: if mankind weren't so worried about what happens after we die, we could probably be a lot more decent to each other while we're alive.
posted by Kevin at 10:02 PM
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