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3.77 AVERAGE
3.77 AVERAGE
slow-paced
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
I could not bring myself to care, sorry Kurt. opinion might change after book club we’ll see
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
funny
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Player Piano suffers a bit simply because it wasn’t the first Vonnegut book I read. It’s not a bad book, not even close; I just already knew Kurt could do so much better. Player Piano follows the engineer Paul Proteus as he searches for meaning in a world that he knows isn’t quite right and that he doesn’t quite fit in. Proteus is much like other Vonnegut protagonists, like Howard Campbell, who competently bumble along, aware of what’s happening around them but seemingly powerless to resist.
In Player Piano, the world is still recovering from WWIII and a new social system has been put in place. Engineers and bureaucrats run the machines. The machines run everything else. Anyone not deemed smart enough to become an engineer must become either a soldier or a member of the chain gang. Proteus, an engineer, must deal with his conniving, status obsessed wife Anita and his successful if lackadaisical friend Finnerty as he decides whether he will continue up the corporate ladder of the engineering firm that runs the country, or if he’ll join a shadowy rebellion bent on upending the status quo.
It’s an excellent premise. Only the execution keeps it from being mentioned up there with Slaughterhouse Five or Cat’s Cradle. There’s probably a great Vonnegut book buried in there, it’s just been diluted too much by filler. Player Piano is both Vonnegut’s first novel and his longest. He had yet to develop his signature style of almost comically short and simple declarative sentences. Other aspects of his writing were already fully formed, including his ideas on religion, jumping between multiple characters, his tongue in cheek humor (the Reconstruction and Reclamation Corps was nicknamed the Reeks and Wrecks), and the ending is pure Vonnegutian gold.
Again, while not a bad book, it’s one that feels like it could have been written by anyone, or at least anyone trying to imitate Cat’s Cradle. Worth a read, but only if you’ve already read most of Vonnegut’s other books.
In Player Piano, the world is still recovering from WWIII and a new social system has been put in place. Engineers and bureaucrats run the machines. The machines run everything else. Anyone not deemed smart enough to become an engineer must become either a soldier or a member of the chain gang. Proteus, an engineer, must deal with his conniving, status obsessed wife Anita and his successful if lackadaisical friend Finnerty as he decides whether he will continue up the corporate ladder of the engineering firm that runs the country, or if he’ll join a shadowy rebellion bent on upending the status quo.
It’s an excellent premise. Only the execution keeps it from being mentioned up there with Slaughterhouse Five or Cat’s Cradle. There’s probably a great Vonnegut book buried in there, it’s just been diluted too much by filler. Player Piano is both Vonnegut’s first novel and his longest. He had yet to develop his signature style of almost comically short and simple declarative sentences. Other aspects of his writing were already fully formed, including his ideas on religion, jumping between multiple characters, his tongue in cheek humor (the Reconstruction and Reclamation Corps was nicknamed the Reeks and Wrecks), and the ending is pure Vonnegutian gold.
Again, while not a bad book, it’s one that feels like it could have been written by anyone, or at least anyone trying to imitate Cat’s Cradle. Worth a read, but only if you’ve already read most of Vonnegut’s other books.
Plodding morality tale peopled with caricatures. I was revisiting Vonnegut, who I loved years ago. Next time I'll choose a book from later in his career.
funny
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This is Vonnegut’s first novel, written in 1952. It is an interesting work in the history of his achievements, and as an example of “golden age” 1950s science fiction.
Of course, all science fiction is actually written to comment on the age in which it is written and not to predict the future, but as we now do live in their future it is always amusing to see what things they thought would change and, most telling, which elements of their own era they could not imagine would ever be any different.
Most telling is always the positions of women and people of colour. This novel does not disappoint in that regard. Even humane, kind Vonnegut in 1952 could not imagine a time when positions of power would be occupied by anyone other than a white man, even though the fights for gender and race equality had already begun.
Of course, most power is still in their hands, I don’t deny it. But the only jobs women ever get in novels written in the 1950s and earlier (& for a while later) which are set in their future, are as secretaries (the job of the only working woman in Player Piano), nurses and kindergarten teachers. Most are simply wives working labour-saving machines.
This novel, at least, contains no overt racism, but the only non-white American character comes near the end and has a tiny part. Nobody with any status is of colour. The Shah and his interpreter are there to offer the comments of outsiders, but they are caricatures for comic effect, too. And the appropriation of other nationalities for amusing costumes and underdog clout are pretty offensive, too.
The society describes is largely automated to a ridiculous degree, but it’s all run in vacuum tubes, punched cards, enormous computers taking up underground caverns (yes, I do know that info is stored in huge energy-guzzling buildings not ‘clouds’, but the actual computing machines don’t need to be enormous), cassette tapes. Music is on vinyl records, no new song has been written, everyone smokes, no self-driving cars. He got some things right: automatic self checkouts at supermarkets, computerised police records, ticket machines at stations, microwave ovens, robot assembly lines.
Vonnegut doesn’t come down on any particular side in this novel. He shows humans as messy and uncontrollable but full automation as soul-destroying. The big force here is the human need to create and mend. His warning is that, taken too far, technology could remove the need for humans as anything other than consumers.
None of the characters are fully rounded and the plot is not fully thought through. It’s a fun read, though. And Vonnegut’s humour, humanity, sense of the absurd, wit, wisdom and tiny observed details carry it along.
Of course, all science fiction is actually written to comment on the age in which it is written and not to predict the future, but as we now do live in their future it is always amusing to see what things they thought would change and, most telling, which elements of their own era they could not imagine would ever be any different.
Most telling is always the positions of women and people of colour. This novel does not disappoint in that regard. Even humane, kind Vonnegut in 1952 could not imagine a time when positions of power would be occupied by anyone other than a white man, even though the fights for gender and race equality had already begun.
Of course, most power is still in their hands, I don’t deny it. But the only jobs women ever get in novels written in the 1950s and earlier (& for a while later) which are set in their future, are as secretaries (the job of the only working woman in Player Piano), nurses and kindergarten teachers. Most are simply wives working labour-saving machines.
This novel, at least, contains no overt racism, but the only non-white American character comes near the end and has a tiny part. Nobody with any status is of colour. The Shah and his interpreter are there to offer the comments of outsiders, but they are caricatures for comic effect, too. And the appropriation of other nationalities for amusing costumes and underdog clout are pretty offensive, too.
The society describes is largely automated to a ridiculous degree, but it’s all run in vacuum tubes, punched cards, enormous computers taking up underground caverns (yes, I do know that info is stored in huge energy-guzzling buildings not ‘clouds’, but the actual computing machines don’t need to be enormous), cassette tapes. Music is on vinyl records, no new song has been written, everyone smokes, no self-driving cars. He got some things right: automatic self checkouts at supermarkets, computerised police records, ticket machines at stations, microwave ovens, robot assembly lines.
Vonnegut doesn’t come down on any particular side in this novel. He shows humans as messy and uncontrollable but full automation as soul-destroying. The big force here is the human need to create and mend. His warning is that, taken too far, technology could remove the need for humans as anything other than consumers.
None of the characters are fully rounded and the plot is not fully thought through. It’s a fun read, though. And Vonnegut’s humour, humanity, sense of the absurd, wit, wisdom and tiny observed details carry it along.
challenging
dark
medium-paced
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No