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A review by rue_baldry
Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut
3.0
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.