A review by commander_blop
Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut

3.0

It says a lot about the times in which we live that this dystopian novel (in the mold of Brave New World) published in 1952 depicts a world that is better than our own. Vonnegut's first novel is about a future United States where automation has eliminated all but a handful of satisfying jobs (most of which involve designing the machines that put people out of work). The result of all that automation (and the worship of efficiency and "progress" that drives it) is an underclass of average people with nothing meaningful to do. This is similar to our own world, if a little bleaker. Yet Vonneguts's vision of 60 years ago proves optimistic: in order to keep the underclasses content, the powers that be provide the masses with universal healthcare and give them menial jobs maintaining the nation's infrastructure. No doubt this seemed probable with the New Deal still looming large in public memory -- but today? This is a dystopia many would choose over the current reality.

This is Vonnegut's first novel and also, by far, his most conventional. While his sense of absurdity is on display throughout (we meet, for instance, a factory worker who invented a machine that does his job thereby leading to his own unemployment as well as that of 60 co-workers) it is always working in service of the plot. None of Vonnegut's trademark meta-fictional detours are on display. We follow the protagonist (Paul Proteus) through a familiar arc of discontentment, rebellion, and resignation. Still, Vonnegut's bleakly comical vision of humanity (and their need for discontentment) is already in evidence, as is his discomfort with any solutions (the resistance is portrayed with almost as much cynicism as those in power).

Player Piano is a solid first novel that is genuinely enjoyable to read. While it is not representative of Vonnegut's work it does contain many of the seeds that would later blossom into novels like Mother Night, Slaughterhouse-Five, and Breakfast of Champions.