By: Kurt Vonnegut Publisher: The Dial Press Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: The Dial Press Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 352 Publication Date: January 12, 1999 Release Date: January 12, 1999
Product Description: Vonnegut’s first novel spins the chilling tale of engineer Paul Proteus, who must find a way to live in a world dominated by a super computer and run completely by machines. Paul’s rebellion is vintage Vonnegut–wildly funny, deadly serious, and terrifyingly close to reality.
A stellar debut for Vonnegut The great Kurt Vonnegut's first novel is, well, great.
This was nothing short of excellent; a strong cast of characters and a vividly imagined world, yes, but where Player Piano really shines is in its rich social commentary. In this world, America has established a sort of minor utopia of ease within which regular, everyday people don't have to do much of anything. Everything is done for them.
And boy does that make people miserable.
At times funny, at times heavy with satire, and at times straight and serious, Vonnegut manages to keep all the plates spinning at once. Dr. Paul Proteus is a near perfect protagonist, even though he doesn't DO much of anything really. He's just along for the ride, observing the modern world in which he lives and realizing that a life of ease and convenience has a down side. And what an ending!
Player Piano makes it clear that Vonnegut was mining gold from the very start.
Slightly Off Key
Player Piano provides us with a window into the mind of Kurt Vonnegut, one of my favorite authors. He was a veteran of World War II and had seen up close and personal the dangers of totalitarian regimes, and he was forever changed by his experiences. His fears are very clearly expressed in this, his first novel, and it is clear that seven years after the end of the war he was vitally concerned for the future of America which was in the throws of internal struggles by fearful parties on both sides of the political spectrum.
In Player Piano we see the early development of a man destined to become one of the great novelists of the second half of the twentieth century. His plot line is wonderful, and one can hardly put the book down as it grabs the reader and will not let him or stop for food or sleep.
But there are significant problems with the writing that Vonnegut overcame in his later works. In this book, he tells us what is happening far more than he shows by the actions of his characters. His experiences in the war, especially as a prisoner of war in Dresden - an experience that would warp anyone - rendered him unable to examine totalitarianism with a cold and analytical eye at that stage of his development. He did not foresee the future of computation much beyond that of the early post war period, and, while his views of those running totalitarian states are undoubtedly very true, he did not foresee that related technology would set other people free.
Vonnegut's vision of the future when he wrote the novel did not encompass personal computation and the development of transistors and the miniaturization that is still revolutionizing our lives. He was greatly influenced by Orwell's dark vision in 1984 and could not see at that time that individuals - while still threatened by the loss of liberty by tyrants with powerful computers - would also be empowered to challenge authority by the very same technology that gave government its oversight power.
As Kurt aged, his vision of the future was challenged by the lightning fast technological developments that took place over his career. He also grew as a writer and his technique led him to the front rank of novelists of his time.
Player Piano provides a starting point that lets us follow Vonnegut's development from neophyte to literary master. It is a wonderful read that while not a great work gives us hope and insight into what was to come.
This an easy read, and the underlying message must still be heeded. We must always be on guard against those who would rob us of our freedom by promising us bread and security. Kurt had experienced life as few had and had seen the worst in people. But we should more faith in the human spirit than Kurt quite understandably had at that point in his life.
Convential debut - not Vonnegut's best, but still worth reading Vonnegut's debut novel, published in 1952, is a little constrained. There are hints of Vonnegut's sardonic wit, wild imagination, and unconventional writing style, but only hints. Unlike virtually all of Vonnegut's other novels, Player Piano tells its story in a linier fashion. It starts at the beginning and ends at the end. There's nothing really wrong with that, but for fans of the author, accustomed to Vonnegut's eccentric voice, it feels a little too conventional.
Vonnegut is a humanitarian and the message of Player Piano is that people need to have a sense of purpose, and that if you take that away from them - their lives will be empty. Throughout the novel, a leader from another country tours the cities of the United States and having no similar word in his own language, confuses `civilians' for `slaves'. The message of course, is that the civilians, in this machine dominated world, are in-fact slaves.
Similarities between this novel and Brave New World are inevitable, as both novels explore the relationship between technology and happiness, and the role class structure plays in our society. In both Player Piano and Brave New World, the protagonist is unfulfilled by the trappings of the privileged class and longs for something `real'. Player Piano is arguably more hopeful than Brave New World (and certainly 1984) suggesting that people will band together to fight for their freedom, however futile, even if it means that they are doomed to repeat the same mistakes again.
Player Piano is admittedly dated. It is evident from this novel, and others of the era, that people were wary of the advent of computers and the proliferation of machines and technology. As for predicting the future, neither Brave New World nor Player Piano (nor 1984 for that matter) proved to be a reliable crystal ball. These novels are far more reflective of the times they were written and the author's commentary on those times, than of any actual or likely future.
Player Piano is far from Vonnegut's best. Cat's Cradle and Slaughter House Five are two of the best novels ever written and there are close to a half dozen other Vonnegut novels (he wrote 14) I would recommend before Player Piano, but it's still worth reading.
3 ½ stars (almost four).
My first look at corporate america I had the pleasure of reading this book while I was studying Computer Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic. This book is very well written and the story is fantastic. One of my favorite parts of the book is when the engineer engineers himself out of his own job. Classic! kind of remind me of my last IT project.
Player Piano Very funny. Not quite as good as Cat's Cradle or Slaughterhouse-Five but hilarious just the same.
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