Player Piano

Apparently this is Vonnegut's first novel, and of those of his I've read so far it's by a long margin his best. It's the only one with characterisation deep enough to get invested in anyone's storyline. It has some really funny satire of corporate culture.

It includes a pertinent and important critique of capitalism, in the sense that increasing levels of mechanisation should liberate humanity from increasing amounts of unpleasant work (which is what the ruling class here claims has happened), but under capitalism this is impossible, because you need money to pay for life's necessities and the only way to get it is by working – pretty hard, when almost all the jobs are being done by machines! While under socialism you would have the show more ever-decreasing amount of work being shared between everyone capable, under capitalism you get a steadily-growing group of unemployed workers, who are therefore destitute. Vonnegut's protagonist, Paul Proteus, gets a little misdirected and blames the machines themselves instead of the economic system, but you can easily identify the real problem ;)

The novel is really weak on the inclusion of females; it seems that almost every woman is a housewife (presumably because there are not enough jobs for even just a fraction of the male population…) but not actually everyone because Paul's secretary is a woman. At any rate, it seemed bizarre that a novel so concerned with how men should spend their lives would just ignore women completely.

While that was unsatisfying, I really enjoyed this overall. As you can see, four stars. show less

This is Vonnegut's first novel. Hard for me to believe that - it has so much happening here and so much to say about how people derive meaning and sense of identity. In some ways, the science fiction elements haven't aged well (he couldn't predict self-driving cars despite all the other tasks automated?), and there are some troubling gender politics. But I recommend it for both dystopia fans and Vonnegut fans. As always, there are some turns of phrase that capture an entire philosophy in 9 words.

Dr. Paul Proteus is an esteemed position in an alternate reality 1950s America and on the line for a potential promotion when he starts to question whether the society he and his father helped to form - one increasingly reliant on machines for all labor - is not detrimental to humanity.

Player Piano is Kurt Vonnegut's first novel and a great first one at that. While his writing isn't quite as sharp and succinct as it is Cat's Cradle (the only other Vonnegut I've read), he still shines with a great deal of wit and wisdom. In particular, I found the scenes between the American ambassador and his guests to be cruelly funny as he attempts to explain American grandeur and innovation to foreigners who "mistake" many of these triumphs. show more Vonnegut's characters are incredibly vivid - I found myself becoming deeply invested even minor characters who only appear for one scene. While some of these characterizations were perhaps a little bit of caricatures, the overall effect was of compelling, well-rounded people who I was interested in reading more about.

Vonnegut is particularly visionary in this novel - while the actual mechanics may be somewhat different, his prediction of a world run by machines with displaced people trying to find their place in society is eerily on the nose. Of course, in his world, the government provides for those people whose labor is replaced by machinery by finding them albeit incredibly menial jobs, whereas in our world we end up with places like Detroit. This is definitely a novel, that while incredibly readable and fast paced enough, gives the reader plenty to chew over in their thoughts during and after reading it. I highly recommend it. show less

Easily one of the best books I've ever read. I believe great art makes you think, rather than telling you what to think. Player Piano is a brilliant example of great art, showing you what it means when your autonomy, your freedoms are taken away, replaced with pre-programmed choices that have the best intentions behind them. It shows you what it means to be a man in a world where men are no longer needed. It shows you what might happen... or has already happened.

It makes you think. And, ultimately, that's what matters.

1951. Has the third industrial revolution been a slow burner all this time, or is AI a 4th? Here we are in any case with these new tools replacing more facets of human thinking and this book is as relevant as ever 70 years on.

Pay heed to the barber in the story, who keeps himself up at night worrying about the machines coming for his job, only to design one that can do it and put himself into comfortable retirement but every one of his contemporaries out of work.

An interesting premise here is the idea, in contrast to the beliefs of political conservatives, that people want to work, and they want meaningful work. That isn't new and it wasn't new then, or perhaps it was, but in any case it's a truism that the right doesn't buy into. It's show more something we're going to struggle with as a society in the coming years, as we are going to need state backed job guarantees along the lines of that proposed by modern monetary theory if things go the way they're going. Which sounds suspiciously like the Reeks and Wrecks. So where do we go and what we do? show less

The race to produce weaponry during WWIII pushed humans out of the manufacturing field - they're too inefficient and unreliable. Machines left engineers the elite of society relegating/separating the rest of the population to mere existence in little boxes, all the same with IQ absolutely determining one's fate.

"What have you got against machines?"

"They're slaves."

"Well, what the heck - I mean, they aren't people. They don't suffer. They don't mind working."

"No. But they compete with people."

"That's a pretty good thing, isn't it - considering what a sloppy job most people do of anything?"

"Anybody that competes with slaves becomes a slave."

A promising engineer begins to question the morality of life subservient to the efficiency of show more programmed machines (the segregation of society into useful and dependents) and ponders pursuing an alternate life trajectory.

"It was an appalling thought, to be so well-integrated into the machinery of society and history as to be able to move in only one plane, and along one line."

Written in 1952, it seems Vonnegut will always be relevant:

"He stared at the President and imagined with horror what the country must have been like when, as today, any damn fool little American boy might grow up to be President, but when the President had had to actually run the country!"

Plus, igniting or enhancing daily questioning of the absurdity of society. show less

In this, Vonnegut's first novel, Dr. Paul Proteus lives in a futuristic dystopia in which everything is automated so that humans no longer have to work or even think except for the engineers and managers who have become the second highest class of society second only to the machines themselves. Meanwhile, a group of revolutionaries are trying to bring down this system in order to bring back pride and human dignity to those who have been replaced by machines. Despite having been written sixty years ago, I found this book to be very timely in an era in which many Americans have lost jobs to either machines or foreign workers. In many ways, Vonnegut's book is a very prescient look at our world today.

This prescience extends beyond the loss show more of meaningful work for many Americans. Vonnegut also foresees many of the advancements that have been made in the tools we use in our everyday lives. For example, the non-engineering/managing class has been made content in the novel through having 40 inch TVs in every room, and their lives have been made easier through having "radar ranges," which are basically microwave ovens. In the novel, these things are provided for the populace in order to keep them content in the new role that machines play in society. It brings to mind how many Americans today are more interested in American Idol than in current events.

Despite being his first novel, this book also does not lack any of Vonnegut's trademark wit and satire. There are parts that are laugh out loud funny, and Vonnegut is such a good story teller that I found that I could not put the book down for want of finding out what would happen next. This is typical of a Vonnegut novel for me, and it seems that he possessed this trait way back in 1952. While this novel may not be as famous as later novels such as "Slaughterhouse Five" or "Cat's Cradle," I found this novel to be every bit as engaging as those two. show less