"A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved." ♡

Another masterpiece from an author that always blows me away with his great ideas.

It is disturbing in parts and amusing in others. I really enjoyed it!

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It's a story about Winston Miles Rumfoord who gets caught (with his dog) in a time anomoly (a chronosynchlastic infundibulum) where he is held outside of time. He materialises on earth periodically at the home of his wife (very privately - no one admitted) but on one occurance he invites a playboy Malachi Constant to attend one of these materialisations. He informs Malachi that he will travel to Mars, Mercury and Titan and that Malachi and Rumfoord's wife Beatrice will have a son Chrono. Both Malachi and Beatrice try to prevent the future, but circumstances work against them and end up on Mars and eventually end up on Titan.

On Titan is a stranded being called Salo from Tralfamadore waiting for a spare part for his spaceship to enable him to carry on his journey. He has been there for over 200,000 years watching the Earth and waiting for a message from home.

Tralfamadorians make a reappearance, time and space travel happen(sorta), religions and social inadequacies abound. I mean what more could you want?

Science-fiction and ridiculousness used as mechanisms to approach the big questions of human existence from a different perspective. It's a fun read. It's a smart read. It's a winning read all the way around.

Is it Fate or Coincidence?

The Sirens of Titan is an odd satirical twist of a science fiction novel which explores nothing quite as grand as the meaning of life. There are echoes here of Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land and Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide, but guess what. Sirens of Titan came first. Legend has it that Vonnegut wrote this in a few hours while at a dinner party. Obviously, some of the ideas were percolating in his head for awhile.

It is most of all a book of ideas. Vonnegut has the reader pondering the nature of luck, of fate, of coincidence, of predestination, of higher powers, and of course free will. Like stories about time travel, he posits the question of whether, knowing your destiny, can you avoid it or are you fated to fulfill that destiny no matter what. Even knowing the future only weds you to that future (as Leto Atriedes later discovered).

And what is free will. Are we controlled by destiny? By ancient space aliens like just so many marionettes? By the March of preordained history? If we are controlled by fate is it so different from a radio controlled army marching in lockstep? One of Vonnegut’s oddest satires is the notion of the invasion by Martians who are mind-controlled earthlings kidnapped and trained and who have their memories wiped.

Sirens of Titan is by no means a normal novel. It’s plotting is odd, different, unusual. The characters are all odd, disjointed, and never quite fit in or get along.

But what makes it work is the questions it keeps posing. Vonnegut plays with our sense of reality in ways that would make Neo and the Matrix proud. And, all throughout, Vonnegut keeps bothering the readers with issues of what’s fair and just. He asks if being lucky

The second Vonnegut's novel for me (the first was Mother Night) is, incidentally, also the second novel Vonnegut ever published and it's even more complex and peculiar. Here, Vonnegut manages to write an existentialist "the-meaning-of-life" novel in the form of a parody of the space sci-fi genre, along with a satire of war, army, religion and entrepreneurship. It's a book that shifts every now and then perspective, main theme and style, but in the end it's always about love. And all of this is written with a remarkable sense of humor that works in different levels, a humour that reminded me of Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman who seem to owe a lot to him (especially the former).

Somebody up there likes me.

One of my favorite film directors is Wes Anderson. I’m not sure if he is a fan of Kurt Vonnegut, but he should be and he should produce and direct the film adaption of Kurt Vonnegut’s novel, Sirens of Titan.

Sirens of Titan, Vonnegut’s second published novel, was released in 1959. Some aspects of his brilliant short story Harrison Bergeron, which was published in 1961, are revealed in the pages of Sirens. Other aspects of this novel are fairly representative of the later work that many people regard as his masterpiece, Slaughterhouse-Five. In fact, interestingly, aspects of several works in Vonnegut’s bibliography can be detected, including Galápagosand Slapstick or Lonesome No More!.

Player Piano may have been the first book published by Kurt Vonnegut, but Sirens of Titan was the first Vonnegut book.

Player Piano was an excellent story, a fine work of science fiction literature written by a man with much world experience and wisdom. But … for the body of work that would come, that great canon of literature that would inspire and entertain and provoke thought from generations of readers, the vanguard was Sirens of Titan.

Kurt Vonnegut, when he wrote Sirens of Titan, was 37 Earth years old, he was 6 feet 2 inches tall and had curly brown hair that his mother, Edith Lieber, called chestnut.

I have read a lot of Kurt Vonnegut’s books and I think Sirens of Titan was the book that formed the template, the engineering blueprint, for what would become.

And so it goes.

This book has enough ideas that could be used for a dozen different books. From the chrono-synclastic infundibulum to the Church of God the Utterly Indifferent, from the Tralfamadorians and Harmoniums to Universal Will to Become and space travel, and so on. A myriad of ideas, all mixed up in a single book. Add to that Vonnegut’s style and you get The Sirens of Titan.

Is there a purpose for our existence? The Sirens of Titan will certainly make you question about the meaning of life. Some people find meaning in living and sharing moments with their loved ones. At least most of us do. Others find meaning in their jobs. The truth is, it doesn’t seem to really matter, at least on the the cosmic scale. What about luck, does it really exist? As Vonnegut put it, maybe “someone up there likes you”? Or is the Universe indifferent?

Vonnegut makes me wonder if most of us take life too seriously. You could extend this idea to many institutions that exist in our world. Do we also take institutions too seriously? Vonnegut just seems to poke at everything and everyone, making fun of them in the process. And the way he does it, he also makes us question about what might be considered sacred to each of us. He’s telling us to be sceptical about life, the Universe and everything.

Vonnegut’s style is highly satirical. This came as no surprise to me, as I had read Slaughterhouse-5 just last year. And in this book he is even more cynic. His style might make some readers laugh. It can also make them have a minor existentialist crisis. Most likely both these things will happen. At least it happened to me. Vonnegut’s philosophy and wit are just too good. And for all the satire and cynicism, this book also has moments of emotion and kindness. It’s a multifaceted book by a brilliant writer.

‘the sirens of titan’ (or as i have alternatively titled it, ‘why life is the universes greatest long con’) is the perfect catalyst for my impending existential crisis - all courtesy of john!

in this review, i will explore the two major themes of the novel, state what we can learn them, and explain how these lessons apply to our meager lives.

lets get started.

free will || ah, the biggest illusion of them them all. if the universe was a magician, the fact that we somehow believe we have control over our lives would be considered the finale, the best trick saved for last. because we are nothing more than 'victims of a series of accidents.' the combination of random events created us and will continue to lead us and nothing we can do or say has any influence over that. there is no way to control that which is unpredictable. (alexa, play despacito.)

meaning and purpose || if you choose to believe vonnegut, intrinsically everyone knows how to find the meaning of life within themselves. meaning that, even though we just established we have no control over our lives, we can still find meaning/purpose and make it highly personal in nature. in this instance, i agree with the book, in that ‘the purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.’ unfortunately for me, im painfully single.

in closing, what have we learned? its that life is meaningless but we should be happy about it.

because even though we may not be able to control what life throws at us, we have the innate disposition to be able to make it meaningful. thats what makes us human.

and that is something we all could do well to remember.

thanks for coming to my ted talk.

↠ 4.5 stars

63rd book of 2020.

The moral: Money, position, health, handsomeness, and talent aren't everything.

This began as a disappointing read, which I thought would never happen. Vonnegut is one of my favourite writers, and this is my seventh novel of his. I even have three Vonnegut themed t-shirts. But this one just didn't grab me the way others have. It didn't seem as funny or profound as his later works. There are echoes of his later works though, already. Especially with the Tralfamadores featuring here, before in Slaughterhouse-Five. One thing I did notice, if my memory serves me correctly, this is the first book of his I've read that does not even mention that cursed word for Vonnegut: Dresden.

I say all this, and yet. As I reached the end of the book (and things started making sense, things started connecting), a great sadness washed over me. Vonnegut has a gift of making me both happy and then horribly sad. He's so hopeful, but makes me feel so hopeless too. His books create all these opposite emotions. Maybe it's the time we are living in right now, but the ending struck me, more than I was anticipating it to. Vonnegut always makes me need a hug.

“Rented a tent, a tent, a tent; Rented a tent, a tent, a tent. Rented a tent! Rented a tent! Rented a, rented a tent.”
— Snare Drum on Mars”

That is funny until it suddenly becomes creepy, to tell you why would be a spoiler though.

The Sirens of Titan is great stuff, this should come as no surprise to you if you are a Kurt Vonnegut fan, but it surprised the hell out of me. You see, I didn't like  Cat’s Cradle, one of his most celebrated books and, if I remember correctly, I didn't like  Slaughterhouse-Five either, though I read that too long ago to be sure. Slaughterhouse-Five is even more celebrated than Cat’s Cradle. So I didn’t expect to like The Sirens of Titan, not a good attitude to start a book with, but after a few pages it just clicked.

The Sirens of Titan is obviously science fiction but if you are a die-hard sci-fi fan with Clarke, Asimov etc. as your literary heroes you may want to approach this book with a different set of expectations. Even with spaceships, aliens and chrono-synclastic infundibulation this novel is not primarily sci-fi. Kurt Vonnegut is only using sci-fi as a platform to tell an allegorical story about life, together with an anti-war and anti-religion themes. In spite of a fairly simplistic prose style, this novel really is quite profound. I don’t think I have managed to decipher all the subtexts, I am still pondering them as I write.

I wonder if the artist has actually read the book. This seems to be based on just the title.

The story begins with a man named Winston Niles Rumfoord who, together with his dog, accidentally becomes “chrono-synclastic infundibulated” during a space voyage. I will leave you to find the precise meaning of “chrono-synclastic infundibulated” for yourself, amusingly explained by Vonnegut. The upshot of it is that Rumfoord and his dog become a “wave phenomena” spread across the universe; they materialize briefly on a planet whenever that planet’s orbit intersects their spiral waveforms, and soon dematerialize when the planet moves away from the intersection. Being spread through space and time gives Rumfoord knowledge of future history because “the Everything that ever was always will be, and everything that ever will be always was.”. In other words, the future is just as immutable as the past. This foreknowledge leads Rumfoord to play God with the entire human race, with special attention paid to Malachi Constant, the richest man in the world, and Rumfoord’s wife, Beatrice. To this end, Rumfoord orchestrates a war between “Martians” and humanity simply to make a point and teach mankind a lesson.

With its unpredictable plot, characters, humour and philosophical themes The Sirens of Titan is a triumphant little novel that confounded my expectations. In spite of the comedic tone throughout the narrative the book is underpinned by sadness and loneliness. The time traveling aspect of the story is of the “predestination model” where the past and future exist simultaneously and both are equally unmalleable. Malachi Constant’s futile attempts to thwart his destiny as revealed to him by Rumfoord is funny to begin with until all his agency is taken away from him and he becomes a tragic and pathetic figure. The storyline is quite unpredictable from beginning to end, the book is often very funny, and the end is wonderfully poignant. Vonnegut makes the reader question his place in the vast uncaring universe, and he (rightly) doesn't offer any easy answer. One very impressive feature of Vonnegut’s prose style is that it is deceptively simple but hides a shrewd perception of the human condition and human compassion.

A more relevant cover

The Sirens of Titan actually works quite well as a “soft sci-fi” novel but it is more of an allegory about our floundering search for the meaning of life. I will probably give  Slaughterhouse-Five another go and I look forward to reading  Breakfast of Champions,  God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater and many more of Vonnegut’s works.


Fan art by Gargantuan-Media

Kurt kicked off his Vonnegutism on page 0:
“All persons, places, and events in this book are real. Certain speeches and thoughts are necessarily constructions by the author. No names have been changed to protect the innocent, since God Almighty protects the innocent as a matter of Heavenly routine.”

I believe this is one of the most underrated novels in American history. So many things are going on in this one. It is dense even by Vonnegut’s standards and could easily be divided into three novels; I wonder how many “War and Peace” would take Tolstoy to narrate the same story. Without seeing the publishing date, I could have assumed it belonged to Vonnegut’s later professional period. I've wanted to write my take for about a month now, but I'm never satisfied with what I come up with. I've revised it a few times, and I'm sure I'll do it again.

I appreciate the way he opens the story by foretelling the end of it since, throughout your journey as a reader, you are constantly recalling his prophecy and assessing its likelihood. This technique provides a particular form of suspension. Constant's approach towards Beatrice changed once Rumford told him what his destiny held. He lost everything on Earth and thought he would live with the Sirens of Titan, unaware of the dark future that awaited him.
“Since it was foreordained that he and Beatrice were to come together again, to produce a child named Chrono, Constant was under no compunction to seek and woo her, to send her so much as a get-well card. He could go about his business, he thought, and the haughty Beatrice would have to damn well come to him — like any other bimbo”

Like most of his works, religion is one of the central themes. Vonnegut rendered a picture of the growth and dissemination of a particular religion. I'm reminded of Elon Musk by Rumfoord's character, who is responsible for the emerging religion and the atrocities committed on Mars, even though, unlike Musk, he is incapable of reproducing. He put antennae in their skulls [like Neuralink :))] and turned them into mindless robots [unlike Neuralink]. His systematic cruelty to helpless Martians makes me think of 1984.

In Galapagos, Vonnegut contrasts current humans with those who will live in the future, who have evolved into simple-minded creatures with no capacity for moral concern, anxiety or sophisticated interest, leading a more peaceful lifestyle. Here, he draws a similar analogy between humans and harmoniums, minimal being found in Mercury. Hunger, enmity, ambition, fear, wrath, religion, and sexual passion are irrelevant to them. They only have one sense: touch.

Vonnegut's response to the existential question was startling, bizarre, and hilarious. He seemed to be criticising the notion that suggests people are one-of-a-kind being with extraordinary purposes living in the centre of the universe. On Titan, Salo, a messenger from Tralfamadore, awaits a spare spacecraft component. Delivering the replacement component to him was the primary mission of Earthlings. In this approach, Entire human civilisation and monumental structures throughout history were made merely as an interface for Tralfamadorians to send messages to Salo.

Each star I gave to it represents a galaxy. The Sirens of Titan is a thought-provoking satire encouraging readers to reflect on social issues and human behaviour:

“The only controls available to those on board were two push-buttons on the center post of the cabin — one labeled on and one labeled off. The on button simply started a flight from Mars. The off button was connected to nothing. It was installed at the insistence of Martian mental-health experts, who said that human beings were always happier with machinery they thought they could turn off.”

I have a major problem with this book for which I subtracted a star. The treatment of the character Bee. She is demonised and punished by her 'husband' for relinquishing her virginity (I.e. being raped by a stranger) and held up as an example in front of the crowds basically for not putting out for him during the marriage.

As another reviewer points out she even thanks her rapist at the end for raping her.

There were lots of good things about the sirens of Titan - I liked the relationship between Boaz and the harmoniums, for example, but overall it felt a bit weak and disappointing, despite some strong ideas.

Bee gets exiled from the earth in front of everybody for not letting her husband touch her and then having (non-consensual) sex with another man.

I get that this book was written in the 50s (when marital rape was not yet criminalised) and so attitudes would have been different back then, but I can't sing praises about a philosophical book when a key moral lesson seems to be; 'don't be so high and mighty that you won't take a good pounding!'

I like the way Kurt Vonnegut writes, I like his ideas and his satirical play on religion, I like his friendly alien Salo and I liked the opening chapters. The jovial and comic writing style jarred with the brutal events later on in a way that beautifully increased the terror. There was lots to praise here.

Aside from it's maltreatment of Bee, there were other things I didn't care for. These are quite difficult to articulate - a feeling of general incompleteness? A feeling that the writer was cutting corners, especially in description and building atmosphere? Universally unappealing characters? Complaints I often have with shorter classics in the genre. It didn't feel real enough to me, I think, is the crux.

I seem to be (mostly) alone in my condemnation of how Bee's behaviour was perceived. It stuck out more to me juxtaposed with the - still very relevant - lessons that can be learned from the 'crimes' of poor Malachi. Lessons such as not taking things for granted and using your luck for kindness not thoughtless self-indulgence. Nevertheless, it was still a very interesting and entertaining read, with lots of food for thought, even if it's attitude to female sexuality seems rather ghoulish cast in a modern light.

Çok özlemişim Vonnegut'un hınzır dilini. Titan'ın Sirenleri henüz ikinci romanı olmasına rağmen Vonnegut'a özgü birçok şey barındırıyor. İlk romanı Otomatik Piyano'da o çok sevdiğimiz Vonnegut üslubu daha tam oturmamıştı, ama bu kitap sonraki şaheserlerin de habercisi olmuş adeta. Birçok şeye dokundurulmuş yine ama özellikle organize dine yapılan eleştiriler hem çok yerinde hem de çok yaratıcı. İnsanlığın var oluş amacından Hiç Tınmaz Tanrı Kilisesi'ne muhteşem fikirler bulmuş Vonnegut. Çok sevdim ben, hatta Vonnegut eserleri arasında da düşünmeden üst sıralara koyarım.

Bu arada çeviri ve editörlük şahane, Handan Balkara harika iş çıkarmış. Vonnegut'un diğer eserlerinin de Can Yayınları tarafından tekrar çevrilip yayınlanacak olması beni epey mutlu ediyor.