люблю Воннеґута)

Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.: Kurt Vonnegut Jr. penned this book 70 years ago. The year I was born. As I read I had to keep looking at the publication date as I felt I was reading a book published for today. Supercomputers put humans out of business. An interesting look at how humans can foresee where we are going before the door even opens. Mr. Vonnegut Jr. tells us the history of ourselves before we open the door. We buy the machines today which make use less. How many things odds and ends that we used to have to do are unnecessary today? I remember learning how to use a slide rule (never very good at it) now most don’t even know what it is. This is where the world might be headed and Player Piano gives us a glimpse. It made me think and feel and amazed me. This is a great read 5 stars.

I'm re-reading all the Vonnegut in 2021 (not in order) and I have already read 11 others and now I read this one. This is his first book from 1952 - a good seven years before his next book. I'm almost positive I never read this before because I remember nothing from it. I may have read the first chapter, but there's no way I finished it. Anyway, I have lots of thoughts on this one.

1. This book is very different than the other Vonnegut books. He hasn't quite found his voice yet and the style is a little different. Like in almost every other Vonnegut book, either thru time travel or thru old man writing a memoir of his past, he tells us exactly how it ends, but then walks us thru to getting there so masterfully. In contrast this is a very linear book.

2. On the other hand, many of the themes from other Vonnegut books are here: Artificial intelligence, automation, free will, and especially the struggles of the purposeless life. He also kind of goes meta when a lady who's husband is out of work because he wrote a good book about how the machines are bad.

3. The book seemed to meander in the middle, but then the ending seemed a little abrupt. It definitely should have been edited down a bit. There are lots of little odd characters doing bits that did add some color to the story, but hurt the pacing. It didn't suck me in the way other Vonnegut book have.

4. 1952 was a long time ago. Some of the stuff seemed kind of sexist and a lot of it was prophetic - though the technology has changed, much of it has come true decades ago - so it's almost not that shocking. Take the good with the bad, I guess.

5. There's a quote I highlighted about a false messiah that made me think of Donald Trump:
“Sooner or later someone’s going to catch the imagination of these people with some new magic. At the bottom of it will be a promise of regaining the feeling of participation, the feeling of being needed on earth—hell, dignity."
Maybe Trump lives in my head rent-free - but I always try to understand his appeal and maybe this quote explains why those coal miners all loved him so much. I don't know.

I gave this book three stars - my lowest rating for a Vonnegut book yet. I did consider giving it four stars, but settled on three. I still liked it and thought it was worthwhile, but I wouldn't make this my first Vonnegut book by any means.

(written in 2008)
I’m always a fan of Vonnegut. I loved this book. What made it so fascinating (what makes all his books so fascinating actually) was that pieces of it were eerily close to the attitude of the world today. Every once and a while something would be familiar enough to make you think that perhaps this world isn’t so far off. And that is a scary thought. Makes you honestly wonder what mankind is capable of. How much freedom are we willing to give up for security? What are we willing to lose for advancement? Pertinent questions nowadays too.
This ‘future’ may not be a depiction of where we are at, or where we are heading, but there are enough disturbingly similar sentiments to make one wary. Fantastic book. I highly recommend it.
Here is a paragraph amusing to my political science major self. Not spoilery in any way:
And Halyard suddenly realised that just as religion and government had been split into disparate entities centuries before, now, thanks to the machines, politics and government lived side by side, but touched almost nowhere. He stared at President Jonathan Lynn and imagines 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!

Vonnegut's first novel, and the one I'd recommend to anyone who doesn't like Vonnegut. He is already hard at work illuminating the flaws and failures of humanity and society, but he does so without the quirky biographical style or the repertoire of jokes which define his later novels.

Player Piano is a workplace novel and one in which machine-dominated industry is king. Productivity and efficiency are the only markers of success and progress, and managers and engineers are the cream of the crop. Not only has there been a first Industrial Revolution (in which machines replaced the muscle work) but a second (in which machines replaced the routine work), with a third (in which machines replace the brainwork) looming/in progress. Doctor Paul Proteus is an engineer who manages a factory in Vonnegut's Ilium, New York, and comes to question life at the top of the financial and bureaucratic heap.

Where men and women controlled machines, machines now control their lives, effectively making them redundant and completely robbing them of the sense of purpose, of usefulness, with which many measure a fulfilling existence. Vonnegut touches on free enterprise, the wealth gap, corporate culture, America's obsession with a college degree, nepotism, and the failures of supposed meritocracy (that's right, white men aren't special just because they are white men).

The book may be a 'novel of tomorrow' but in terms of the roles of women we are firmly in 1952. Mothers and housewives are content to keep house and watch television, with sex as one of their only bargaining chips.

Still so topical, even 70 years later, with only the encroaching technology having changed. The wealthy—Vonnegut's managers and engineers—are still out to exploit and/or crush the rest of us and we're letting them do it because we are and always have been our own worst enemy. The road to Hell is paved not just with good intentions, but with curiosity, innovation, and the pursuit of happiness.

At a friend's suggestion, I gave Vonnegut a second chance, not allowing myself to be impressed by the flippancy of his Cat's Cradle in high school. Picking up three of his other novels, I delved into them, one after another. While the others were highly entertaining, Player Piano, the most ostensibly serious of the lot, was almost a painful read--perhaps because Vonnegut was still learning the craft of writing.

Player Piano is a dystopian novel which feels both quaintly 1950s while still being imminently relevant today, in the advent of the AI boom. In it, Vonnegut explores the conflict between the human desire to have a purpose with the seemingly innate drive for constant innovation, particularly in the scenario where the later invalidates the former. Dr. Proteus ends up being one of my favorite Vonnegut protagonists - he maintains that archetypal pitiful, helpless nature, but he manages to gain a modicum of autonomy right at the climax of his character arc.

You can certainly tell that this is Vonnegut's earliest work - compared to his future triumphs, his distinct, darkly humorous style is still in development. That slight lack of polish is what keeps this at a solid 4 stars for me. Absolutely is worth a read, but I'd still point anyone to Slaughterhouse-Five or The Sirens of Titan first if they hadn't read those yet.

It's almost impossible to rate this book. Written in the 50s it definitely has the feel of a 50s book. Hopelessly naive, simplified but also wildly imaginative and clever. If I had read it in the 50s (well, I was just a baby but if I had been grown up) I would have loved it, much like I loved 'Cat's Cradle' when I found it on a city bus at the age of 17 or so and was absolutely wowed by it. Since then I have read many of Vonnegut's books, loved many, been less than wowed by others. But now I have some kind of vague ambition to read them all again, starting with this, his first. I've read it twice before but it was so long ago that I didn't remember a whole lot. Anyway, I skimmed a lot here but other parts were interesting from a nostalgic point of view. Humans vs machines, how quaint. But Vonnegut's greatness is already clear in this novel and for that it gets 3*

I convinced myself that I would love Kurt Vonnegut's writing after reading Harrison Bergeron in 2013.

I'm so glad I was right because I embarked on a journey of reading through Kurt Vonnegut's work chronologically (although I do a poor job of it because as soon as I go to a used bookstore I leave with a Vonnegut book and read it asap. i suppose at the end of my vonnegut journey it doesn't really matter)

Player Piano was one that spoke directly to me - with an engineer at the forefront of this novel and me starting my college education to become an engineer. I felt a comfort in Vonnegut's work I have not been able to find in other books/authors before. I don't think this work encapsulates what makes Vonnegut so iconic, but this one holds such a special place in my heart for being his first.

the vonnegut collection
1. player piano
2. the sirens of titan
3. mother night
4. 2BR02B
5. cat's cradle
6. canary in the cat house or welcome to the monkey house  (i owed the latter and it had 11/12 short stories featured in the former)
7. god bless you, mr. rosewater
8. slaughterhouse-five
9. happy birthday, wanda june
10. between time and timbuktu
11. breakfast of champions
12. wampeters, foma and granfalloons
13. slapstick, or lonesome no more!
14. jailbird
15. sun, moon, star
16. palm sunday
17. deadeye dick
18. fates worse then death
19. galapagos
20. bluebeard
21. hocus pocus
22. timequake
23. god bless you, dr. kevorkian
24. bogombo snuff box
25. like shaking hands with god
26. kurt Vonnegut ton mark twain, lincoln, imperialist wars and the weather
27. a man without a country
28. armageddon in retrospect
29. look at the birdie
30. while mortals sleep
31. sucker's portfolio
32. letters
33. we are what we pretend to be
34. if this isn't nice, what is?
35. complete stories
36. love, kurt: the vonnegut love letters, 1941-1975

I was thinking about reading Cat's Cradle soon by this author and began to think about this title, his first novel, which I read about two years ago. I remember it being quite an unnerving read as most of what he talks about in the book is becoming increasingly relevant in today's society. Machinery has reached a point where all people are out of a job and although they have basic, council style housing provided, and food aplenty, there is no work to do and everyone wanders around aimlessly. If someone's car breaks down on a bridge, ex mechanics come scampering over, desperate to have a go at fixing the vehicle, simply for something to do. We see now self service checkouts and driver-less cars which will soon spell the end for shop workers and taxi drivers probably, and no doubt pilots will be out of a job before long as well as many others. The scary thing about this book rather than, say, Brave New World, is that although both are very prescient, the problems Player Piano illustrates feel very much more pressing and are upon us all now. Brave New World feels like it could happen if things get out of hand, whereas Player Piano's scenario of jobs disappearing and people becoming bereft of purpose, is all just beginning...more a case of how far it will all go and what we'll have left to do.

I read this in high school but didn’t really remember it.
It’s probably more relevant now than when it was written. It takes place in a dystopian near future where most humans have been replaced by machines and struggle to find meaning in their lives. Initially it’s the mundane physical jobs that are replaced and the white collar, management, engineering and design types look down on the obsolete masses not realizing that the machines may soon be replacing them as well.
Even though there’s a lot of talk about vacuum tubes and other 1950’s technology this book was remarkably prescient. We’re now seeing artists and writers losing work to AI and The kind of non fiction I’ve been reading on the subject lately predicts the demise of even doctors and lawyers at the hands of our digital overlords.
Though many of us don’t enjoy our jobs and even if we’re provided for through some kind of universal basic income, being useful in what gives our lives meaning. Without that we could be in for an existential crisis like we’ve never seen before. Although my back would appreciate the break.

Player Piano is Vonnegut's first novel and it reads very differently than his later and more famous works. The writing and plot is a lot more straightforward than his other novels however the impact of the message is still huge and a great read. He doe dystopia really well and the concept of machines essentially running the world for us is one that is especially interesting in the current times where it is becoming more and more of a reality. The characters were all interesting, relatable, funny and realistic but I expected nothing less from this novel.

5/5 stars