Welcome back to the Classics Corner. In the second installment, don't expect me to keep track after this one, I will be discussing Kurt Vonnegut's
The Sirens of Titan. Discussing does not mean reviewing, although this will contain similar aspects to a review, discussing means I will be talking, or writing for you sticklers, about the book without revealing any spoilers. That means no review either. I'm not going to bore you with what happens if the book isn't any good, or ruin the greatness if the book is really good. But enough boring you already, let's get into it.
The Sirens of Titan is about (ok some summary is required) a guy named Malachi Constant who is a dude with a lot of money. Some other rich dude did some dumb thing and now he is scattered throughout time and space but materializes every so often at his home. Malachi meets him there where the guy predicts Malachi will father a son with the guys wife on Mars, and then s three of them will eventually live on Titan, a moon of Saturn.
The rest of the novel becomes somewhat weird which makes it a little confusing. It's weird kind of like how The Number of The Beast was weird, and maybe most of the science fiction works of the time were. Someone may say that weird is to broad of a term and that I need to be more detailed in my description, but I can't. Weird is the perfect term. I need it's generality because I can't quite narrow down what it is I find so weird about the work. I remember having a discussion in college with a girl who said Vonnegut was her favorite author. I had just read Slaughterhouse-Five and really enjoyed it but found it a little odd. I told the girl this, and her response was something to the effect of well that's Vonnegut. So I know I'm not the only one who feels this way.
I picked up The Sirens of Titan as an ebook that was on sale. I had read and enjoyed what most would consider his masterpiece, Slaughterhouse-Five, so I said let me see what another one of his works is like (You will notice that will be a recurring motif throughout these posts). Slaughterhouse-Five is great because I love war stories. Slaughterhouse-Five is a war story that really happened, more or less (see what I did there?). The Sirens of Titan feels to me like it is trying to be a war story, but is too ridiculous. Knowing that Vonnegut was a pacifist, I feel like he did it intentionally, but he over did it by not grounding the ridiculousness of the war in historical human understanding, like World War II.
I would say overall the book works, taking into consideration one's suspension of disbelief, but it is lacking something. Maybe it is because it was only Vonnegut's second novel, so his craft wasn't completely polished yet. maybe it wasn't written from a personal aspect like Slaughterhouse-Five has been. I'm not sure. It was good enough to keep my attention and make me want to finish it, even though I set it aside halfway through so that I could read World War Z, I didn't love the book. I'd say if you're a fan of Vonnegut and/or classic sci fi, then pick it up. If not, then let it pass, but do try to read Slaughterhouse-Five.
