Good - all his anger about human stupidity without the tics of his later stuff.

This is the best Vonnegut despite the popularity of Slaughterhouse Five and others. The episode about the harmoniums is poetry. ( )

When I had to choose my free choice novel for my summer reading immediately one author came to mind; Kurt Vonnegut. Having finished Slaughterhouse-Five, which I loved, I knew I had to read another one of his works, so I decided on The Sirens of Titan. Just like when I read Slaughterhouse-Five, The Sirens of Titan blew me away. The plot is constantly twisting and turning and Vonnegut’s writing style is simply amazing. Vonnegut utilizes many different writing techniques from symbolism, metaphors, similes, repetition, and foreshadowing. I was constantly motivated to keep on reading because I never knew what exactly was going to happen next. At times one of the characters, Winston Niles Rumfoord who could travel through time and see the future, would give some insight on what was to happen or to come, however the details of how it happened or if it was true was not given and I had to keep reading to find out. I found that over all the story line for The Sirens of Titan was easier to follow then that of Slaughterhouse-Five.
Vonnegut had an amazing ability to use metaphors and similes to help describe the environment in which the main characters were surrounded by. This was essential because without vivid details the reader would not be able to connect with the characters and understand the situations in which they were placed. The main character, Malachi Constant also known as Unk and the Space Wanderer, travels from Earth, which most readers are familiar with, to Mars and Titan of which I was not familiar with. Through Vonnegut’s vivid details I was able to see the surroundings perfectly. Another major writing technique that Vonnegut used was symbolism. Malachi Constant’s name throughout the book was a symbol itself and in my opinion the most important one. Vonnegut used Constant to mock society and how it was obsessed with material wealth. In the beginning when Malachi Constant is referred to as Constant he exemplifies how society is corrupted by material wealth. Then when Constant is referred to as Unk, Constant exemplifies how material wealth is not a necessity of life or society and that one can lead a productive life without material wealth. However I found that in the beginning when Malachi Constant was referred to as Constant and then when he was referred to as Unk he exemplified two different extremes. Then when Constant was referred to as the Space Wanderer he was the middle and a perfect balance of those two extremes, however one thing was still missing. That final missing piece came when Constant was sent off to the moon Titan with his son, Chrono, and mother of his son Beatrice who was also known as Bee. The final missing piece for Constant was love. At the end of the book Constant finally gained the loved of Beatrice and was once again referred to as Malachi Constant. I believe that this symbolizes how Constant came full circle and in the end he learned and found what was really important, and thus the true meaning of life, in Vonnegut’s opinion.
I enjoyed The Sirens of Titan very much. Kurt Vonnegut still remains as one of my all time favorite American authors. Once again he was able to criticize the flaws of human society and attempt to answer questions deemed unanswerable. What makes him so great is the style in which he did it. He utilized many different writing techniques; he had amazing syntax and diction which molded the surroundings into perfect form for the reader. Overall I would have to say that I enjoyed The Sirens of Titan a little bit more than Slaughterhouse-Five, but both are amazing books. ( )

amazon review: Kurt Vonnegut's second SF novel was published way back in 1959 but remains horribly timeless. For all the book's wild inventiveness, it's one of the most blackly nihilistic comedies ever published in the genre. The tragicomic godgame is presided over by Winston Niles Rumfoord, who has accidentally become a standing wave in space/time and knows the past and the future. Since the future is fixed, he can't change it even though it involves him arranging nasty fates for many people--in particular Malachi Constant, richest man in the world since his father's career of interpreting the Bible as a coded guide to the stockmarket. Despite his struggles, Constant is destined for a grimly comic pilgrimage around the Solar System to Titan, home since 203,117 BC of the visiting alien Salo whose presence has warped the whole of human history. Salo's far-off people manipulated us into building Stonehenge, the Great Wall of China and other vast constructions as reassuring signals to their stranded emissary--who himself is carrying a message of truly cosmic unimportance. Small wonder that Rumfoord tries to cheer up humanity by founding the Church of God the Utterly Indifferent. Vonnegut scatters crazed ideas in all directions, forcing you into painful laughter at the grandiose futility of his cosmos. Another worthy Millennium SF Masterworks classic.

The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. begs the question of just how will Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. be remembered. In fact, will he be remembered at all? I found the book to be well in step with his early novels. There is a time travelling man and dog who appear regularly appear on Earth wondering about the house where the man's disgruntled wife spends her days fighting off tourists and religious fanatics who want to see the space man. There is the richest man in the world who loses his fortune and finds himself on a rocket ship bound for Jupiter. There is an alien from Tralfamador, marooned on Titan, one of Jupiter's moon's, waiting through the centuries for the replacement part his rocket needs to arrive. And there is the suicidal Martian invasion of Earth that ends in the creation of a new religion, The Church of God the Utterly Indifferent.

It's all in good fun with a dash or two of metaphysics thrown in. Maybe a splash of social criticism here and there for good measure. I enjoyed it, but I also found it very 60's. I've been reading Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. most of my life, probably for the last 30 years. Now that I've finished this one, I think I've read all of his published work, so you can count me as a fan. But I wonder if anyone will be reading him two or three generations from now. If they are, I suspect they'll be reading Slaughterhouse Five. Maybe a few graduate students will still be reading the rest of his novels, but I'm not sure.

It feels natural to wonder about this regarding Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. since so many of his books, The Sirens of Titan included, deal with the issue of time and the notion that all time exists simultaneously. Everything that will happen has already happened. The time travelling man and dog in The Sirens of Titan are like Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse Five, unstuck in time and space. They travel to the future and back, from planet to planet, experiencing it all as happening at once. Billy Pilgrim could choose which parts of his life he could visit. I hope Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. can, too. That seems like a fitting heaven for him, a paradise he might want to visit now and then. Actually, it doesn't sound that bad to me, either. ( )