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 la...

Love the One You're WithMost of Vonnegut's enduring tropes start life in Sirens : - Time and its distortions- Places like Newport and Indianapolis- People such as Rumfoord and Ben and Sylvia- The planet Tralfamadore and its inhabitants- And of course the Volunteer Fire DepartmentWhat holds these oddities together is what holds everything of Vonnegut together, an ethical theology. His sci-fi is a way of displacing talk about God just enough to do some serious thinking. And he may indeed have ins...

It took us that long to realize that a purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.That wasn't funny. That wasn't funny at all. In fact I'm heartbroken. I went into this expecting a science fiction/satire but instead I got an emotionally moving story about the meaning of life by none other than one of the greatest writers that ever lived. Period. Malachi Constant is rich, filthy rich and lives a wasteful and feckless life on planet earth. He l...

I'm one of those people who like to pick on the super popular works of SF especially when the literary intelligencia has deemed so-and-so SF writers better than the common hoi polloi. I have to see what is up with them, find a reason to bring them back to the SF fold rather than the claustrophobic Literary BS.So what happens when I pick up Vonnegut and read him?I like him. Again. Damn it. In fact, The Sirens of Titan may be my favorite. It's a toss-up between The Breakfast of Champions and this....

For one thing, according to Epicurean philosophy, the gods are in a state of perfect ataraxia and mind their own business. They have no needs and, although they are omniscient and can observe all points in the space-time continuum, nor do they bother themselves much about us, insignificant human beings. Perhaps the same could be said of the Tralfamadorians in Kurt Vonnegut’s novels. In Slaughterhouse-Five, they abduct poor Billy Pilgrim to their intergalactic zoo and observe with mild interest h...

The Sirens of Titan is the 5th novel I’ve read by Kurt Vonnegut so you can say I am a fan. While it does not compare with Slaughterhouse-five and the Cat’s Cradle it was still good and I enjoyed returning to the humour the absurdity that I love. If you are interested to read Vonnegut I would not recommend starting this one. Any of the two that I mentioned above are a better choice. Trying to summarize a book by Vonnegut is a very hard task to perform without sounding crazy but I will do my best....

‘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 ov...

There are plenty of space travels in The Sirens of Titan but it isn’t a space opera… It is a spaced out satire, a cosmic comedy of manners…Mankind flung its advance agents ever outward, ever outward. Eventually it flung them out into space, into the colorless, tasteless, weightless sea of outwardness without end.It flung them like stones.These unhappy agents found what had already been found in abundance on Earth – a nightmare of meaninglessness without end. The bounties of space, of infinite ou...

“I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all.” ― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of TitanOne of my favorite Vonnegut. Top-shelf. Snug and warm next to Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions, & Mother Night. The magic of Vonnegut is he develops an idea to the point where -- just as you start believing it :: just as you are comfortable in his absuridty -- he kicks you down another Martian rabbit hole. He doesn't want you sitting and enjoying yourself. He wants you constantl...

5 THINGS I KNOW I learned from reading Sirens of Titan 1. Kurt Vonnegut was a brilliantly insightful GENIUS whose brain waves were ever so slightly out of phase with our universe making complete comprehension of his work by the rest of us impossible;2. In the hands of a master, literature can be both incredibly entertaining and soul-piercingly deep;3. Vonnegut had a rock hard MAD on the size of a Dyson Sphere against Organized Religion;4. Winston Niles Rumfoord is a Gigantanormous, Hobbit-blo

I'll start with a roundabout introduction. Garry Kasparov was not just one of the best chessplayers of all time, he was also one of the best analysts. Even as a teenager, he was always coming up with the most amazing ideas. Chessplayers often prefer to hoard their ideas; it can be worth a lot to surprise your opponent in a critical game, and there are many stories about grandmasters keeping a new move in the freezer for years, or even decades. Kasparov asked his trainer if he should be hoarding

The Sirens of Titan, Kurt VonnegutThe Sirens of Titan is a Hugo Award-nominated novel by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., first published in 1959. His second novel, it involves issues of free will, omniscience, and the overall purpose of human history. Much of the story revolves around a Martian invasion of Earth. Malachi Constant is the richest man in a future America. He possesses extraordinary luck that he attributes to divine favor which he has used to build upon his father's fortune. He becomes the cent...

“The bounties of space, of infinite outwardness, were three: empty heroics, low comedy, and pointless death.”Always prophetic. Always relevant. In Kurt Vonnegut's The Sirens of Titan, we accompany Malachi Constant on adventures through time and space. He is unlike any other hero you're likely to read about; Malachi "was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all." The plot, which seems ridiculous and completely random (like those series of accidents), takes on visionary proportions in Vonn...

Salo is a foreign emissary from a risibly-remote planet. He's travelled trillions of light years to deliver a loony-toons message. He's a likeable little gnome. And if you said that's a ridiculous satire on the gee-whiz Boys from NASA spending umpteen gadzilions of Taxpayers' Dollars for a (whoops) Intimately Freudian rocket ship thrusting into deep space, bearing greetings from us poor humanoids - yes, complete with kiddy-like line drawings of two healthy, well-adjusted WASPS (male and female,

3RD READ-THROUGH 4/18/17: Since I was about 19, I’ve been referring to this novel as my “favorite book.” I don’t know if *quite* holds that distinction still, having read a lot more in the succeeding 15 years, but it is STILL, without question one of the best! This book might be the “plottiest” of all of Vonnegut’s novels, while I enjoy the voice later Vonnegut much more (The Sirens of Titan was only his second book) the ideas presented here are deep and varied, lying what is obviously the philo...

Do you read a Vonnegut book, or does the book read you? Does it expose your thoughts to the most detailed analysis of humanity, human behavior, and human mind and then tells you to not give a damn? Except that it also seizes the phrase 'to not give a damn' from your control. Leaves you hanging midair. Questioning.So what to do? What is to be done? Apart from whatever has already been done?You go beyond the story. See Unk staring at you pointedly with a hazy gaze. Figure out if he thinks whether

“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 Slaughterh...

rope-a-dope is a boxing tactic of pretending to be trapped against the ropes, goading an opponent to throw tiring ineffective punches. rope-a-dope is a tactic employed by Winston Niles Rumfoord as he blithely controls the fates of his wife Beatrice, entrepreneur Malachi Constant, the buffoonish and warlike Martians, and of course all of the humans crowding up this planet Earth. they try to push back against this immaterial man, beamed to them with his hound of space Kazak for less than an hour,

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

This is not just one of Vonnegut's best books. It's one of the best books I've ever read.