Review: “The Sirens of Titan” by Kurt Vonnegut

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🛸I grabbed this one with no prior knowledge of the plot. When it comes to Vonnegut I suppose I like to jump in blindly. TST is set in a futuristic time period where there is a human settlement on Mars and war rages on Earth. It begs the question “why” and it takes reading about 75% in to get an answer.

🛸 I found this constellation of characters to be super interesting but less compelling than “Mother Night” but that’s probably just my historical fic > fantasy bias. Given that the whole story is set in the future, Vonnegut’s creativity is boundless. His dark humor and sardonic energy build as cosmic ridiculousness escalates in TST. I can easily see how authors like Douglas Adams took their inspiration from Vonnegut. Was Beetlejuice a tribute?

🛸 Thematically Vonnegut’s characters do everything in their power to assert their free will and fail constantly. Malachi Constant is drawn into a cosmic journey across Mars, Mercury, and Titan, but Vonnegut captures the sense he is being launched into the void by forces beyond his control. There is deep melancholy underneath the wonder at his surroundings and his fate.

🛸 Unlike his literary contemporaries who wrote of culture, foibles, and love of NY, Vonnegut’s gaze often reverted to his hometown of Indianapolis. Malachi speaks of its people as “the kind of people for him” upon reading a historic account of Indy beng the first American city to hang a white man for the crime of killing a Native American.

🛸 A few futuristic or space-fantasy recommendations if you are intrigued by SOT. “The Hitchhiker’s Guide” cranks up the humor, but the satirical intent is Vonnegutesque for sure. Both books employ comic sci-fic to tackle existential dread. You can find a comparison of these two below.

🛸 Hitchhiker’s Guide vs. SOT

Common ground: 

Both feature ordinary (or absurdly wealthy) men flung across the universe by forces completely beyond their control. In both novels, the cosmos is revealed to be arbitrary and indifferent to humanity. HG and SOT feature a deadpan, ironic narrator. And finally, both satirize religion, government, and human self-importance with gleeful abandon.

Where do they differ?

Tone: Adams is fundamentally warmer and sillier — the universe is absurd but the joke is mostly gentle and Adams never comes close to taking himself or the universe seriously. Vonnegut’s absurdism has bite. He will make you laugh, but you’ll feel the emptiness too.

Free will: Both books strip their protagonists of agency, but Adams plays it for comedy while Vonnegut forces his characters to truly reckon with their lack of control over their destinies.

🚨🚨SPOILER🚨🚨

Resolution: This is the biggest difference. Adams leaves Arthur Dent perpetually adrift — the universe never offers a neat conclusion. Vonnegut actually gives Malachi Constant something close to grace which Adams would absolutely balk at.