Book Report: Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut

Annamaria on Monday

I have a penchant for re-reading books by my favorite authors.  This past week I started in on the the too-long-neglected early works of one of my absolute all-time favorites, Kurt Vonnegut.

Vonnegut in my house

I began with his debut novel: Player Piano, published in 1952.  I found it more delightful, more inspiring, and mirabile dictu, more prescient than it was when I first read it in 1964.

The setting is what was then imagined to be the near future, a dystopian America, where machines have displaced just about the entire workforce, except the engineers and managers.  The story follows two central characters: Dr. Paul Proteus, a top engineer who develops doubts about the dehumanized society men of his ilk have created and the Shah if Bratpuhr, spiritual leader of six million in an imaginary country.  Who would have thought then how a Middle Eastern potentate in a story would resonate as he does today?

By Vonnegut's own admission, he "cheerfully ripped off the plot of Brave New World, whose plot had been cheerfully ripped off from Yevgeny Zamyatin's We."  He was disteressed when reviewers called the book "science fiction," a genre he felt was "shoved into drawer which most reviewers regularly mistake...for a urinal."  That rule of thumb to the contrary not withstanding, the book got some great reviews.  It was nominated for, but evidently did not win, the International Fantasy award in 1953.

For me, it is amazingly relevant to our times. Look carefully at the first edition cover above.  "America in the Coming Age of Electronics" it says.  The domination of the world by electronics was not on most people's radar sixty-seven years ago.  Today talk shows and podcasts regularly discuss the dehumanizing  effects of people staring screens all day long. But in the 1950s, so soon after WWII, mass proaction was seen as an unalloyed blessing, considering that the might of US manufacturing had won the war for the Allies.

Vonnegut's  story is prescient in other ways too.  My favorite this time around is his portrayal of the President of the United States.  In Player Piano, he is described as a man who "had gone directly from a three-hour television program to the White House.  In giving a speech, he reads “order out of chaos” as “order out of koze.”

Then there are the insights into the human condition and the prose style.

This:

“Well, you know, in a way I wish I hadn’t met you two. It’s much more convenient to think of the opposition as a nice homogeneous, dead-wrong mass. Now I’ve got to muddy my thinking with exceptions.” 

And this:

"The machines and the institutions of government were so integrated that trying to attack one without damaging the other was like trying to remove a diseased brain in order to save a patient."

And this:

“Bodies lay everywhere, in grotesque attitudes of violent death, but manifesting the miracle of life in a snore, a mutter, the flight of a bubble from the lips.” 

And... Oh, heck!  Read the book.  

Personal Aside:

"Joe Taylor"

I have been completely in love with Kurt Vonnegut since the first of his books that I read - The Sirens of Titan.  (I am rereading it now and loving it again the third time through.)  One morning in 1973, I came face to face with my idol. About a year into starting my own consulting practice, I became a charter member of the nascent New York Women Business Owners Association.  At our first Breakfast Gala, we honored three women - Gloria Steinem,   Eleanor Holmes Norton, and Jill Krementz (who I knew was married to Kurt Vonnegut).  At the reception before the meal, mimosa in hand, I strolled over to a round table to collect some crackers and cheese. There across from me, doing the same, was a man with an an unmistakable face and head of hair.  But his name badge said "Joe," something - maybe Taylor.  He looked at me.  I asked, "Truth be told, Joe, who are you?"  He pointed to his badge and said, "Joe Taylor."  I said.  "Would you do me a favor, Joe?"  He said, "Sure."  I pointed to my badge and said, "If you ever meet Kurt Vonnegut, would you tell him that Patricia King loves him?" He promised he would.

Greece Is Slaughtering Its Elephants.

What elephants?  Bear with me (no pun) and you'll see.

Forty years ago, amid another life, I attended an event in a close friend’s Upper Eastside NYC apartment filled with glitterati out of a Dominick Dunne novel.  The nation was in turmoil, torn apart and galvanized into intractable positions over the Vietnam War.  That night we were introduced to a decorated navy man and his organization, John Kerry and Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

It was a fundraiser and I was standing next to a local TV reporter buddy I suspected felt just as fiscally out of place in that crowd as did I.  I still smile when I think of him leaning over and whispering to me, “Jeffrey, what are we doing here?”  Today, that’s not a question Geraldo Rivera would likely ask in any crowd.:)

The highlight of the evening came when I was introduced to a group of three men chitchatting in a corner.  They graciously brought me into their conversation, though to be honest—and as hard as it may be to believe—my total contribution was a star-struck “hello” and on-cue nods to the back and forth among Messers Kevin McCarthy (actor and brother of author Mary McCarthy), Andy Warhol, and Kurt Vonnegut.

It was all a blur, except for one comment made by Kurt Vonnegut that I shall never forget.  And perhaps never fully understood until this morning as I contemplated what to write for today’s post.

Kurt Vonnegut, 1922-2007

In response to a question from Kevin McCarthy about what each regretted most about The War, Vonnegut said, “The elephants.  The slaughter of the elephants.”

Yes, elephants are a symbol of strength, honor, stability, and patience; a vibrant bulldozer of obstacles to success.   But I didn’t see that, and my immediate reaction I dared not voice: “What an isolated, intellectually pretentious thing to say in the face of all the human suffering experienced there every day.”

That just goes to show how little I knew then…or now.

I doubt there is an informed individual anywhere on earth who is unaware of Greece’s fiscal crisis.  On top of that, each day more learn of a homegrown terrorist organization seeking to cleanse “their” country of those they believe are not “true Greeks.”

But this is not about any of that, for ultimately Greece alone will bear the burdens of its fiscal and national identity decisions. Yes, there will be financial turmoil in world markets and undoubtedly some will suffer, but the world will adjust and go on to prosper.  

No, this is about the ongoing slaughter of Greece’s elephants.

The best and brightest of the nation’s youth are fleeing Greece in torrents unmatched in decades.  They see no future in an economy geared to protecting the connected and already successful, where all the bickering and battles between those in favor of and those opposed to the status quo are seen only as words, and change is not expected no matter whom the ultimate victor.

I ask you Greece, does it really matter who wins if you’ve slaughtered your elephants? 

Jeff—Saturday