Book Report: Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut

We live about a mile from a really cool sci-fi and mystery bookstore, Uncle Hugo's & Uncle Edgar's, and until a couple of weeks ago, we'd never darkened their door. I found a really cool mass-market paperback copy of The Sirens of Titan (very similar to the one pictured above, but in even better condition) by Kurt Vonnegut for $4. The store is extremely cool, and it gave me an excuse to read one of Vonnegut's books that I'd never read before. I would like to know enough about sci-fi to purchase a book by someone who I was less familiar with, but that's a goal for a different day, I guess.

Most of the enjoyment that I got from reading the book came from some unexpected twists in the plot, so I'll try not to spoil any of the surprises that I enjoyed here. The Sirens of Titan was Vonnegut's second novel, after Player Piano, and came out a decade before Slaughterhouse-Five. It didn't seem like his satirical knife was quite as finely-honed as it was by the time Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat's Cradle came out. The main themes (which I certainly enjoy) of the absurdity of both war and organized religion are firmly in place in The Sirens of Titan, but they seemed to have benefited from some additional reps by the time of his later works.

The main character of The Sirens of Titan is Malachi Constant, who begins the book as the richest man on earth. Fellow rich person Winston Niles Rumfoord is in some sort of cosmic loop where he and his dog materialize at different times in different places, and Rumfoord can see the future. There's a war fought by Martians who invade Earth, and a religion which emphasizes both God's disinterest in humans as well as the disproportionate influence which luck has over humans' outcomes. Constant is brought low, goes to Mars, then to Mercury, and then back briefly to Earth before heading to Titan, a moon of Saturn, where he's reunited with Rumfoord's wife, whom he raped on the initial voyage to Mars, and their son who was conceived at that time.

The Sirens of Titan is a good book, but it left me slightly cold. None of the characters seemed to be intended to be fully recognizable or relatable as human. That left the story to do the heavy lifting, and while it's very imaginative and swiftly plotted, I wasn't emotionally invested in any of the characters' outcomes.