Don't Sing us a Song on the Piano Man, The Machines will do it...

DON’T BOTHER SINGING US A SONG ON THE PIANO MAN, THE MACHINES WILL DO IT

I just finished reading Kurt Vonnegut’s first published novel, Player Piano. The book is a dystopian satire written about a world where most human labor has been taken over by machines, and your IQ dictates your standing in life. As a big fan of Vonnegut’s work (hence part of the title of this blog) I was not disappointed by this one. While it admittedly lifts a few themes from Brave New World, if you are a fan of dystopia, against machines taking over the world, a Vonnegut fan, or a casual reader who has maybe read Vonnegut before, I would wholly recommend the book.

The book follows the story of Paul Proteus, a prominent member of the new national industrial order that came into effect after a third world war. (Much of the book is based in Ilium New York, a homage to where he was living at the time) In the world of the book, there are two classes in society: The engineers and managers, and everyone else. The engineers and managers are those who have scored high on national IQ tests, and who have several university degrees to their name who run society and live in nice affluent homes. Anyone who does not fit into that category is destined to live life without a purpose as there are no jobs for anyone else to perform due to machines replacing them all. These commoners either have to join the army, or a public works commission, and everything they own is provided to them by the government. The book also follows a side story about a Shah from a foreign land visiting the United States, perplexed by the system that the government and its industry has put in place.

I thought the story was good, (albeit not as ingenious as his other works such as Slaughterhouse-Five) and the theme was fairly thought provoking. I won’t divulge the details of the plot, but a key takeaway is that humans want to have a purpose, and if you take that away, then there is not a whole lot to live for. The book portrays atechnocratic/meritocratic/corporatocratic governmental gone wrong. While I actually support the idea of a meritocracy or a technocracy, I understand that if taken too far, such a system can be harmful to society, which the book demonstrates well.

One interesting thing about the novel is how it has aged over time. It was originally published in 1952, long before computers that we know it. The computers of the book are all still run by vacuum tubes. There was also a striking level of gender inequality as in the book women only served to be loving wives to their intelligent husbands and they don’t actually contribute much to society at all. I think that is likely a sign of the decade it was written in when families were quite different than they are today. Despite these disconnects with the current day, the overall idea of the world that was created does not stretch the imagination too far, and although improbable, it is not something that is impossible to occur.

Overall, if you have read Vonnegut before, I would definitely recommend adding Player Piano to your book list. If you have never read any of his work, start with Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat’s Cradle, or even Sirens of Titan first, but do eventually get to this one.