The Sirens of Titan

When I started reading this book, after Breakfast of Champions and Slaughterhouse #5 which I read as a young person learning how fucked up the world is, I had a feeling of almost Adamsian lightness of talking about heavy social things. Oh how wrong I was!

So to those who want to venture into this book, a fair warning: expect soul-crushing stuff after every corner. Reading the book is like wandering the caves of Mercury.

The story is very layered and has some twists, so don't be too arrogant if you think you see where it's going. What's more, please think the book through from back to front after you complete it.

There is only one positive character in the book, but I felt so much compassion to another one, and another one later. Which, as I recover from the book hangover[1], I find slightly distressing, but it's a testament to genius of Vonnegut.

Traditionally, I finish my non-specific reviews with a quote:

That's the worst thing you can do, Unk — remembering back," said Brackman. "That's what they put you in the hospital for in the first place — on account of you remembered too much.

[1]: www.cantonpl.org/blogs/post/book-hangovers-and-you/

1) ''When Rumfoord became the first person to own a private space ship, paying fifty-eight million dollars out of his own pocket for it---that was style.
When the governments of the earth suspended all space exploration because of the chrono-synclastic infundibula, and Rumfoord announced that he was going to Mars---that was style.
When Rumfoord announced that he was taking a perfectly tremendous dog along, as though a space ship were nothing more than a sophisticated sports car, as though a trip to Mars were little more than a spin down the Connecticut Turnpike---that was style.
When it was unknown what would happen if a space ship went into a chrono-synclastic infundibulum, and Rumfoord steered a course straight for the middle of one---that was gallantry indeed.''

2) ''Constant had not tried to fly the space ship. He hadn't dared to touch a single control. The controls of Salo's ship were far more complex than those of a Martian ship. Salo's dash panel offered Constant two hundred and seventy-three knobs, switches, and buttons, each with a Tralfamadorian inscription or calibration. The controls were anything but a hunch-player's delight in a Universe composed of one-trillionth part matter to one decillion parts black velvet futility.''