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The thought that always dominates my mind when reading Vonnegut is the wish that I had read him when I was younger. I also wish that more young people come to read him and love his work. The reason for this is that he presents a way of looking at life and living that is kinder, gentler, and wiser than what our current society tends to teach us. He does not use any religious dogma to arrive at his wonderful perspective. He has a remarkable ability to put a smile on our faces, all the while criticizing our values and worldviews. He manages to do this in 'The Sirens of Titan' as well.

I did enjoy this book, and it did make me think of my own perspectives and values. I thought this book was the strongest towards the beginning and towards the end. The middle part is slightly sluggish but not bad in any way. While I liked Slaughterhouse-five a bit more, that could be just because that book was my first introduction to Vonnegut. I heartily recommend 'The Sirens of Titan' to anyone, especially to the younger audience.

The author's key strength is his ability to effectively explain complex topics in layman's terms using analogies. That helps a lot in this book, considering its complex topic - Consciousness. I found myself almost always agreeing with the author's idea about the existence/non-existence of the 'self'. Since I am not well-read on this topic, I will reserve from commenting too much on the topic of the 'self'. Instead, I will say that the author does a decent job of presenting the arguments objectively. And this is quite hard to achieve for a complex philosophical topic while keeping the text light and understandable.
The only minor complaint I have was that towards the end there are some sections - talking about musical tastes and their relation to the idea of self - that I found a bit out of place. I would not hold this against the author as the rest of the book was impressive.
I am thinking now that even though I mostly agree with the ideas in the book, I wonder if I think through the implications of these ideas deeply, I might be blown over by their power. I hope that this book will inspire me to think more deeply.

This is my first Murakami book. And I really liked his style of writing. Murakami has a knack for capturing beauty, mood, and scenery perfectly. And that is what stood out for me among all the magical realism and philosophical ideas in the book. Just like how reality can be modeled by mathematics in a much better way if imaginary numbers are used, with skillful writers like Murakami, magical worlds can convey the truth and real feelings better than hyper-realism. I do not claim to have solved all the riddles the plot posed, but I doubt that is the point of the book. Unlike his mastery of building and conveying the mood and beauty, Murakami's attempt at conveying philosophical ideas is not as successful. Some of the philosophical ideas unintentionally felt like funny philosophical arguments written by Douglas Adams. But that is just a minor gripe I have in an otherwise wonderful book. This book reminded me of the narrative style of the movie 'Mulholland Drive' by David Lynch. It has the same dreamy, interwoven narrative.

Recommended! I look forward to reading more Murakami books.

This is definitely a well-written book that always keeps the reader's interest. But is it a great book that deserves all the accolades it has gotten? I am not so sure. I felt that the plight of the Indian poor in the 'darkness' is wonderfully captured in the book and the author's clean, clear style makes us think from the perspective of the central character, Balram. The author also manages to capture some genuinely wonderful and funny moments. I am also thankful that the author stays away from sentimentality. [spoiler ahead] But the book becomes a little shaky when the author attempts to capture how Balram, after feeling trapped, decides to break free of his shackles by murdering his boss. How did he go from feeling the need to escape to murdering his boss for stealing the money? The abruptness felt while reading this novel about Balram's decision to kill his master is because the author seems to have formed the big picture of the plot first and then searched for Balram's motivations.

You see this whole idea of Balram feeling like the 'White Tiger' has a bit of overlap with some interpretations of Nietzsche's 'Ubermensch' - where a superior man escapes his shackles. As can be seen in world history, such ideas of 'White Tiger' or 'Ubermensch' indeed generate a passion and interest but can be interpreted badly to lead to terribly bad choices.

To be clear, this is indeed a very well-written novel, though I do not feel it is as great as some critics and award committees would like us to think. The movie 'Parasite', which came years after this book was published, has some overlapping elements with this story. I found 'Parasite' well-made and funny, but thought it was also totally weird towards the end. This book is much better than the Parasite movie for sure.