The Sirens of Titan

{4.5/5} “Winston Niles Rumfoord had run his private space ship right into the heart of an uncharted chrono-synclastic infundibulum two days out of Mars. Only his dog had been along. Now Winston Niles Rumfoord and his dog Kazak existed as wave phenomena — apparently pulsing in a distorted spiral with its origin in the Sun and its terminal in Betelgeuse.”

Rumfoord drove his space ship into a chrono-synclastic infundibulum, and now he’s an unwitting traveller through time and space. He asks that Malachi Constant, the richest man in America, visit him on his next regular appearance on Earth. Constant arrives, hoping to find out something about his future. He does, but it’s pretty unbelievable.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.’s The Sirens of Titan was published in 1959.

What would you do if you discovered that your actions had been controlled by someone else? It’s an easy to read, thoughtful book about the meaning of life, religion, and the army. Vonnegut is very funny — not the same as but along the trajectory of Douglas Adams. He’s also timeless — aside from a small number of word choices the book doesn’t feel dated at all.

I’ve previously read and enjoyed Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five.

I’ve read the books I’m planning to read in the top 50 of the list. A fair amount of my reading (including The Sirens of Titan) for the next few months will be in the 51 – 100 part of the list. As usual, I will also continue to read some books by authors I like and some books based on suggestions from friends.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 23rd, 2012 at 7:07 pm and is filed under Reviews of books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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