Episode 6: The Sirens of Titan

The Sirens of Titan. I don't know whether it's fair or not for me to say I've become a big reader in the last several years.
I didn't, I was never a huge reader, you know, I didn't read a lot of books.
I listened, I more listened to a lot of podcasts and that sort of content.
And I like to consume things that are educational, enriching and broaden my view of the world.
It's just that reading books was never necessarily the medium through which I did that.
But over the last few years, I've really kind of taken to it.
I've really enjoyed sitting down and reading a combination of things, fiction, nonfiction, things that border on, I don't know, self-help style things, historical kind of stuff.
Again, a bunch of fiction books, just interesting philosophical and psychological things.
I like to expand my horizon in that way.
Um, I was on kind of a kick of a bunch of nonfiction things and, and then, uh, um, actually my wife got this book, um, the, the Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut.
Um, and she got through reading it and she was kind of middling on it.
She was kind of, yeah, it was, it was okay.
And then as a couple of days went behind, she was like, you know, I think I'm coming around on this.
Anyway, I decided that I would read this as well, uh, partly so we could just talk about it.
Um, and then as I got into the book, my God, this, as far as fiction goes, I, I would, I would probably say that this is the best slash my favorite fiction book that I've ever read.
Um, just, just, just, uh, just jaw-droppingly amazing to me for a whole number of reasons.
Um, first of all, this, well, first of all, I find the writing style to be, um, just very fun, easy to read, accessible.
Um, it flew by, um, the particular copy I'm reading, um, you know, a little over 300 pages, not a particularly long book, um, but it just flew by for me.
And some of the chapters, um, are fairly long and, and I, you know, some, I don't know, sometimes you're reading through a book and the chapters are 30, 40 pages long.
I mean, you're kind of like, oh man, this is a long chapter.
Um, some of these chapters were like that, but they just flew by.
There was no sense of, oh my God, this is dragging on.
It just moved and moved the, the, the, the momentum of the writing.
And for me, at least the writing style, a very, in many cases, tongue in cheek, sarcastic, existential sort of, um, writing, uh, really, really hit nicely for me.
It was, it was a very good, um, you know, writing style for me, at least.
This is a book that was written in 1959, which I, I just find incredible.
It, it, it just, it's so, it's just feels light years ahead of its time.
So far ahead of it.
I know light years, not a measurement of time.
Got it.
But so far ahead of its time, for example, it, it goes into, and by the way, some of these things, uh, might border on some spoiler territory.
I'm not, I'm going to try not to hit it, you know, too hard, but, um, just be warned.
Uh, it is a book from 1959.
The things that I really took away from this, um, for instance, it goes into things that you would, that you would probably by today's standards to describe as, as quantum physics ideas.
Now I'm not a physicist, I don't know much about the, I'm not well versed in the timeline of, you know, quantum physics related topics, but I don't, so my point is, I don't know if quantum physics was already a thing being discussed at this time or not.
Maybe it was, I don't, I don't really know.
Um, but one of the characters in the book is, uh, essentially what Dr. Manhattan is, if you're familiar with, um, uh, uh, uh, not mystery men, geez, it's a wrong, wrong IP, uh, watchmen.
Sorry, there we go, uh, from the watchmen, it's this concept of this man who lives at every point in time at the same time.
It's, he has no concept of time because all events are unfolding for him at the same moment, uh, all of the time.
So he both can see everything that has happened, everything that will happen, everything that is happening, but it's not necessarily linear.
It's, it's just all occurring at once.
And, and that's again, 1959, this book was way before, uh, you know, other works like that, that I, that I'm aware of at least.
And now we hear these things all the time, like the multiverse and, you know, people who exist in and out of time and stuff.
But I don't think that, I can't imagine that was commonplace for writing in the late fifties.
Um, so, and there's many things like that, a lot of technology in here.
It's a science fiction book.
Um, so obviously a lot of it is designed to be ahead of its time, but boy, they hit a lot of stuff.
Um, he hit a lot of stuff just right.
Uh, you could definitely tell this was a post-World War II work.
There's a lot of things in here where it comes down to certain themes about war that you can really tell the trauma.
You can feel the trauma from a post-World War II sort of war or world, uh, even a, you know, decade and a half later.
Um, so that theme is definitely there, but all these other things that are very science fiction oriented and, and it's not just science fiction.
This is also very much a philosophy, a work of philosophy, uh, and existentialism.
And again, not getting too deep into spoilers, uh, one of the big themes that runs through this book is just the futility of actions.
This idea that you're, um, whatever any given person or society or planet or, you know, take it out to whatever scale you want, regardless of what they are doing, they're essentially just being used by something even bigger and grander than they are.
And sometimes they're in on that and they know what's happening and sometimes they don't, but regardless of whether they do or don't understand what's happening, there's always something bigger and grander, according to this book, using you for whatever it is you can, whatever momentary temporary value you can provide to them.
Um, just really rings true, um, or at least can ring true from a certain point of view, uh, but just amazing what a theme that runs through this, this book on top of being science fiction on top of other themes on top of being easy to read and accessible and written all that time ago, you know, uh, uh, 65 years ago, um, as of the time of this recording.
Just incredible, uh, just incredible, uh, incredible work.
Um, and, and what's interesting as well, and a couple of little tidbits that I'll share, uh, in just a funny kind of side story in this book, um, they have, they introduce you to the richest man on the planet earth.
Um, who is said to have a total of $3 billion and I just had to chuckle at that through some combination of how, how things have escalated over the, the, the decades, uh, given that the time of this recording, at least, uh, Elon Musk is, is worth 40, I'm sorry, $400 billion compared to the richest man that they, that, that the 1959 could conceive of in a science fiction book at $3 billion.
Um, really something a little different about that.
Other thing I'll say is that it's a very, again, existential, pessimistic, angry, uh, view on things.
It's, it's, it's, it's very, um, uh, what's the word I'm looking for?
It's, it's very down on the values of society and, um, uh, the business world and overall humanity.
And it's, it's, it's very, very, um, pessimistic and angry and sarcastic about these things.
It's a very angsty book at its, at its core.
And then right at the end, uh, and I would say it would be a completely different book if not for the, um, whatever it's called, the epilogue or the, the afterthoughts or whatever, the very last piece of the book.
Which leaves you with this very positive message, uh, ironically, just a complete 180.
And it's not, it doesn't, I've been trying to figure out if it, if it feels untrue.
Like, you know, in, in movies these days, sometimes a movie will be going in one direction and maybe there's creative differences in the studio and, and maybe the director wants to end it one way.
And the studio comes in and says, no, no, no, that's too depressing or too negative or whatever.
You need to end it this other way.
And then you end up with this ending that feels really out of place.
And I can't tell if that's how I feel about this ending, that maybe it was tacked on or if it's really just trying, if it really is genuine and, and what's intended to be the kind of takeaway.
And maybe the author was concerned that without it, people wouldn't necessarily grasp what he was actually trying to get at.
So I don't, I haven't read into this.
I haven't looked it up.
I haven't done any research to see if there's any story there.
But what I can say is that the, the epilogue at the end really closes in a vastly different tone compared to what the rest of the novel appears to be doing, at least in the face of things.
Anyway, I could go on and on about this book.
Actually, my wife and I were having some drinks one night and I think I did go on and on about this book probably for entirely too long.
Um, but I, I really, if you are interested at all in science fiction, uh, or, or just an interesting kind of philosophical work of fiction.
Um, and if you've never read Sirens of Titan, I check it out.
It's a, it's an easy, fun, very deep, at least by my estimation, very deep read or not my estimation, my, um, my evaluation.
And it's enough where I, I, I actually, I'm going to try to pick up some more books, um, from, uh, Vonnegut.
I have never read him before.
I've heard the name, but I've never read anything from him before.
So I would love to see, uh, read some other things because this really impressed me in a way that, um, I'm not sure any book ever has.
So, uh, if you haven't checked it out, highly recommended.
Enjoy.