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Have you read: The Sirens of Titan by Vonnegut? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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If so, do you have an opinion? Somewhat of a polarizing work.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There is not a single Vonnegut book I don't like. Sirens is one of those that's him at his "trippiest", for lack of a better work. The story is secondary to the concepts when he's doing that side of his stuff, like in breakfast of champions and timequake

But it manages to be a good story anyway, which is why I love Vonnegut. His self character, Kilgore Trout is a caricature of himself as he sees himself, where he thinks he comes to with great ideas and then fumbles them at least a little. But it's more the opposite, where he comes to with some wacky ideas, but uses his gentle touch on things to make them work well.

It isn't my favorite, I can't pretend otherwise, but it is a great read

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Love your username.

This is precisely what I mean by polarizing, haha. What's your favourite idea from the book?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The entire chrono-synclastic infundibulum.

It's the absurb beauty of it that tickles me most. Like, a cosmic and quantum meeting of the minds of sorts.

I giggled like a loon when I first read it. Then I realized that there's a deeper thought behind it. The concept of subjective truth, it's kinda mind blowing to me. That there doesn't have to be objective truth for the universe to function.

Vonnegut always liked to play with the idea of free will and how we can never truly know that it exists. The infundibulum idea suggests that our free will might choose determinism, and may have always done so. Which, is a tad of a stretch, I'll admit, but I think that's part of the beauty of Vonnegut's writing, that it makes you stretch your thoughts.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

No wonder so many stoners love his writing, hah! Yeah, it does do that now and again. Almost Terry Pratchett in that way, now that I reflect upon it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I really like Vonnegut's writing, but his concepts drive me nuts. They seem like a teenager, high, has an idea, doesn't think about the secondary effects, but becomes obsessed with the primary effect. Then writes a story to retroactively justify the primary effect.

Some people have unfair advantages. Well, obviously, give everyone a disability to even it out! What could possibly go wrong?

Writing: 8/10. Concepts: 3/10. ;)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Havnt read much Vonnegut, can you give some examples of this?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Huh. Okay, let me see if I can find a representative passage, that is simultaneously very well written, and annoyingly full of platitudes.

Her talent was as a poetess. She had published anonymously a slim volume of poems called Between Timid and Timbuktu. It had been reasonably well received.

The title derived from the fact that all the words between timid and Timbuktu in very small dictionaries relate to time.

But, well-endowed as Mrs. Rumfoord was, she still did troubled things like chaining a dog’s skeleton to the wall, like having the gates of the estate bricked up, like letting the famous formal gardens turn into New England jungle.

The moral: Money, position, health, handsomeness, and talent aren’t everything.

Malachi Constant, the richest American, locked the Alice-in-Wonderland door behind him. He hung his dark glasses and false beard on the ivy of the wall. He passed the dog’s skeleton briskly, looking at his solar-powered watch as he did so. In seven minutes, a live mastiff named Kazak would materialize and roam the grounds.

"Kazak bites," Mrs. Rumfoord had said in her invitation, "so please be punctual."

Constant smiled at that—the warning to be punctual. To be punctual meant to exist as a point, meant that as well as to arrive somewhere on time. Constant existed as a point—could not imagine what it would be like to exist in any other way.

Six paragraphs, some witty remarks, a throwback to a remark (like a good comedy routine), and several observations that sound like they could be made as part of a valedictorian speech if written by ChatGPT.

"To learn my teachings, I must first teach you to learn." No, wait, that was the Sphinx from Mystery Men. ;)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

yea, thats a lot of words to place-set, but doesn't seem to actually say anything.

Definitly one of my problems is i'm not a detail oriented reader. i learned a bad habit at a young age just to.. skip parts of sentances if i feel that i know what its going to say, and that the sentence is boring... and that writing would totally trigger that problem of mine.

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