The Sirens of Titan

Rating:
Summary: Vonnugut Explains Why We are Here
Review: The Sirens of Titan is an unusually sprawling work by Vonnegut that manages to fit a man and his dog's inadvertent travels through time and space, Earth invaded by Mars and the possible answer to that age old question, "Why are we here?" Of course, if you are hoping for an uplifting answer to that question, then you shouldn't read this or any book by Kurt Vonnegut.

In Sirens, Winston Niles Rumfoord, a wealthy playboy, takes his privately funded spaceship, along with his beloved pooch and drives it straight into a chrono-synclastic infundibulum, for no better reason than to see what it will do. As Vonnegut would say, this is what happened - Rumford and his dog become space/time travelers who reappear whenever their waveforms intercept Earth or some other similar obstacle in the vast vacuum of space. Since this time-space chrono-synclastic infundibulum allows Rumfoord to see everything that ever has happened or will happen, it allows him to create a new religion complete with 100% guaranteed predictions and miracles.

This religion, The Church of God the Utterly Indifferent, is merely a launching point for Vonnegut to troll his usual themes of human suffering, the search for meaning in an indifferent world and to make pointed political and social observations.

Unlike many writers, Vonnegut doesn't feel the need to create pseudo-science to explain why the things that happen do so. Rather, he just says it happened and here's what occurs because of it. A very clean way to get right to the point and keep the narrative moving along.

The book is extremely funny, oddly moving and sticks with you long after you get to the end where our lives are summed up in a manner that very few would anticipate. This is one of my favorite books by Vonnegut, along with Breakfast of Champions, and is well worth reading and then passing on to friends.