I recently finished Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut. I haven’t read a novel in a while and it was a nice change of pace. Vonnegut was one of my favorite authors in junior high and this book reminded me why. He is one of those great authors that addresses the fundamental questions of life through his masterful writing style. A fifth grader and a college professor could read this book and both walk away having enjoyed it in different ways. There is drama, mystery and adventure along with philosophy sprinkled in. I plan on devouring many more of his books throughout the upcoming year.
Sirens of Titan can be described as a sci-fi. It is set in the 22nd century on earth but the journey spans across our solar system. Earth, Mars, Venus and Titan are all different scenes of this drama. Vonnegut gives enough details to create a believable reality but doesn’t get lost in the weeds by over explaining and thus over complicating things for the reader. It is a novel about free will and fate essentially. The effort put forth by Malachi Constant, the protagonist, to outrun his destiny only pushes him further into its’ vice grips after hearing the prophecy from Winston Niles Rumfoord (the time traveler) that he will end up on Titan after going to Mars, Mercury and back to Earth. Malachi ironically used a pseudonym by the name of Jonah Rowley in the beginning of the book after his first meeting with Rumfoord in which he learned of his supposed fate. Much like Jonah from the Bible a force far stronger than his ‘free will’ was in control all along. Additionally the original name of his spaceship was The Whale.
I want to be careful in not spoiling this wonderful book but there will be points that I have to make note of. After Malachi squanders his fortune in attempts to avoid being taken to Mars, he is in fact taken by the Martian military and subsequently has his memory erased. The reader is introduced to a seemingly new character on Mars, Unk is his name. The first thing we learn of Unk is that he kills his best friend under military orders after his memory was erased, “Unk didn’t recognize his best friend at the stake. Unk didn’t recognize anybody. Unk wouldn’t have even known his own name was Unk, wouldn’t even have known he was a soldier, if they hadn’t told him so when they discharged him from the hospital.” He comes to realize from a hidden journal his identity and that he has a wife and child on Mars. He searches for them but finds them very disinterested in him. After Mars invades earth (Winston Rumfoord’s army), Unk and his partner Boaz are ‘accidentally’ launched over to Mercury to be stranded for two years. It is important to note that Earth decimates the Martian invasion.
After Mercury, Unk continues his journey alone because his partner Boaz finds Mercury to be his new home. Boaz says in their parting scene, “I found me a place where I can do good without doing any harm, and I can see I’m doing good…” After Mercury, Unk crash lands on earth outside of the Church of God the Utterly Indifferent only to find out that Winston Rumfoord had created this religion after the war with Mars (which he initiated) and prophesied Unk’s coming on the exact time, date and location. Unk is reunited with his wife, Bee and son, Chrono only to find out that Bee was Rumfoord’s wife before her memory was wiped, his son is a juvenile delinquent and he himself is Malachi Constant. After a public spectacle, they are launched into space to Titan. At this point I will leave the summary where it is as not to spoil it further. I left out plenty of details and simply gave an idea of the storyline which I hope is of interest at this point.
Sirens of Titan is about who we are, who we think we are and a look at ourselves over time. It is about the forces that are in fact outside of our control and how people fit into that process. Throughout the novel, Malachi undergoes radical transformations during his own odyssey across our solar system. Beginning as a man consumed with the things of this world and having access to all his carnal desires is thrust out to the stars, loses his memory (our most precious possession) and is changed by this fate. I think a lot of people look up after decades and do not recognize the person in the mirror not only that but cannot remember who they were before. The characters that have their memory wiped, and slowly find out their past lives and at times how terrible they were. They attempt to make sense of their sins and failures in different ways. Towards the end, Malachi Constant’s wife reflects, “Could we have done any better if he’d left us in charge of our own lives? Would we have become any more or any less?” Vonnegut masterfully weaves the big picture questions into this fictional adventure. This book and author still has a lot of relevance in today’s world and it is a hard one to put down.
Written by Michael McPhail
Kurt Vonnegut
Brains and Brawn 