Player Piano
Kurt Vonnegut’s first novel, published in 1952, is a witty satire laden with metaphor and sentimentality. Set in a near-future dystopian society where automation and disparaged capitalism have drawn thick lines in the sand between a small wealthy elite of engineers and managers and the unemployed masses.
Inspired by Aldous Huxley’s, A Brave New World, the increasing automation of skilled labor and the rhetoric of GE and other major Corporations of post-World War II America, Vonnegut asks the reader how we can truly define peace, prosperity, progress, and positive quality of life. He asks what the price of human dignity is and questions the ethics of abolishing labor against the will of the people.
Seemingly borrowing Voltaire’s strap line in Candide, Vonnegut determines that man is most satisfied not in a life of ease and luxury but when given toil and labor – that this is the source of dignity.
A novel that reads light and quick but, speaks loudly of social responsibility and welfare, Kurt weaves a tale full of intelligent wit, emotional tides, and a hopeful embrace.
“Without regard for the wishes of men, any machines or techniques or forms of organization that can economically replace men do replace men. Replacement is not necessarily bad, but to do it without regard for the wishes of men is lawlessness.”
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image courtesy of Google and various blogs, et al.
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