Saturday, January 26, 2008
Player Piano
This is my second Vonnegut book (the first being Slaughter-House Five) and I fully enjoyed it. It was written in such a way that I often read ahead. I found Anita to be on the same level of annoyance as Daisy from The Great Gatsby. Just as I felt for Gatsby, I felt for Proteus. Proteus struggled with an ability to live the life he wanted. He felt trapped by the expectations of his father's legacy and fulfilling the standard job for his IQ. Vonnegut presents a possibility of technology controlling our lives. The reality is that our society is not that far off. People are incredibly reliant on technology. It scares me. If our society ever reached the point of Ilium's, I would be off in the woods somewhere thinking of Thoreau.
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2 comments:
I personally didn't like the work and I don't give credence to the kind of technological take-over that Vonnegut illustrates but I do agree that our society is headed to a bad place. A place more resembling the kind of terror we saw in 451 maybe. People mindlessly glued to televisions, despising differences and knowingly only what they are they told to know.
...make room for one more in the woods.
I actually agree with both the original post and the comment here. I agree that our society has taken numerous steps, if not bounds, in the wrong direction. I liked omninuto's connection to 451, but I think we are headed more in the direction of Illiad. Automation is an ever-increasing phenomenon in America today, and much human work is becoming obsolete. When individual thought and talent is traded for greater efficiency, a grave injustice has been done to society.
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