The Sirens of Titan

I bought a copy of this book in 1975, having already read it some years earlier, but it's not a book that I reread often.

Reading it now (in 2022), I find that it's fluently written, easy to read, and inventively bizarre, all of which I appreciate. However, I don't like any of the characters, what happens to them is unpleasant, and overall the story is depressing. I have seen it described as a comedy, which goes to show how different people have very different senses of humour.

It seems to be a lengthy sermon on the futility and pointlessness of life. I don't know of any particular point to life myself; but Vonnegut seemed unaware that life can still be pleasant, interesting, and enjoyable, without needing to have any overall purpose to it.

I could give the book two or three stars; I'll give it three for now, rather reluctantly, because after all I have read it at least three or four times in the course of my life, and I think of a two-star book as one I probably won't bother to read more than once. I find it depressing, and I don't enjoy being depressed; and yet its bizarre inventiveness gives it a classic quality, it contains memorable scenes and images.

It reminds me vaguely of Douglas Adams, although it was first published when Adams was about 7 years old. Perhaps it was one of many influences on his fictional style, although Adams would have had to be in a particularly bleak mood to write this kind of story.

In 1975, Al Stewart released his Modern Times album, containing the song “Sirens of Titan”, inspired by the book. I can listen to the song quite happily: it's more pleasant than the book.