Reddit discussion

Welcome to the February book discussion!

As you all are by now hopefully aware, we are reading The Sirens of Titan. We will be reading and discussing throughout the month. If you would like to add a new discussion questions, send it to me and I'll start a new topic.

Of course, you can talk about whatever you want, but the questions make a good place to start.

Since this is the first week, I think we'll just do something general...

QUESTION #1

What do you think so far? General impressions? Overall sense of where the story is going?

Please use the spoiler tag if needed!

First impression:

Huh...where the hell is this story going? Also, chick is kind of a bitch.

You said you were dying to talk about it yesterday - what else are you thinking?

Would you be a bit bitchy in her position?

Honestly? Not in the slightest.

Were I in that position, I'd be trying to figure out how it happened, how to make the best of it, and if there were a possibility of some sort of profit.

Instead she locks herself away behind giant walls and an Alice in Wonderland doorway. Complaining about it all.

Having finished the story, I can see where her actions/behavior stem. But she's still comes off as bitchy to me.

Also: Malachi? I'd totally party with him.

I think she's bitchy in the beginning because she is a slave to the life that was not her choice to live. Her husband shows up every little while and tries to tell her what her future is, but she doesn't want to hear it because she can't stand the notion that she isn't in control of her own destiny. I still haven't finished the book, but that's the impression I got from the intro bit.

Was it a problem? Actually funny? Annoying?

I'm about halfway through it, and I like it a lot. I don't think Beatrice is a bitch, I think the way she acts is just sort of a product of her upbringing (in the "one true American class") and the circumstances.

It's not just that Vonnegut likes time travel, he needs it. It's hard to mix fatalism and atheism and still tell a story. His characters are clearly not in control of their lives. There's no divine plan either. For them, it's just one damn thing after another. So, Vonnegut needs someone else to show the reader how the pieces fit together. To show that it's not just bunch of random crap thrown together, but that there's a meaning, or a least a pattern. Weary time traveller enter stage left.

I guess I expected a different experience but after about 30 pages I've stopped reading this.
Perhaps his other books are more interesting but this one wasn't particularly appealing. I was looking forward to this book group and subsequent discussions, guess I'll wait for March's book!

I know... I know...
I'm reading about 8 books at the moment so it has to engage my almost immediately (I Am Legend did this very well).
I just can't see this picking up, I feel I've garnered what the style is like and am not that excited by it.

My two cents on the Beatrice as bitch theme: a desire for perfection can easily lead to the desire to control everything in one's surroundings. What can be less easily controlled than a husband who just appears and definitely has more than his fair share of knowledge about the span of time, including the future? Sure, his appearances follow a predictable schedule, but even that can lead to anxiety. What happens if he doesn't appear when he should or appears too early? As for where the perfectionism first arose, to some extent once a person is so entrenched as she clearly is, that likely doesn't make a difference.

Doesn't explain it all, but I think it's one aspect to consider.

"I just can't see this picking up, I feel I've garnered what the style is like and am not that excited by it."

@ Andy - Well, that's your call but you're really missing out. Give it a couple chapters before you make up your mind, though.

@ denae "a desire for perfection can easily lead to the desire to control everything in one's surroundings"

Oooo, this is good.

Does anyone else see this as a repeating theme? The need for control and how it shapes a person? Any other examples come to mind?

"Most of his works are grim, hilarious, and never annoying IMO. That guy just really likes incorporating time travel. It's a knack he's got as a writer."

"It's hard to mix fatalism and atheism and still tell a story. "

@ Zygo and Vlad

What are your feelings of substituting one higher power for another?

Isn't that cheating, a bit?

I've completed the book, so I can't really answer "What do you think so far? General impressions? Overall sense of where the story is going?"

@Ryan "What are your feelings of substituting one higher power for another?

Isn't that cheating, a bit?"

I don' believe so. I look at substituting god for someone that is god like follows Clarke's law saying "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". Vonnegut is using the chrono-synclastic infundibulum to turn Rumfoord into a god, instead of magic.

but is vonnegut really substituting one higher power for another?

at the end of chapter 2, rumfood laments his own lack of power in this situation. "stop and think sometime about the roller coaster i'm on. some day on titan, it will be revealed to you just how ruthlessly i've been used, and by whom, and to what disgusting paltry ends." (pp. 60 - 61) although he's been granted godlike powers of time travel through the infundibulum, he's just as human as bea and malachi.

obviously, the need for control is an integral theme in the book simply because it's an inherant part of human behavior. bea requires control; it's an ingrained part of her character. (leaving the roller coaster ride because it's dirty, the painting of her as a austere and clean little girl.) as she can't control anyone but herself, she locks herself inside the estate and panics at the forthcoming roller coaster, even refusing to see her husband until he promises to assist her in regaining control. perhaps she's not that different from bobby denton and the love crusaders, hiding behind great brick walls instead of a religious tome to avoid the realities of reality.

what's control to malachi and rumfoord? it seems so far like rumfoord simply accepts that he is out of control and that he's following a predetermined path (everything that has ever existed still exists and everything that's going to exist has already existed - it's like a mobius strip of destiny.)

instead of surrendering (rumfoord) or hiding (bea), malachi chooses to fight his future by making himself "unworthy of any destiny."

i guess we'll see which of these three paths is the most successful shortly. which do y'all think is the most appropriate? does your choice have anything to do with your religious beliefs?

@Ryan
What are your feelings of substituting one higher power for another?

Isn't that cheating, a bit?

No, I don't think it's cheating. But I do find it ironic. We anthropomorphize to understand. So, search for higher meaning always ends up looking like search for higher power, even for atheists.
To me, Rumfoord is effectively a 'TL;DR" to the book itself. If God was like so, human life would be...

@Heather
instead of surrendering (rumfoord) or hiding (bea), malachi chooses to fight his future by making himself "unworthy of any destiny."

i guess we'll see which of these three paths is the most successful shortly. which do y'all think is the most appropriate? does your choice have anything to do with your religious beliefs?

IMO, the whole point is that it does not matter. They are like fishes caught in the net - neither denial nor fighting will change a thing.
I don't know if I would lump Rumfoord with other characters though. On one hand I feel he is special, he is the force that shapes the story. On the other hand you are right, he's just a pawn to even more powerful forces. Some very delicious recursion happening here.

@Zygo
It's "turtles all the way down" in reverse.
Love it :D

I think that for most of us it's a mixture of the three. Sometimes we accept, sometimes we hide from the realities of our lack of control, and sometimes we fight. As the author, Vonnegut is able to create characters who primarily follow the same paths, which works well for the book, but is not entirely true to life.

(view spoiler)[It also isn't entirely true that the path each character chooses remains static throughout the book, particularly towards the end. If you think about Malachi, when he is stranded he seems to develop a kind of acceptance, although primarily a fatalistic and somewhat apathetic sort. This acceptance grows when he reaches Titan. Rumfoord hardly seems accepting of his fate there at the end. Bea is probably the one who remains the most constant, in that spending all of her time writing is a definite form of hiding, although she seems to accept the entire upheaval of her life better than one might expect. Granted, hiding can be done on a psychological level as well, which is, I think, probably what Vonnegut intended to portray. (hide spoiler)]

Basically just my rather disjointed ideas on the subject. The idea that we mix the three paths, although frequently with tendencies to lean towards one as primary, comes mostly from my own life and my observation of people. Hardly a scientific theory. As for my religious beliefs, if they are influenced by this, it is not on a conscious level and I have a hard time finding a way in which they are.

@vlad - having finished the book, it does seem like the whole purpose is that no matter what stance you take, you're screwed. and yes, recursion is definitely an important theme. pawns are gods and gods are pawns.

@denae - do you really think bea/bee's writing is hiding? writing can be revelatory, too...

It does seem a bit too in-depth to be a 'rookie' thread.

why shouldn't this level of discussion be in a rookie thread?

@Heather: I phrased that poorly. I don't think all writing is hiding, but I do think hers is.

As for the rookie thread matter, I think most of the earlier posts roughly correspond to the original question of impressions, where the story is going, etc., and the later ones are the natural outgrowth of this being a conversation. @Zygo & @ Ala, what are your concerns with this? Is it the level of depth or do you feel there are spoilers or is it something different entirely? I'm curious, largely because it's something I've thought about, but in trying to come up with an alternate theory keep coming back to the idea that it's an informal discussion, not everyone going around a figurative room and giving their opinion.

@Zygo: Doesn't seem to be enough of us posting to have more than one thread.

A lot of what has been said here seems to be drawing from the book as a whole, and not simply from the beginning sections.

It's not spoilery or anything, mind.

Have most/all of you finished this book already? If so, might as well just drop the 'rookie' and discuss it in full.

I just picked it up two days ago, I'm around Halfway through now. So far, I've really liked it, this is my first time reading Vonnegut and it looks like I have a new favorite author.

I didn't really like Beatrice, but after I learned how she ended up pregnant, I had a lot of sympathy for her.

I just finished it and I have to say that Vonnegut's concepts and imagination are great, but I found the book so hard to get into. I only started getting really interested when I got to chapter 4 (Mars). I think it had a lot to do with the didactic style - it was almost like you were reading a textbook about the events that had transpired. I do understand that it was written in the late 50s, pre-dating post-modernism, so it's no wonder it's a little dry, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

I'd probably say the book was "ok" overall. I find it hard to enjoy a lot of older sci-fi, mainly because the depiction of society is SO dated with regards to gender politics (as an example), but it is definitely interesting to see how past imaginings of a future society are STILL locked in the mid-century mentality.

Also, Malachi was a douche and Rumfoord was a total DICK. The fact that I didn't really like any of the characters might have added to my nonchalance towards the book.

I'd have to agree with you about older scifi being difficult to get into. I also find most to be a bit dated in the same way. Makes it a struggle to let go and enjoy.

Also:
Tina wrote: "Also, Malachi was a douche and Rumfoord was a total DICK. The fact that I didn't really like any of the characters might have added to my nonchalance towards the book. "

Yep. I didn't care for any of the characters either.

@Tina and Ala
the depiction of society is SO dated with regards to gender politics (as an example), but it is definitely interesting to see how past imaginings of a future society are STILL locked in the mid-century mentality.
Interesting... How so? What in the book made you feel this way?

I've made it to Mars so far and the whole antenna plot.. I was really grabbed by the story line on earth. I found all the characters interesting, but my pacing is now totally gone after the quick cut to Mars. I suppose I have to continue back to Earth, Titan, onward..

Finished this book earlier today and just wrote a small review on it here.

I agree with Tina the most. The book is hard to get into, and it doesn't help that none of the characters are super likeable (although, I think we were all cheering for Unk on Mars). I didn't mind the gender politics so much, because if you take the story in the context it was written in, everything kind of makes sense. I mean, during the late 50s they had the flying-saucer/ufo craze, and it really showed that Vonnegut liked playing around with all that. Today, no serious science fiction would even consider talking about flying saucers, as the term is very dated. So, the gender politics is kind of a non-issue, although I can see why it would bother people.

Did anyone else feel that certain parts of the story were rushed or unrealistic?

(view spoiler)[It was presumably because of the letter Malachi read that he decided to take a trip to Mars. However, he lost his memory of this, and when he was back on Earth there was no reason for him to take any more crazy chances life threw at him like his father suggested. In fact, I would say that he seemed happy on Earth. But all in a span of few pages, Beatrice Chrono and Malachi get reunited and sent off. This felt incredibly forced.

I realize that Rumfoord said Malachi would be going to Mars, Mercury, Earth and then Titan, but the latter's only connection I felt was Rumfoord mentioning it in the beginning and nothing else (conceding the picture's meaning Malachi forgot about). There was no incentive to go, really.

And on that note, both Beatrice and Malachi seemed very apathetic when it came to their fates. I don't know if this was because they had their memories wiped or what, but I didn't like that they had basically resigned themselves to whatever life threw at them. (hide spoiler)]

I felt awful that I couldn't finish the book until just now, and even then I'm sad to say I left a couple pages before the end. I was worried that maybe the ending was some big fantastic flourish that I should have stuck around for, but I just threw up my hands and said 'enough'. I didn't care about anyone but Boaz, and that was even brief.
I agree, it did feel a little rushed, and even more unrealistic. Not in the good unrealistic. It felt more like a drunk unrealistic. Things were happening in an overly exaggerated way, and just when I may have gotten interested in a person or event, it turned sour.
I think Vonnegut is great, I really do. But I guess there was a reason this book never caught my eye.

Nah, the ending wasn't all that big a deal. A bit of a depressing let-down, really.

OK. Finished a few days ago. I'm still under the impression that this guy is far overrated, but it was readable.

@ Vlad. Ok, this is the latest response ever, but either way, my issue with the gender politics in the novel was that the women were depicted as rather useless and not participants in the the business world, which just wouldn't make sense if the novel were written today.

Clearly Vonnegut couldn't have seen how the world would turn out, especially with regards to women in the business world and the army, but I guess my problem is that sci-fi that keeps women in the same ideological framework as the 1950s (as them being primarily housewives and teachers or nurses) just isn't plausible to me given the social situation today, so it really distances me from the story and makes it seem unrealistic.

Sorry if this is a rather frazzled response!

He completely ignored social developed in his mock vision of the future, true. I wonder if he did this in order to satire (at the time) current norms? Or maybe the thought never occurred. Who knows?

None of the above, imho. The question does not even apply.
It's like reading The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh or The C Programming Language and wondering why those books don't reflect importance of the feminist accomplishments in the late 20th century. Or renewable energy. Or rise of China. That's not what the book is about, dammit. It's something that you as a reader brought with you. You post-modern kids fascinate and scare me at the same time. /rant

@Tina
Thanks for the response, it was illuminating.