Title:: [[Player Piano]]
Authors:: [[Kurt Vonnegut]]
Tags:: #scifi #darkhumor #vonnegut #fiction
Read:: [[2022-01-12]]
## Editions
- Edition:: A Laurel Book, 1980
- Original Copyright:: 1952
- Pages:: 295
## Annotations
A goal I set for the year is to read all of Vonnegut’s novels in the order they were published.
Player Piano is first, published in 1952.
Here’s a book written 70 years ago about how machines and automation have solved so much work - both physical and mental - that everyone but engineers and managers feel as though their dignity and meaning have been removed from their lives. The main character, the Vonnegutianly named Paul Proteus, is a successful and wealthy engineer who realizes that his own success has resulted in making significantly more people miserable.
The same story could have been written in 2022, which is why I am reading Vonnegut this year.