The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut REVIEW 

I second that. This book is a great riff on all the different ways of signifying/communicating. My favorite example is when one character thinks the little organisms on the wall of a cave are self-organizing to send him a message, but they are actually being moved into place by another character.

Mine too, I read it as a college student, and just reread it on retiring this year at 67.

@@TheChannelofaDisappointedMan Belief and the way it can be manipulated is the main theme of this novel. At least that was my take-away from it. Even The Bible was used in an unintentional way that I laughed at in later readings of the book as well as the satirical scenes like the main character being treated like Jonah near the beginning of the story and as Ezekiel near the end.

I'd have to read many more of his works before I jotted down a list, but considering what I've read so far, Slaughtherhouse would definitely be number one, followed by Cat's Cradle - which is genius, of course, and switches from hilarious to nightmarish scary fast. Thank you for sharing your experience with Titan!

I read Slaughterhouse-Five first and it blew me away, but then I read Sirens of Titan and it blew me away again. For me, the plot is more engaging, and I grew more attached to the characters. I do think Slaughterhouse-Five is more finely polished and quotable. I still have yet to read all of Vonnegut's works including some highly acclaimed ones like Mother Night and Welcome to the Monkey House. My current list goes: 1. Sirens of Titan 2. Slaughterhouse-Five (although I could waver with this being 1 if not going by personal enjoyment but overall craftsmanship instead) 3. Breakfast of Champions 4. Cat's Cradle 5. God Bless You Mr. Rosewater

You're definitely on to something when you say that he wrote as if he believed what he wrote to be fact; unlike some of his literary siblings - say, Clark Ashton Smith - who wrote at least partially out of an escapist wish to retreat into fantasies, Lovecraft believed himself a man of science, and went about fiction the way Verga or Zola did in Europe: as if it described the nature of the cosmos and the malaise of human life. The whole "black seas of infinity" speech at the beginning of "Cthulhu" is not him waxing lyrical: it is, at least according to old HP, the very way the universe works! At the same time I don't think I follow what you say about his show-don't-tell to the tenth degree. Lovecraft's writing, in fact, is tell all the way through (Stephen King famously said that the man just could not set a scene), with narrators spending a good amount of their stories talking about the act of telling, or its consequences, or why exactly they cannot speak of certain things; and everything is often repeated a few times for good measure. Also, I wouldn't necessarily call his style "fresh" because it does feel very outdated (a good comparison would be with Hawthorne's or Poe's) and, even more importantly, it is meant to convey that sense of the "past" and archaic affectation that's so crucial to Lovecraft. But again - maybe I just didn't get what you mean. Also, I personally see Lovecraft's influence everywhere, from Pynchon to Elena Ferrante, but I may very well just be like the guy at the end of Innsmouth, obsessed with his discoveries and finding the Innsmouth taint in the mirror ;)

@@TheBookchemist yes, "show don't tell of fantasy" is uselessly convoluted, I meant "the implied author considers the fantasy tale as fact", as showing a factual truth. That's what seems less contrived (more fresh) than others to me. Why Ferrante? #TheArkhamQuartet

The first page and a half or so of The Silver Key is practically a Lovecraft manifesto. I've started some HPL research going through his letters, essays, poems, even diary entries and, in terms of aesthetics, politics, and religion, I'd say his personal espoused views are more or less the same as those his main characters possess in most of his works. One interesting comment Lovecraft makes on the subject of the extent to which his philosophy comes through in his stories can be found in his [In Defence of Dagon] writing: "Mr. Bullen... overestimates the didactic element a trifle. Like Dunsany I protest that except in a few cases I have no thought of teaching. The story is first, and if any philosophy creeps in it is by accident. "The White Ship" was an exception." In spite of being firmly atheistic, Lovecraft was very much against proselytizing his views on religion to the masses because he saw religion as useful for keeping the social order. I think (again from his letters/essays) that his goals were more in tune with communicating a certain mood or experience rather than trying to convert others to his way of thinking. I would also add that The Quest of Iranon, which he later wrote, possesses an almost-moral element to it similar to that in The White Ship, the moral in both cases being something like: "Truth and Beauty are ever at odds, and those who seek to reconcile them are doomed."

Nope! I'll look for it though!

Noah Graham, I was going to ask this same question...so I guess I'm also asking it now...did Kurt Vonnegut get away from Sci-Fi? Soft sci-fi maybe a good description. Vonnegut may defy strict categories but there always seemed to some element(s) of sci-fi in this work. Perhaps someone more familiar with him will chime in--or the @TheBookChemist will chime in for clarification?

It defonatley does but it is a step toward a lot of what makes Vonnevut click so much later on in his career

That some good close reading, thanks for pointing this out :)!

I'd love to read further into the series - not sure how soon that'll happen, but hopefully sometime this year!

I only read the first and a half volume in the Song of Ice and Fire series (I liked them a lot). I'd love to go back to them and read the whole thing one day, but I cannot realistically say how soon I'll be able to do that :P

Thank you for the reply! Perhaps one day you can review/comment on what you have read so far :)

Duly noted ;)

You put it very well I think when you say it takes too much narrative energy (in terms of plot, characters, sheer number of pages) for the book to get to its conclusion.

For what it's worth I find it one of the most awesome titles in all literature!