Our brave little band met on November 21, 2013 to discuss KV’s 1952 dystopian novel “Player Piano”. The discussion was admirably led by John Sturman. Others participating were: Jeff Bates, Chris LaFave, Lorraine Price, Celia Latz, Karen Lystra, Janet Penwell, Jay Carr, Phil Watts, Dave Young and Bill Briscoe. We joined for the first time with Jody Flynn and we look forward to seeing her again.
Bill gave us a well-balanced schedule of monthly readings for 2014. From the KV canon, we will read four novels, two short story collections, a collection of speeches and a play. We will also read a biography (by Gregory Sumner), a comparative study of KV and Hemingway, and two issues of the “Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library. In November we will read something from our yet to be selected guest author who will come for Vonnegut Fest. The schedule will be published here when it is finalized. The Carmel Public Library, 55 4th Avenue SE, Carmel, In (across from Carmel High School on 131st Street) will host a book discussion (Critical Mass) of next month’s selection “Slaughterhouse Five” from 7PM to 8:30PM on Wednesday, December 4, 2013.
“Player Piano” takes place in an industrial mid-western city sometime after a nuclear war has forced factories to automate, thus displacing laborers. The educated managerial class lives on one side of the river and the working class lives on the other side carrying out make-work government jobs in a society where their work lacks dignity. The protagonist, Paul Proteus, is a rising young engineer who bonds with the laborers and starts a revolution. Comic relief is provided by the Shah, a middle-eastern potentate on a State Department tour of the United States. The Shah is naive, but his observations about class cuts through the noise society has generated.
John got us started by remarking that this dystopia written 60 years ago was remarkably prescient. The laboring class has lost its skills; we have a permanent military class; and automation has led to disequilibrium. (He would refer to a neurological syndrome, wouldn’t he?). John was impressed by an essay by James Fallows that appeared in the New York Review of Books issue of 9/27/84: “A Parable of Automation”. He noted that KV was not an anti-tech Luddite, but wanted technology to be used in a way that would benefit rather than harm society. We have a two-tiered economy with a vanishing middle class and almost half of our citizens (including your scribe) are more or less dependent on government payouts. We have so far avoided nuclear war, but things are going to get worse before they get better.
Chris chipped in with his observation that this is the only KV novel that might have been a collaboration with George Orwell. He was delighted with the combination of futurism and sharp social satire. We then launched into a discussion about automation and the state of the workforce. Bill used his 40 years of experience as a manufacturing engineer to explain the economics from a management point of view. Competitive pressures force societies to change. Vonnegut pessimistically forewarned us of what was coming.
Chris remarked that KV was concerned with making the change morally. John recalled that it was difficult for society to pressure industry citing the recent dust-up the City of Indianapolis had with Sentient Technologies. For a number of years Sentient had racked up loads of safety and environmental violations. In 2013, when the City tried to bring them into compliance, they responded by moving their corporate headquarters to Chicago. To (someone) the book was about work losing its dignity. Paul, the would-be farmer, purchases a low-tech farm with the romantic idea of returning to the land. However, he has no intention of actually farming. KV is really making a sly attack on liberal concepts – full of good intentions but lacking in reality. Chris echoed that KV was attacking moral relativism. He found the ending to be depressing but enjoyed the book nevertheless. You have to be very optimistic to hope that anything positive will come from Paul’s failed revolution. Janet did see an opportunity for a new beginning and John pointed out that the working class was anxious to go back to actually making something with their hands. Jeff reminded us that our education system was not preparing our citizens for work and that we had to bring in thousands of skilled immigrant workers on H1 visas to fill the gap. We then digressed to talk about the ills in our schools and the need for stability and discipline to make it to what is left of the middle class. Jody felt that life has lost a lot of meaning and that we fail to recognize the many ways that genius manifests itself. There is no room for creativity (actually her words were more profound than this summary – your scribe forgot his reading glasses and had trouble with the notes).
Phil found that the one person in the novel who really cared was Paul and he was taken by the bar scene on page 102 where KV demonstrates Paul’s love for the common people.
Paul’s Stepfordian wife, Anita, provoked some discussion. Cold-hearted Anita had one goal in life and that was to propel Paul up the corporate food chain. When Paul rebelled she left him for another rising executive. Karen, well versed in Barbara Ehrenreich’s 1983 tome “The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment” gave us a reprise of one chapter, “The Gray Flannel Dissidents,” which critiques levels of conformity in men from the Mad Men era to the Playboy era and beyond. The fifties lead to the sixties and liberated men began to see that marriage is slavery. KV did an excellent job connecting to all of this. It is all too complicated for this small space, but if you want to learn more, go to the external essays page on this blog and you will find a student book review that outlines Ehrenreich’s thesis. Whether you find Ms. Ehrenreich insightful or polemical, you can’t deny her powers of observation.
Bill treated us to another of his intensely rhyming poems “Automation Machination”. Unfortunately, he had a computer breakdown and could not copy to our blog so this opus may be lost to posterity.
Phil, the scorekeeper we entrust with the 10 point KV scale, reports that the group gave “Player Piano” an 8.0 rating despite the negative input of an old curmudgeon who found the novel to be hopelessly depressing outdated satire. Our next meeting will be on December 19th, 2013 when we will take on “Slaughterhouse Five”. Karen Lystra will lead the discussion and she would like to hear from prospective attendees topics they would like to explore. You may email her at: klystra@fullerton.edu For more reading on this, you may enjoy Matthew Gannon’s essay “Player Piano; The One-Dimensional Society and the Emergency Brake of History” at: vonnegutreview.com.
Dave Young
vonnegutbookclub 