This week's book selection is Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut. This was Vonnegut's first novel. According to the back of my copy of Player Piano, he's the author of "eighteen highly acclaimed books and dozens of short stories and essays." I was in a Vonnegut phase senior year of high school, and think I've read at least half of those eighteen. I've liked everything I've read by him, something that I don't think I've found true for few authors. But on to the story.
The main character is an engineer named Paul Proteus. (According to my handy Webster's dictionary, Proteus is a Greek sea god, able to change his shape at will. Not too much symbolism woven into that choice of name.) This novel is set in the future, in a society that is completely dominated by a super computer and run by machines in all areas. Paul, being the good hero he is, tries to get people to rebel against this automated society. And they do. For a moment it seems like they have won, and that their goal has been achieved , but something unpredictable happens and you'll have to read the book for yourself to find out.
I liked this book because it actually looked at technology from a pessimistic light, something that NEVER happens here, except for occasional bits and pieces in certain classes. Vonnegut's vision of the future was wrong in its technical aspects (the most powerful computers are not run by cathode ray tubes) but pretty accurate in its societal. He foresaw alienation, overspecialization, people overqualified for their unchallenging jobs that would never be promoted, etc. There are two important statements made in the foreword, one that "this is a book about what could be" (if we lose track of priorities), and that "our lives and freedom depend largely upon the skill and imagination and courage of our managers and engineers...". I think that since this book was written, during the early 1950's, that scientists and of course the ever present politicians, have increased their roles in deciding what's good and necessary for progress. Hopefully people will read this book, and actually come out of it thinking about the implications of widespread technology on the human psyche.
Flipping through this week's Worcester Magazine, I found that there is a wide variety of things to do this week, if you have the time. For the movie-going types, Clark University's Cinema 320 is playing Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, tonight, Sept. 26, at 7:30 p.m. The cost is $4.50. At the Worcester Public Library, there is an exhibit by the Knight of Vartan Ashavis Lodge called Discover Armenia. And at the oft forgot Worcester Historical Museum, the ongoing exhibit is Civil War Memorabilia from the Collection of Post 10, Grand Army of the Republic, Worcester. The exhibit includes a captured Confederate flag, pistol and sword carried by Josiah Pickett, and the bell of the rebel Ram Albemarle. The WHM is located at the corner of Elm and Harvard Streets, about a ten minute walk from campus. Admission is $2, and the hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 1 - 4p.m. Sundays.
Give feedback: newspeak@wpi.wpi.edu