Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut's first novel spins the chilling tale of engineer Paul Proteus, who must find a way to live in a world dominated by a supercomputer and run completely by machines. Paul's rebellion is vintage Vonnegut—wildly funny, deadly serious, and terrifyingly close to reality.

Player Piano

The Industrial Revolution and its consequences

jaya kohol

A tough, tightly written book of a brave new world to come, which in its projection offers a tantalizing problem as well as an imaginative invention reminiscent of the early Huxley. Dr. Paul Proteus, a super engineer in a super-mechanized society, finds his life lacking in significance although he is on the eve of a spectacular promotion as the manager of the Pittsburgh works. Urged on by his sterile wife, he nonetheless finds himself listening to his iconoclastic friend Finnerty. The two spend a drunken and revealing evening among the reeks and wrecks (the common people) where they meet Lasher, a self-styled preacher who converts Finnerty and jells his resolve to break the system. Dr. Proteus wavers in a divided loyalty but when the Pittsburgh job is offered him only at the price of his betrayal of Finnerty, his Protean change is completed and he joins forces with the opposition ... The automatic checker player that is beaten when crossed wires overheat it, a talking helicopter, a monstrous machine with a tape recorder memory, all these absurdly ingenious machines give the book its special quality and fascination. And this new performance on the player piano of western civilization is worthy of more thoughtful attention.

Patrick Book

It has signs of youth and sone immaturity as an author (the linear directness of the narrative belies his future fractured story structures), but this a phenomenal, imaginative narrative. The notion of a future society becoming over-reliant on technology seems at first like low-hanging fruit, but Vonnegut's wry, cynical sense of humanity makes it so much more than the sum of its parts.

Sarah Sammis

The title is a metaphor for the post war automation this particular town is experiencing. On one side of the river are the factories. On the other side of the river are the engineers. The factories, once employing people to build things now uses robots to do the same. Of course that has happened but these robots are more like player pianos in that they run on the recorded movements of the most efficient human employees.

Beyond the uncanny valley of half a town being given over to automation, there is a weird, racist pseudo-Arab sounding delegation that has come to learn about the automation process. Their presence happens to coincide with a laid-off worker rebellion.


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“A funny, savage appraisal of a totally automated American society of the future.”—San Francisco Chronicle Kurt Vonnegut’s first novel spins the chilling tale of engineer Paul Proteus, who must find a way to live in a world dominated by a supercomputer and run completely by machines. Paul’s rebellion is vintage Vonnegut—wildly funny, deadly serious, and terrifyingly close to reality. Praise for Player Piano “An exuberant, crackling style . . . Vonnegut is a black humorist, fantasist and satirist, a man disposed to deep and comic reflection on the human dilemma.”—Life “His black logic . . . gives us something to laugh about and much to fear.”—The New York Times Book Review

A Novel

Michael Springer

This is one of my favorite books by Vonnegut. It's a satirical vision of the world that's quite clever, and it has a couple moments I think about frequently, even though I haven't read the book for 7 or 8 years.

Bouke van der Bijl

Recommend this to anyone who likes thinking about automation and about what the end result might be. Vonnegut envisions a future in which society has been separated in to two classes: the engineers and managers, and the other people who have to go into military or social service, which are meaningless jobs (in this universe). All production and service jobs have been automated. 

Very funny book, satisfying and kind of nuanced ending.

Ahmed Salem

I liked the:
- theme
- topic (in general)
- characters 


However I might little disappointed by the storytelling. there was an issue in the tempo, i guess.

Tim Vos

Pretty decent and thought-provoking parable on the dangers of automation and the (surprisingly Hegelian) innate desire of the self-consciousness for recognition and realisation through productive labour. All things considered surprisingly accurate for a book from the 50's, Vonnegut is king.

Jessica Smith

Apparently this is Vonnegut's first novel, and of those of his I've read so far it's by a long margin his best. It's the only one with characterisation deep enough to get invested in anyone's storyline. It has some really funny satire of corporate culture.

It includes a pertinent and important critique of capitalism, in the sense that increasing levels of mechanisation should liberate humanity from increasing amounts of unpleasant work (which is what the ruling class here claims has happened), but under capitalism this is impossible, because you need money to pay for life's necessities and the only way to get it is by working – pretty hard, when almost all the jobs are being done by machines! While under socialism you would have the ever-decreasing amount of work being shared between everyone capable, under capitalism you get a steadily-growing group of unemployed workers, who are therefore destitute. Vonnegut's protagonist, Paul Proteus, gets a little misdirected and blames the machines themselves instead of the economic system, but you can easily identify the real problem ;)

The novel is really weak on the inclusion of females; it seems that almost every woman is a housewife (presumably because there are not enough jobs for even just a fraction of the male population…) but not actually everyone because Paul's secretary is a woman. At any rate, it seemed bizarre that a novel so concerned with how men should spend their lives would just ignore women completely.

While that was unsatisfying, I really enjoyed this overall. As you can see, four stars.

Sophie Shrimpton

Humans revolt against becoming the sum of their data. They are screwed over by capitalism to the point where there is enough automation to provide resources for all, but inequality prevails.

So they revolt, with no plan but anti-capitalism.

It's been over a year since I read this novel and this is what's stuck with me.

Player Piano

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