di Vonnegut, Kurt - "The Sirens of Titan": brief summary and analysis of the characteristics of the book
"The Sirens of Titan" is a novel that was written by the American author Kurt Vonnegut. "The Sirens of Titan" was published for the first time in 1959.
"The Sirens of Titan" is one of the first books written by the author (more precisely, the second one).
The story, as often happens with the books by Vonnegut, is difficult to summarize, but it is full of meanings.
The novel can be defined as a “ferocious social satire”, in which the author makes fun of war, religion and finance.
Kurt Vonnegut, in this novel, is limited to using the forms of classical science fiction to elaborate a parable on the void of human existence declined in different and not always successful joints. Where those factors that most annoyed Vonnegut in the 1950s (such as: the idiocy of military life, the horror of bureaucratic power, the ease with which the masses are dedicated to the adoration of an idol prepared for the occasion) are in action, the result is definitely convincing.
This book is above all a satirical work, which has as its object the themes that often recur in the other novels of Vonnegut: war and military hierarchies, religion, consumerism, capitalism.
Moreover, Kurt Vonnegut's philosophy on the meaning of human existence is profound but is expressed by a subtle irony; the perception of time (and in this case of time space).
