Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut (Book Review)

Player Piano

by Kurt Vonnegut

341 pages

Dial Press Trade Paperback, September 2006

fiction

DNF

My Rating: DNF

Amazon.com | BN.com

"Ilium, New York, is divided into three parts."

Review: I'm learning fairly early on in life to avoid certain "classic" authors earliest writings. It is true when they say you get better with practice. I've been discovering that with several authors first books that haven't been as good as their more recent bestsellers. Player Piano is no exception. But I had to attempt to read it, you see, because I have a slight OCD problem when it comes to books. That problem is, when I discover an author whose book I want to read, I do research on that author. If it's a book in a series and there are several books before the one I want to read, then I must read those first. Or in the case of Vonnegut here, I had only intended on reading Mother Night, which is the third novel he wrote. However, when I discovered just how popular he is as a writer I had to buy and read the two books before Mother Night. Hence my reading this book. 

Unfortunately, I give a book 150 pages before I decide whether or not it's worth continuing. I probably give books more pages to succeed or fail than the average reader would, but if I want to give some kind of review on the book, even if I don't finish it, I figure getting close to halfway through an average 300 page book should suffice.

From what I read so far, this is a story which takes place in the very distant future. Books like this tend to take liberties and go off the rails of reality more than usual. The new "government" has taken in upon themselves to help humanity by removing their boring, everyday, tasks completely. Those menial 9 - 5 jobs have all been replaced by machines. Those who are determined to be intelligent in certain fields are sent off to jobs that can use their minds wisely. Those that would just end up at a job where they'd hate it every day and never amount to much are given money to live on and that's about it. How smart of the new people in power to come up with such an idea. They feel they're doing the less intelligent person a favor by letting them live without work or any real purpose. Only to discover, after the damage has already been done, that those without purpose actually have a reason for living beyond doing nothing. A bit of satisfaction comes from working every day. Even if mistakes are made to slow production down a bit.

The main characters are two men who hold fairly high positions within the new ruling class. One if Proteus who has a wife constantly nagging him to get a better station in life where he can make more money for her to spend and show off. While the other, Finnerty, is an unclean, yet highly intelligent man, single, who has discovered he wants to live among and help the average man that machines have done away with.

The "player piano" aspect comes in by coincidence at a pub located in Homestead, where all those without work live. How it influences one thing or another, or if it's ever more than just an inanimate object but a cause for action, I do not know. I stopped reading after Proteus is deciding inwardly whether or not to join in on Finnerty's unspoken of plans for revolution, let things stay the way they are, or do what his wife wants and continue up the ladder of success.

Summary: 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.

To learn more about Kurt Vonnegut visit his site here.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (Book Review)

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
by Junot Diaz

352 pages
Riverhead, 2007
fiction
unfinished
Another Review...

My Rating: n/a

Amazon.com / BN.com

"Our hero was not one of those Dominican cats everybody's always going on about--he wasn't no home-run hitter or a fly bachatero, not a playboy with a million hots on his jock."

Review: This is not the first book I have been unable to finish and it certainly won't be my last. It is however, my first review of a book I have been unable to finish. Just to give you some perspective, the last book I was unable to finish was 50 Shades of Grey by E.L. James and before that was Me by Ricky Martin. Otherwise, it's rare for me to start a book and NOT finish it. This means it takes A LOT for me to put down a book and be resigned to leave it unfinished.

This book, as a male friend described to me, is like a modern-day Catcher in the Rye. I am inclined to agree with him. This is a boys book. It's not to say a female couldn't or shouldn't read it, I'm just saying that some books tend to be more girly than others, therefore men won't be drawn to it. The same can be said for this book. Although I've more women reading it than men. If I can be more specific, I've seen more Hispanic women reading it.

My review of the book will only come from the first 150 pages since that is all I read before giving up entirely. One of the factors that caused me to stop was how long it was taking me to read it. If I'm headed into the second week and I'm not even at the half-way point then something is not right. The story of a man coming into his own through various life experiences is a good one. I was a little confused with the character change from Oscar's point of view to his sisters. I'm sure there's a valid reason for this and there probably is a going back and forth between different characters point of view, I just found it distracting.

The dialogue is a mixture of English and Spanish, something else that turned me off to the book. I've never read a "Spanglish" book before and I don't think I ever will again. It helped that I know Spanish quite fluently but to the average person who might not know Spanish but wants to read this book because it's a bestseller and everyone else is or already has read it, I suggest having a handy English/Spanish dictionary with you. Some of the dialogue, if you don't know Spanish, could be easy to decipher based on the surrounding sentences, but I'm usually not looking for a book that has me over analyzing the words instead of the meanings behind them.

Then there's the footnotes. And I'm not talking one or two sentence footnotes, I'm talking paragraphs so long the footnotes go on to the next page and even then might take up more than half of it. I understand there is some important facts that run parallel to the timeline of the book, but it was too much and confusing to have to go forward one page to finish the massive footnote then turn back a page to find where the indication of that footnote was, so you can pick up where you left off.

Lastly, I must mention the lack of quotation marks around the dialogue. I'm guessing there was a specific reason for this that someone who has heard Junot Diaz speak would have the answer to. I would be surprised if during some Q&A he wasn't asked about this very thing. Now, maybe I'm not as smart or well read as I think I am, I have read many classics and bestsellers in my day, but this one was just not to my liking. I'd say it's a hit or miss with this author but in reading other peoples reviews they tend to lean the same way I am, so I'm glad I'm not the only one.

Maybe after I've read a few other books that are more to my liking I will give "Drown" a try which was his first published book, a collection of short stories. In the meantime, I will add this book to my short list of those I have left unfinished.

Synopsis: This is the long-awaited first novel from one of the most original and memorable writers working today.

Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. From his home in New Jersey, where he lives with his old-world mother and rebellious sister, Oscar dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the fukú – the curse that has haunted the Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still waiting for his first kiss, is just its most recent victim.

Diaz immerses us in the tumultuous life of Oscar and the history of the family at large, rendering with genuine warmth and dazzling energy, humor, and insight the Dominican–American experience, and, ultimately, the endless human capacity to persevere in the face of heartbreak and loss. A true literary triumph, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao confirms Junot Diaz as one of the best and most exciting voices of our time.

To learn more about Junot Diaz, please visit his site.