Player Piano

This was Kurt Vonnegut's first novel, published almost 60 years ago in 1952. Frankly, I didn't love it. I've read five of Vonnegut's books at this point and a few of his short stories and essays, and all of them have been written with a certain light and direct tone. This book lacked that very Vonnegut essence. The main gist of Player Piano is that, in a futuristic utopian society, most people have been put out of work by efficient machines. It just didn't feel very original or unique. Maybe once you've read a certain number of futuristic dystopian novels, it feels like you've read them all. I dunno. Right from the outset, I never found a reason to empathize with any of the characters and I rarely came across an interesting theme or concept over the course of the 350-page novel. It wasn't a terrible read; it just wasn't nearly as good as the rest of Vonnegut's work that I've read. Of course, everyone has to start somewhere, and even in this book that I didn't really care for, I did find a few signs of developing (now classic) Vonnegut humor and sarcasm. Vonnegut's friend and contemporary author Joseph Heller may have struck gold immediately with Catch-22, but an author's first novel being his magnum opus is certainly the exception and not the rule. Luckily, Vonnegut's books got much better. In fact, his second one was phenomenal! Stay tuned...