The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut

The Sirens of Titan is an intriguing and thought-provoking novel.  If the world is a meaningless place, then how are we to act?  It is a challenging question that many of us will have to try to answer.

The Sirens of Titan (1959) is Kurt Vonnegut's second published novel.  It tells the story of the interlocking lives of the major characters Winston Niles Rumfoord and Malachi Constant.  In it we find many of the themes that featured in his subsequent novels.

While travelling between Earth and Mars with his dog Kazak, Rumfoord becomes trapped in a cosmological anomaly called a chrono-synclastic infundibulum.  As a result, he gains almost god-like powers of omniscience and omnipresence.  He uses these powers to shape the course of human history.  But is Rumfoord just a pawn in a much bigger cosmic game?

Malachi Constant inherits the greatest personal fortune in history but lives a reckless and hedonistic lifestyle.  His father had built this fortune by sheer dumb luck (or by Providence), and for a while it seems that Constant has inherited his father's preposterous luck.  Then things go wrong.  Constant loses his fortune and, after acting on some advice from his dead father, he lives a degraded and nightmarish life on Mars.  Has he got what it takes to change the trajectory of his life and redeem himself?

The first theme presented in The Sirens of Titan is that of meaning, or meaninglessness, in life.  Is there a purpose and a design to the Universe, or is it all just sheer, dumb luck?  "I guess someone up there likes me," says Malachi Constant as an explanation for his seeming good luck.  And, yes, Providence is one possible explanation; serendipity is another.

Of course, what Vonnegut is seeking is a viable humanistic response to a meaningless universe.  Rumfoord's use of total war to bring about universal peace on Earth raises the old question of the ends justifying the means.  We see Constant following his instincts, doing what he feels is right, to reunite himself with his lost family.  And there is the example of the sadistic Boaz having a revelation about living a meaningful life:

I found me a place where I can do good without doing any harm, and I can see I'm doing good, and them I'm doing good for [some creatures he found on Mercury] know I'm doing it, and they love me ... as best they can.  I found me a home.

 Another theme is that of free will.  This is a theme Vonnegut revisits in many of his subsequent novels.  In The Sirens of Titan, we see Rumfoord using alien technology to rob humans of their free will, their memories and their identities.  A later development in the book suggests that human free will has been an illusion for at least a few hundreds of millennia.

As is the case in his later novels, Vonnegut is capable of turning a cynical and memorable phrase about human behaviour.  Of an investment strategy presented to the elder Constant, the narrator says:

It was a marvelous engine for doing violence to the spirit of thousands of laws without actually running afoul of so much as a city ordinance ... Noel Constant was so impressed by this monument to hypocrisy and sharp practice that he wanted to buy stock in it without even referring to his Bible.

The Sirens of Titan contains many images and metaphors that may strike those readers from a Christian background.  There are analogues of Jonah, Job, Judas, Jesus, the second coming, Jacob's ladder and much more.  This makes the book all the more intriguing to read and decode.

I read the ebook version published by Rosetta Books.  Apart from one typo, it is very well presented.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree by W.B. Yeats

"There midnight's all a glimmer"

Recently, a friend and I were talking about Thoreau's Walden.  My friend surprised me by reciting The Lake Isle of Innisfree.  The poem was very pertinent to our conversation about solitude, nature and growing one's own food.  Afterwards, I thought that if the poem is important enough for my friend to learn by heart, then it is worth taking a close look at it.  

I have included the poem at the end of this document.  You may like to read it first.

The poet tells us that he is going to make a sea-change in his life and move to the countryside.  He intends to build his own dwelling and grow his own food there.  He believes he will have peace by living close to nature; and he tells us that no matter where he is in the urban landscape, he hears nature calling him from the depths of his being.

Looking at some of the verbs in the first stanza we find arise, go, build.  Apart from their plain meanings, these words give us a sense of growth and of ascending to a better mode of being - a spiritual flourishing rather than a material one, perhaps.  And although the poet intends to construct a dwelling and practice horticulture (both, in a sense, unnatural activities), he introduces us to the raw elements of clay and wattle, of bean-rows and hives.  The final line of the stanza gives us a vivid and evocative picture of the poet's vision: And live alone in the bee-loud glade.  Gee, Dylan Thomas could not have written it any better.

In the second stanza, the poet evokes more images of the natural world.  He uses the words morning, midnight, noon and evening.  His world, he says, will be filled with the sounds of crickets singing and of birds beating their wings, and the sky will glow by day and glimmer by night.  It is from this sensuous tapestry that the poet's sought-after peace will come.  He says peace comes dropping slow, and the reader can almost see it dropping, like morning dew on a green lawn or raindrops on the receiving flower.

In the final stanza, the poet repeats the opening phrase of the poem: I will arise and go now.  But this time he tells us about his motivation rather than his intentions.  The poet is driven by a feeling that comes from his deep heart's core.  He likens it to hearing lake water lapping, and he says he hears it for always day and night.  And to heighten the reader's appreciation of what has transpired earlier in the poem, the poet introduces  the contrasting image of roadways and pavements grey.  The image is  hard and bleak and lifeless. And so the poet ends the poem with what really matters: the deep heart's core.

I enjoyed this poem, and it does make me wonder what lies calling  to me from my deep heart's core.  Accumulate appreciating and income producing capital!  Nope, that's not it.  Leave it with me, I'll work on it.  Meanwhile, here's the poem ... 

The Lake Isle of Innisfree by W.B. Yeats 

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

The Heroes by Charles Kingsley

Once upon a time I decided to move overseas.  I was constrained by cost to whittle my possession down to as much as would fit into three tea-chests.  Oh! the decisions, and the agonising over the decisions.  What to take, and what to give away?  In the end I allocated half-a-chest to books and personal papers.  There were several books that needed no decision-making: of course I would taking them to my new home.

One of these books was The Heroes by Charles Kingsley.  It was one of the first  fiction books I read with with genuine delight.  (I started my reading life by reading science and history books exclusively, and my 5y.o. self loathed the standard kiddies classics, such as Wind in the Willows and Winnie the Pooh - although I've warmed to these in my adult years).  Then, I found an old and battered book in a second-hand book store my mother and I used to frequent.  The Heroes.  I liked the sound of that.  So I asked Mum to buy it for me; and thus began my love affair with mythology.

Kingsley retells three tales from Greek Mythology: Perseus, The Argonauts, and Theseus.  My favorite tale in this book was (and still is) that of Perseus.  After an inauspicious childhood, Perseus becomes favoured by the Gods, and they bestowed upon him several magical items, including a pair of winged sandals which he immediately strapped on.

And Athené cried, "Now leap from the cliff and be gone" ... and [Perseus] leaped into the empty air.  And behold, instead of falling he floated, and stood, and ran along the sky ...  and the sandals led him on northward ever, like a crane who follows the spring toward the Ister fens.

I remember vividly how I felt when I first read that passage.  How I wished I too could run along the sky.  I still do.  And just as vividly, I recall the account of Cheiron the centaur schooling young Jason and the boys who would become the Argonauts, and Theseus slaying the supernatural bandits who infested the coast road from Troezen to Athens. 

It has been decades since I last read The Heroes; however, on re-reading, I found it as delightful as ever.  Kingsley's diction is very quaint and very Victorian.  He does use some high language, especially in the dialogue, but his choices are very judicious and he avoids strangling his tales with overblown and faux archaisms - unlike, say, Howard Pyle.  And for all the oddness of the subject matter of the stories, Kingsley makes it very easy for the reader to care for each hero.  Yes, it is all done with a deft touch.  Yes, it was all very enjoyable for me.  Yes, it may be for you too.

As a point of interest, my copy of The Heroes has the following printed on the information page:

REGISTERED AT THE G.P.O SYDNEY

FOR TRANSMISSION BY POST AS A BOOK

WHOLLY SET UP AND PRINTED IN AUSTRALIA BY

CONSOLIDATED PRESS LIMITED

166-174 CASTLEREAGH STREET, SYDNEY

1948

If you are interested in mythology, you may like to look at these reviews: The Inner Reaches of Outer Space and Myths of Light.  Both these books are by the renowned mythology theorist Joseph Campbell.

Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott

Flatland is a book about our perceptions of the world and the beliefs that arise from them.  Or is that the other way about?  It is also a satire about Victorian society and, possibly, an allegorical discussion about the merits of social improvement through evolution, plastic surgery or even eugenics.

The narrator of Flatland is a square that lives in a two-dimensional world.  The citizens of Flatland know two dimensions of movement only: northwards/southwards and side to side.  In their world rain falls from north to south, so they build their houses with the roof facing north.  

In the first part of the book, the narrator tells us about the social structure and social history of Flatland.  The inhabitants come in many shapes and sizes.  Most are regular polygons, such as triangles, squares and pentagons.  The more sides, the higher the social rank.  Climbing the social ladder is achieved on a generational basis: triangles father squares, squares father pentagons, and so on.  Circles occupy the highest social niche.  A minority of inhabitants are irregularly shaped, and they tend to have an abnormal psychology.  It is therefore necessary to constrain them either through incarceration or military service.  

War has played a prominent part in Flatland history.  Indeed, the most destructive war in their history came about when women became warriors.  Because women are considered irrational, and because they are by far the most lethal warriors, their social behaviour is severely curtailed in order to preserve an orderly society.

In the second part, the narrator relates a vision he had when he travelled to Lineland, where the inhabitants are one-dimensional and can only travel north/south.  He tries to explain to the monarch the concept of a second dimension and, consequently, side-to-side movement.  The king will have none of this kind of mad talk as it strikes against both his perceptions and his reason.  But the narrator persists and only succeeds in infuriating the Linelanders to the point of war.

Later, the narrator receives a visitor who claims to be from a three-dimensional world.  The narrator in his turn becomes angered by his guest's insistence about the possibility of moving upwards and downwards.  In the end, the visitor lifts the narrator out of Flatland and grants him a vision of three-dimensional space.  They speculate about the possibility of four dimensions.  This vision has disastrous consequences for the narrator.

In a short eighty page tract, Abbott has given us a lively and imaginative challenge to our assumptions about the world.  The narrator's visions are very reminiscent of Plato's parable of the cave - there may be another world which we can experience if only we could screw our perceptions through 180 degrees, metaphorically speaking.  What is very interesting is that the inhabitants of the various dimensional worlds become angry when their notions of reality are challenged.  It is an all too common phenomenon in our own world, and one which it is the philosopher's duty to transcend wherever possible.

Flatland is very worthwhile reading and, being mercifully short, can be tackled in an afternoon.  I read the Penguin ebook edition which is very well produced and is still text-to-speech enabled.

Albert Nobbs, starring Glenn Close and Janet McTeer

There are some movies where everything goes right, when all the elements that make for good storytelling are right there, at the right place and at the right time.  Albert Nobbs is not one of those movies.  Far from it.  The problem is that the script and the direction made it hard to believe in the main character or to care for the supporting cast.

Albert Nobbs is set in Ireland in Victorian times.  It tells the story of the eponymous protagonist who works as a waiter in a hotel that is struggling to keep its elite clients.  It turns out that Albert is really a woman who is trying to make something of herself in a man's world; but her secret is discovered by a stranger, and the unhappy Albert soon realises that happiness could be hers if only she could find ...

So much for the story.  As for the production, Glenn Close plays Albert; unfortunately, she does so by wearing a painful expression on her face for most of the movie.  Perhaps Albert suffered from wind but had no one to burp her?  Whatever it was, it made viewing the movie an uncomfortable experience.  In addition, there didn't seem to be adequate explanation or motivation for Albert's actions after her secret was revealed. 

In comparison, the character played by Janet McTeer is engaging, likeable and very believable, and this only serves to highlight the shortcomings of Glenn Close's portrayal of Albert and the direction that surrounded it.  I would go so far as to say that Janet McTeer's performance is the only note of distinction in the production.  Mia Wasikovska and Aaron Johnson give creditable performances as two ill-fated lovers, as does Pauline Collins in the role of the owner of the hotel.  

But none of this was enough to redeem the movie for me.  I got more fun and satisfaction from mocking-up a fake movie poster for this blog entry.  3/10