The Sirens of Titan: A Novel [Paperback]

Winston Niles Rumfoord, stuck in Chrono-Synclastic Infidibula, has a great scheme, a plan to aide and enlighten humanity. As he says: "Any man who would change the World in a significant way must have showmanship, a genial willingness to shed other people's blood, and a plausible new religion to introduce during the brief period of repentance and horror that usually follows bloodshed". He trains an army of earthlings on Mars, shaving their heads and implanting radios in their skulls to make them a mindless mass of killers who simply follow orders. Sounds familiar, no? Their attack on Earth is futile, and is made meaningful to Earth's people because "Earth's glorious victory over Mars had been a tawdry butchery of virtually unarmed saints, saints who had waged feeble war on Earth in order to weld the peoples of that planet into a monolithic Brotherhood of Man". During this time of understanding, repentance, and horror, Winston Niles Rumfoord introduces The Church of God the Utterly Indifferent. A religion that can be accepted by anyone, it teaches that puny man can do nothing at all to help or please God Almighty, and Luck is not the hand of God. Finally, war, fear, hate, and envy in the name of religion shall die. Because there is truth in your soul, a meaning within yourself, rather than some phenomenal plan uncontrolled by people. There is no Great purpose for human life, and the only thing close to it is the delivery of a missing piece from a Tralfamadorian's ship. So, in light of our virtually meaningless existence, there is but one purpose a human can act upon singularly and individually: to love and to be loved.

If Vonnegut's goal was to answer this question that many are afraid to ask, I feel sure that he achieved it. A philosophy few may agree with, it is plausible nonetheless. This is a powerful novel, pointing out the futility of war, the evil we do to create an army of "one", mankind's dependence upon finding meaning any way he can, be it in religion or space, and that "everything that ever has been always will be, and everything that ever will be always has been". Reading this will make you think, about purpose (or lack thereof), about love, about all the things that define our existence.

It is neat to see Vonnegut's novels evolve over time: Player Piano, while still a masterpiece, is a very conventional novel without a lot of the craziness that is so evident in his later novels. Breakfast of Champions is the most unconventional novel I have ever read, its like the two books were written by two totally different authors.
The Sirens of Titan, on the other hand, is somewhere in the middle. There is a clear plot in the story, much like Player Piano, but it is not as structured as the former. We begin to see the early beginnings of what would later become one of Vonnegut's trademarks: unrelenting sarcasm and irony.

What makes The Sirens of Titan my favorite Vonnegut novel? Everything comes together at the very end. Throughout the novel, there is a clear question looming over the reader and the characters in the book: the purpose of human life. Vonnegut answers this question (or Malachi Constant, rather) in the last few pages of the story, and it is absolutely brilliant. The fact that the author even dared to ask such a question and then answer it, is extraordinary.