Review: The Sirens of Titan

I read The Sirens of Titan written by Kurt Vonnegut in 1959.

Simplified Summary

The story revolves mainly around Malachi Constant, a billionaire boy, and William Niles Rumfoord, a nobly born man who has became a cosmic wave capable of seeing into the past and future. Rumfoord “materializes” on planets and moons when they intersect with the wave.
One day, Rumfoord invites Constant to his mansion and tells him he will visit Mars, Mercury, Earth, and then Titan.
Constant ends up in the Army of Mars (all humans, no aliens). He gets his memory wiped by the army but he regains some knowledge from his own notes. He escapes and tries to leave Mars with his wife and boy but gets captured. He gets sent to Mercury by Rumfoord.
All Martians leave Mars and attack Earth but earth armies are so strong they get completely destroyed without doing much damage to Earth. Then Rumfoord tells earthlings Martians sacrificed themselves to unite all humanity, and coverts everyone to his new religion. It turns out Rumfoord built and orchestrated the Army of Mars.
Constant escapes Mercury a few years later and lands on Earth. People welcome him as Space Wanderer because Rumfoord predicted he would arrive one day and portrayed him as an icon/messiah.
In a welcoming ceremony for Space Wanderer, Rumfoord reveals to the crowd Space Wanderer used to be Malachi Constant, a greedy and lustful billionaire. He then tells Constant and his wife and boy to leave for Titan as a sacrifice for all human sins.
A robot Salo from a distant planet Tralfamadore has been living on Titan for a long time because his space ship broke. Turns out Rumfoord got advanced technology from him and used it to build the Army of Mars. Soon after Constant and co arrive on Titan, Rumfoord gets sick and disappears for good due to a solar storm. Right before disappearing, Rumfoord drops a bombshell; It turns out Tralfamadorians have been remotely manipulating earthlings for hundreds of thousands of years to bring a replacement part for Salo’s ship and its culmination is for Constant’s child to just bring a random piece of metal. Rumfoord ended up being used to make just that happen. Salo, having become quite human by talking to Rumfoord, despairs of losing his best friend and realizing the futility of his mission and destroys himself.
Constant spends nearly all of the rest of his life on Titan. After his wife’s natural death, he repairs Salo and asks him to take him to Earth. Soon after he lands on Earth, he has a peaceful death.

War

With all the tension built up until this war, when the Martian army (200,000 soldiers on thousands of spaceships) finally attacks Earth, they get completely overwhelmed by Earthling armies and civilians. The war lasts 67 days, spanning only six pages in the book. It’s so anticlimactic but that’s probably the point. And then the narrator reveals the war was nothing but an “elaborate suicide” that Rumfoord organized to break Earthlings’ hearts (The last spaceship wave had only unarmed women and children. Excited earthlings shot dead most of them before realizing they were harmless civilians). Having soaked Earth with shame and guilt, he starts a new religion named “The Church of God the Utterly Indifferent”, which spreads across the planet quickly and deeply changes societies. He knew the mass suicide would happen, wanted it to happen, and made it happen to make the world better.

Let’s look at Wikipedia… so Vonnegut served the US army in World War II. During that time, he got mistakenly attacked by the UK army, worked as a POW in Germany, and again he was firebombed by his allies there… so unlucky. And after starting the writing career, he publicly expressed his anti-war view. This view seems to be reflected in the way he depicted the Army of Mars as a (almost cartoonishly) dystopian system, and also how they got annihilated by earthlings in such an anticlimactic way.

Religion

But the war wasn’t futile (which makes it kinda hard to interpret Vonnegut’s message). Even though it cost hundreds of thousands of Martian lives, Rumfoord was able to then spread a religion and transform societies on Earth; No more national borders, no more wars, no more hate; Everyone is equal (although it’s a bit extreme: people wear handicap weights and all to compensate for physical inequalities); God doesn’t care about us so we take care of ourselves. This religion at least partly aligns with Vonnegut’s atheistic belief:

“I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I’m dead.” — Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian, 1999
(Quote stolen from Wikipedia)

Using and being used

I see three instances of this X-unknowingly-used-by-Y relationship in the story; all Martian soldiers, including Constant, were controlled by commanders disguised as low-rank soldiers; all Martians were Rumfoord’s puppets to perform a “tragic” war, setting up for his new religion; and all humans in the history including Rumfoord had been remotely manipulated by Tralfamadorians for hundreds of thousands of years to produce just one ordinary replacement part for the space ship of Salo, a Tralfamadorian robot. About the last one, Rumfoord shows his real emotion for the first (and last) time saying:

It may surprise you to learn that I take a certain pride, no matter how foolishly mistaken that pride may be, in making my own decisions for my own reasons.

With his ability to see into the future, he always kind of knew he was being used but he really didn’t want to admit it until this last moment before disappearing into the space.

This recurring “used” theme raises a question: Do we have free will, and does it matter? It certainly mattered to Rumfoord.

Meaning of life

Vonnegut gives a simple answer through Constant’s mouth:

“Only an Earthling year ago,” said Constant. “It took us that long to realize that a purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”

Vonnegut also describes satirically how Tralfamadorians kept seeking for higher purposes and meanings but with no success and eventually they lost hope and destroyed themselves.

I also noticed an interesting similarity in Constant and Vonnegut’s life: they were both born in a really rich family but with a certain event they quickly fell into poverty. Maybe Vonnegut wanted to show how things are impermanent in life.

So I think this book’s message is: There is no higher or lower purpose, no hell or heaven, no God who cares about us. Rich or poor, lucky or unlucky, you have things come and go. Don’t seek meanings externally. Look inward, be yourself, and just enjoy the time with people you love.

Overall thought

Really unique settings. A guy who has turned into a wave phenomenon and materializes on Earth every 59 days? Who else would come up with that.
A lot of scenes felt a bit unnecessarily detailed (probably due to my insensitivity) but a few important scenes were really engaging and kept me going. I don’t know much about writing styles but this book overall felt sort of cartoonish (not in a bad way) i.e. things happen in exaggerated ways.
I encountered so many new words. I’m not sure I remember even 10% of them. But it wasn’t as hard to read as I expected from a book this old.
Favorite scene: Constant parting ways with Boaz. I almost cried 🥹.
I’ve been listening to talks by non-dualistic/Buddhistic meditation teachers and, interestingly, this book’s message felt pretty similar to what they say (e.g. impermanence, “living in the moment”).

Misc.

Real life references I found while reading Vonnegut’s wikipedia:

At the end of the story, Constant asks Salo to take him to Indianapolis and he dies there. Vonnegut was also born and raised there.
His first wife, Jane, graduated Phi Beta Kappa. Constant also wore a Phi Beta Kappa key in the final scene.
Vonnegut was living in Barnstable when he wrote this book. Constant landed near a church in this town after departing from Mercury.