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I'm also enjoying how their relationship is portrayed, it's a lot more realistic than how the "voice of reason" character is usually depicted in stories like these - those kind of people are usually kind of unpleasant to be around in real life. Paul's simultaneous enjoyment and insecurity over the fact that a rebellious guy like Finnerty would choose to be friends with him also hit home hard, I've been in plenty of relationships like that myself.
Our service economy is a lot like what is described in these first few chapters but perhaps we are at a more advanced state. Repair shops have been lost to planned obsolescence, which is completely illogical from the efficiency-first ethos of this society. Even 20 years ago repair shops for electronics and appliances existed even in small towns but now these things are disposable. That is not efficient, that is wasteful. Even auto repair is becoming more of a game of replacing computerized module by a dealer for huge money than actually fixing anything. Dressmaking is something I only know of cosplayers and historical re-enactors doing in this day and age. Fast fashion and mass produced cheap clothing was not on Kurt's radar. This interesting divergence between player piano and modern america I believe reflects a profit motive replacing efficiency motive which leads to different outcomes.
I was amused by it too. I was thinking about how I would personally react in the situation—I think it would be the insult to his wife that would have soured my mood of the reunion too. Otherwise I would have been a bit shocked of course but would have found his bullshit endearing.
I like it too. It also doesn't get lost into tiring technobabble as sci-fi often does.
It really looks to me that it's rather the matter of the latter. I think the setting makes it clear that at least the managerial-engineering class is certain that the material well-being is immense. Likewise the apparent relaxed and overstaffed manner of the road maintenance work indicates that it's just a one big daycare.
The checkers-machine seems to be exceptionally high-tech and not mass-produced so this is certainly not a setting with personal computers.
I don't blame you but I think you underestimate people. I know many people who are absolutely tortured by how they feel that their work is without purpose. I'm a "skilled expert" myself and sometimes I despair about it.
I've been thinking about the cat too. Another piece of foreshadowing was the rusty gun he keeps in his Homesteads-mobile.
Very interesting thoughts. I agree with you.
I think this is more of man's effect on nature and the consequences it has. A cat is drawn to its natural instincts and sees the machine as a threat. It starts hissing at it and tries to attack it. The machine fucks the cat up and spits it out. The cat, shaken, scared and not knowing what's going on, tries to escape but is electrocuted. The cat got hurt and died simply because of its instinctual reaction to this giant machine doing it's thing, yet you can't really blame the cat itself for being scared. (When I was reading where Paul initially brought the cat in I thought "Why the hell did Paul bring the fucking cat in?", and was only more frustrated after its death.) Its not just industrial revolutions causing forests to be cut down for logging and animal habitats being threatened for more land usage, even animals near and dear to us are affected as well. When machines and nature interact it doesn't really end well. IDK what I'm blabbing about at this point but it's definitely a metaphor for something.
I kept thinking back to this quote while I read this week, I think it sums up the divergence between the book (and other attempts to predict the future from around the same time) and modern reality perfectly. The idea of a social obsession with automation without any concern for efficiency must have seemed unthinkable back then, but it's arguably what's happening right now with LLMs being forced into everything because some executive didn't want to miss the bandwagon.
I think that LLM/AI/machine learning is making chumps out of men. What are we but a bunch of pigs willing to wallow in the product of our collective social media waste and consume the refined product of it's statistical mean in the generated arts and written word of the machine? Yet we continue to burn top notch high quality fuel to power this machine, and expend much effort to create more. Meanwhile the human brain runs on potatoes. Where is the resilience in depending on an electronic brain which in turn is dependent on gas pumped thousands of miles or nuclear reactors? Finnerty suggests we are setting ourselves up for failure by becoming dependent on, and thus vulnerable to, machine minds.
That friendship is uncannily similar. I did some digging into what influence Brave New World had on Vonnegut, and here is what wikipedia had to say:
So this is indeed Brave New World all over again, in the authors own words! So it seems to me the Bernhard - Helmholtz relationship parallel is probably intentional. In digging into the cited interview, which was published in Playboy Magazine in June of 1973, I found this other remarkable Vonnegut quote:
Which is reflected in Player Piano, as dorgon observed:
Class stasis is oppressive in it's own right. It is depressing not to be realistically able to improve ones lot in life. The only thing you can change is how you feel, unless you are willing to overthrow the established order. Makes me realize so many of these dystopian novels are just protags trying to overthrow a sclerotic class structure and failing, and/or changing how they feel about the society to attain a sort of inner peace, even if it is ugly (1984).
I had no idea there was that close of a connection between the two books. If I had known beforehand I might not have picked this one for the club since we've already read BNW. Player Piano still seems pretty distinct so far, but knowing that it was consciously written as part of the same tradition of dystopian novels has already got me trying to predict the ending. Incidentally, I don't remember We being as similar to 1984 and BNW as everyone says it is. The three books have a similar premise and kind of follow the same arc, but you can tell that the authors were all interested in different things, or came from different backgrounds, and that comes across as you read. I think the same thing applies to Player Piano. Even if it ends up following the same formula the fact that it was written by an American who spent a good amount of time working at General Electric is enough to make it stand on its own.
(I don't know who said this, I keep thinking Asimov but I don't think that's correct. May have been Phillip K. Dick?)
We is definitely distinct due to being so heavily influenced by Soviet theories of scientific management. You see it in BNW as well but it's a lot clunkier in We which adds to its charm, imo. BNW (and Player Piano) is about castes and their place in a dystopia where We is more focused on endless, oppressive Soviet style bureaucracy (I could be wrong it's been nearly half a decade since I've read them).
