The Sirens of Titan

The Sirens of Titan is a satirical and philosophical science fiction novel by the American writer Kurt Vonnegut . It is considered one of his main works.

Emergence

The novel was mainly in winter 1958-59 and appeared in 1959 in the New Yorker Publisher Dell Publishing in an initial print run of 2500 pieces. At first, it received little public attention, as science fiction was generally regarded as inferior literature at the time. To make matters worse, the publisher immediately published the first edition as a paperback instead of the usual high- quality hardcover edition. After all, the novel was nominated for the Hugo Award in 1960 , but this year the award went to Robert A. Heinlein and his novel Starship Troopers .

It was only when Vonnegut suddenly became famous with his anti-war novel Schlachthof 5 (1969) that The Sirens of Titan also met with a greater response. Numerous translations subsequently appeared, including a German translation by Harry Rowohlt in 1979 .

Like all of Vonnegut's novels, The Sirens of Titan is written in extremely simple language and is relatively short. The first edition has only 319 pages.

action

1st chapter . Outside the Rumfoord family mansion in Newport , Rhode Island , a crowd hopes to witness a unique spectacle - the materialization of Winston Niles Rumfoord and his big black dog Kazak. Shortly before, however, the crowd is distracted, and Malachi Constant from Hollywood , the richest American, drives unnoticed to the country estate, following an invitation from Beatrice Rumfoord (34). Rumfoord exists as a wave phenomenon in a distorted spiral between Sun and Betelgeuse pulsates. Two day trips from Mars it got into a "chrono-synclastic infundibulum" and is now materializing. Rumfoord can read minds and predicts Constant: He will marry Beatrice Rumfoord on Mars and have a child named Chrono with her. He will then live on Mercury for a few years , return to Earth one more time and finally die on Titan . Rumfoord shows Constant a photo of Titan's three sirens - the most beautiful women in the universe .

2nd chapter . Malachi Constant returns to his Hollywood estate and writes insulting letters to Beatrice Rumfoord, who is also doing everything possible to prevent the prophecy from coming true. A few days later, Beatrice is ruined by a bad speculation on the stock exchange. Constant has a big party at the end of which he learns he is completely bankrupt.

3rd chapter . Ransom K. Fern (60), President of Constant's business empire Magnum Opus Inc., explains to Constant that the company has already been dissolved: Constant gave away 131 oil wells while in a state of intoxication, and it was also found that around 10 million thanks to its cigarette brand MoonMist Tobacco People have been sterilized who will now sue Constant. The estimated legal costs will be to 5 billion US dollars amount. Constant goes back to room 223 of the Wilburhampton Hotel in Los Angeles , where his father had lived, and reads his last letter. Two Mars agents kidnap him in a flying saucer . Beatrice is kidnapped from her home in Newport.

4th chapter . Several years have passed, Malachi Constant now lives on Mars, where he is referred to as "little uncle". He serves as a simple corporal in the Mars Army, with a cleared memory, and, like almost all of them, remote-controlled by radio. During an execution he strangles someone sentenced to death. The dying man whispers to him: "Blue stone, little uncle, accommodation 12, letter."

5th chapter . Back in his quarters, Boaz - one of the real commanders who is not remotely controlled - tries to befriend little uncle. Uncle goes to room 12 and reads the letter he wrote himself before the brain cleanse. It contains all the information Uncle and Stony could gather about life on Mars, including the assurance that the Commander in Chief of the Mars Army is a man with a dog who comes regularly every 111 days. He also learns that his wife Bea and their son Chrono (8) also live on Mars.

6th chapter . The Mars Army is attacking Earth. Uncle deserted, found Chrono and tried to persuade him to flee together. Chrono has never seen him and has no interest in escaping. Bea can't remember anything either. Uncle passes out and wakes up in a spaceship. Rumfoord, whom Uncle cannot remember, appears and tells how the Mars soldiers told Uncle, who was then a lieutenant colonel , of a haughty beauty who lived in a locked luxury cabin. Since he was very ambitious, he penetrated the woman, who, however, was in fact weak and rather ordinary. It was Beatrice with whom he had fathered the prophesied child. Rumfoord now prophesies: Uncle will try for the rest of his life to win the love of this woman and their son. Boaz arrives, also gets into the rocket and pushes the start button on Rumfoord's advice.

7th chapter . The entire population of Mars lands on Earth to conquer it. The only military success is the temporary occupation of a butcher's shop in Basel . The war lasts only 67 days and ends with Mars being depopulated and the people of the earth making fun of the naivete of the people of Mars who are being massacred wherever they appear. The complete suicide of Mars, which is no longer habitable afterwards, was Rumfoord's plan. The technological part was done by Salo, Rumfoord's friend on Titan, who is owned by the UWZW to Become the Universal Will. Rumfoord's plan works: After the effortless final victory over Mars, the people on earth believe that they have murdered almost unarmed saints who came with the aim of finally uniting the earth's population through the unifying feeling of deep guilt. Only Bea and Chrono, who landed in the Amazon rainforest, survived , as did Boaz and Uncle, whom Rumfoord sent to Mercury. Rumfoord wants Uncle to miraculously return after a few years and become the main character of a new religion. Rumfoord proclaims his new religion and declares himself head of it: The Church of God of the Indifferent. The two main doctrines are: “Man can neither help God nor do anything to please God. Fate does not come from God's hand. "

8th chapter . Uncle and Boaz land on Mercury and, through the preprogrammed navigation computer, get into the deepest cave on the planet. This is where the harmoniums live, small yellow creatures that feed on the song of Mercury. There does not seem to be a way back up, as the spaceship can only be navigated downwards. The harmoniums form a message with their bodies: "THIS IS AN INTELLIGENCE TEST!"

9th chapter . The message was posted by Rumfoord, whose traces little uncle discovered after three years. Boaz puts on tape concerts for the harmoniums and invents a device for listening to music without dying of ecstasy. Then one day he finds the message: “BOAZ, WE LOVE YOU.” Uncle finds the message: “UNCLE, TURN THE SHIP AROUND.” Boaz decides to die on Mercury; Uncle follows the advice of the harmoniums, turns the spaceship around and flies back to earth.

10th chapter . He ends up in West Barnstable , Massachusetts cemetery . Pastor Redwine (49), who had been prophesied that the exhausted space wanderer would appear to him, rings the bells. In the church, as everywhere, there is a doll of a Malachi, which symbolizes the repulsive way of life of the past. Uncle is greeted enthusiastically by the residents of the small town, who do not know that he was that Malachi. All members of the new religion have acquired an artificial handicap: some have put weights on themselves so that they cannot run so fast, others masked their beauty with ugly clothing, and still others have deliberately married a completely unsuitable partner.

11th chapter . Rumfoord also preaches the hatred of Malachi Constant, and the belief that the outrageous luck that Malachi had was not a hint from God. He also tells Malachi that the strangled man was Stony Stevenson, uncle's best friend.

12th chapter . Malachi, his wife Beatrice and their son Chrono land on Titan, where they will die in a few years.

reception

Vonnegut, who was not a believer and rejected all forms of organized religiosity, created a religious satire with this novel, whereby Winston Niles Rumfoord embodies God and his omnipotence. The figure of the Rumfoord was probably inspired by a mocking remark by the zoologist and philosopher Ernst Haeckel , who in his work Die Weltträtsel (1899) had postulated that God was a "gaseous vertebrate". Another topic of the novel is the question of the extent to which people can act freely and independently - or not.

The literary critic Denis Scheck writes about The Sirens of Titan : "For Vonnegut it is a breakthrough to the spelling that characterizes his entire following work: A story is told on numerous interlocking narrative levels, the cosmological dimensions of which relativize all earthly events."

The sometimes ludicrous events and dialogues of the novel, which takes place on several planets, result in references to the novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams , which appeared 20 years later and who professed Vonnegut several times. In an interview, when asked about his role models, Adams said:

“ Tom Stoppard . Otherwise, Tolstoy I love. Solzhenitsyn . Kurt Vonnegut, who I think is absolutely superb. I've read The Sirens of Titan six times now, and it gets better every time. He is an influence, I must own up. Sirens of Titan is just one of those books - you read it through the first time and you think it's very loosely, casually written. You think the fact that everything suddenly makes such good sense at the end is almost accidental. And then you read it a few more times, simultaneously finding out more about writing yourself, and you realize what an absolute tour de force it was, making something as beautifully honed as that appear so casual. (Tom Stoppard, otherwise I also love Tolstoy, Solzhenitsyn. Absolutely great is Kurt Vonnegut, I think. I've read The Sirens of Titan six times now, and it's getting better and better. He influences me, I have to admit. The Sirens of Titan is one of those books that when you first read it you think it's very loose, written almost casually. You think the fact that everything suddenly makes sense at the end is more of an accident. And then you read it more often and at the same time find out more about your own writing and realize what an absolute masterpiece it was to make something that appears as beautiful as it is polished and at the same time so casual. "

The Sirens of Titan is one of Salman Rushdie's favorite books .

Adaptations for film and theater

The film rights held for a long time Jerry García , guitarist of the rock group Grateful Dead . After García's death, the film producer, director and screenwriter Robert B. Weide acquired the rights. He filmed Vonnegut's novel Mother Night in 1996 and made the documentary Kurt Vonnegut: American Made in 2015 . In April 2007 it was announced that the screenwriter James V. Hart had already adapted the novel while the author was still alive.

Brigitte Helbling and Niklaus Helbling arranged the work for the stage. The world premiere took place on January 29, 2015 in the State Theater Mainz .

literature

• Susan Farrell, Critical Companion to Kurt Vonnegut: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work , New York 2008, pp. 312–329 ( digitized version )
• Charles C. Shields, And so it goes: Kurt Vonnegut, a life , New York 2011, pp. 159–162, 168–170

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Denis Scheck, Kurt Vonnegut , Berlin-Munich 2014, p. 49
2. ↑ Ian Shiroce, Douglas Adams: The First and Last Tapes ( online )
3. ↑ Jan Küveler, Salman Rushdie fights the trolls on Twitter , in: Die Welt , April 15, 2015 ( online )
4. ↑ Salman Rushdie's 6 favorite Surrealist books , in: The Week , September 13, 2015 ( online )
5. ↑ Rock Scully, Living with the Dead: Twenty Years on the Bus with Garcia and the Grateful Dead , New York 2001, p. 321 ( digitized version )
6. ↑ Whyaduck Productions , August 2006
7. ↑ Shawn Adler, Kurt Vonnegut's 'Sirens of Titan' being adapted for big screen , in: MTV News , April 13, 2007 ( online )
8. ↑ Website of the State Theater Mainz ( Memento of the original from February 21, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.