Player Piano

Originally published in 1952, Player Piano is Kurt Vonnegut’s first novel. Set in a dystopian future where humanity has given control of almost all of its decisions and jobs to machines, Player Piano details the struggles and ironies of humanity’s attempt at a reclamation of human purposefulness.

Doctor Paul Proteus serves as the head of the Ilium plant—one of many such plants across the United States that have popped up after the Third World War. Everything about the labor of these plants is automated, except for the people that help design and fix the machines. Social classesare separated greatly, and wealth inequality is high. There is the engineer-class, who thrive in this new world, and everyone else, who is relegated to either the army or the Reeks and Reclamation Corps.

Paul, though bred by his famous manager father to be a powerful leader in the industry, has his reservations about the actual good of this new industrial revolution. Ed Finnerty, his old friend, only adds to this further. Finnerty, a disheveled freethinker, ignites a flame in Paul to live by his own hands, machine-less. Paul’s wife, Anita, protests this new change in Paul, encouraging him to stay on the path that will land him a promotion to a plant in Pittsburgh.