Recently, I read Kurt Vonnegut’s first novel, Player Piano. It was brilliant, and extremely visionary. For those unfamiliar, the novel tackles the idea of a dystopian future society where nearly every job is done by machines. Everyone has enough food, televisions and various other diversions are plentiful… but there’s a great crisis of meaning.

It’s very much worth noting he wrote this back in 1952.

The themes are, of course, very relevant – but I want to talk about a specific section that had me giggling with delight, much like a schoolgirl.

I’m secure enough in my masculinity to admit that.

The passage in question takes place during a yearly event where the engineers, one of the few classes who still reasonably meaningful jobs, get together for a few rousing weeks of sports, roughhousing, and propaganda. During this outing, a play is put on.

Rather than simply describing the play, Vonnegut actually writes the entire thing, complete with stage directions… and wow, does it get the job done. For context, the play-within-a-book is about a benevolent keeper of the skies who decides which ‘stars’ might rise – stars such as Socialism, Free Enterprise, and so on. A debate is brought to him as to whether the star symbolizing ‘the company’ might stay risen in the sky.

And wow, the prose is shockingly good.

“RADICAL: (Offensively ingratiating.) Your honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the prosecution will show that the star in question is as tarnish – nay, black! – as any ever hung in the heavens. I will call but one witness, but that witness in effect is a million witnesses, each of whom could tell the same sordid tale, tell the unvarnished truth in the same simple words from the heart. I’d like to call John Averageman to the stand.”

Those stage directions are both hilarious and incisive – one often thinks of propaganda as this subtle, poisonous game where those of incredible intelligence are manipulating the masses. But really, it is often as blunt and on-the-nose as Vonnegut is showing here.

And, again, I can’t repeat enough how hilarious I find those stage directions. Another example, when the ‘heroic’ young engineer in the play jumps in to counter the radical’s testimony:

“YOUNG ENG. (Jumps to feet impulsively, likably.)”

It’s brilliant. I highly recommend you read the whole novel, but even just this excerpt (which, in my edition, takes place in Chapter 21 between pages 211 and 219) will delight you and get those neurons firing.

That’s all for now – I just wanted to share something interesting I read.

Follow for more thoughts, and my own writing – there’s more coming soon, and I’ll always keep the Stories tab on this website updated with the latest.