The Story Archive

The Sirens of Titan

Kurt Vonnegut · 1959 CE · Novel · Modern / American · Contemporary

The richest man in America is invited to watch a Rhode Island aristocrat materialise in his own garden, the man having been scattered as a wave phenomenon between the sun and Betelgeuse and left able to see all of time at once. What follows carries Malachi Constant to Mars as a conscript with an antenna in his skull, to a cave on Mercury, and back to Earth for a public role he did not choose. Vonnegut's second book, and where Tralfamadore first appears.

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Attributes

Genre
Science FictionSatireComedy
Theme
Freedom vs FateExistential AbsurdityWealth & GreedJourney & QuestDeath & Mortality
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
EverymanTricksterWanderer
Plot structure
Voyage and ReturnThe QuestIronic Reversal
Symbol / motif
The MachineThe Journey
Conflict
vs Fate / Godsvs Technology
Mode / tone
SatiricalAbsurdistIronic
Culture / tradition
Modern / American

Closest analogues