Player Piano

Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut - Kurt Vonnegut’s first novel pubilished in 1951 takes place in at town called ILIUM, NEW YORK. “Ilium, New York is divided into three parts. In the northwest are the managers and engineers and civil servants and a few professional people; in the northeast are the machines, and in the south, across the Iroquois River, is the area known locally as Homestead, where almost all of the people live.”

In some ways, Paul Proteus, engineering manager, is similar to Bob Slocum in Something Happened, they both have it all yet aren't satisfied. They are tied together like Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller are tied together in that both characters do not have "enough". In Ilium, NY engineers are the only important people everyone else is provided and can do what they want but have no purpose.

"In order to get what we've got, Anita, we have, in effect, traded these people out of what was the most important thing on earth to them—the feeling of being needed and useful, the foundation of self-respect."

When Paul is forced to turn two of his friends in to maintain his place in the order he decides to start living instead. Downtown Josh Brown mentioned this one on the Compound podcast talking about the perils of Universal Basic Income and then Mike mentioned it while camping.

Our Assessment: B-, An important idea.