Player Piano (novel)

For more about the automated musical instrument, see player piano

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Player Piano is a novel by Kurt Vonnegut, published in 1952, about a near-future society that is almost totally mechanized and automated, eliminating the middle class. This widespread mechanization creates conflict between the wealthy upper class of engineers and managers that keep society running and the lower class, whose skills and purpose in society machines replaced. The theme is that a society run by machines devalues human life. In the book, most Americans work in the "reeks and wrecks" performing menial tasks to pay for a pre-packaged government pension. Everyone in the story is given a job based upon their IQ. IQs above a certain number(usually 130, but influential people can get favors for sons, daughters, etc.)are allowed to go to college in order that they may become an Engineer or Manager. In the story being an Engineer or Manager is the best possible life one can hope for as they make the most money and have the most prestige. All those that fall bellow the given line for college have two options: The Reclamation and Reconstruction Organization or the Military. In the book the people that hold those jobs live across the river in Homestead while the people of importance live on the same side as the factories.

The novel is an example of soft science fiction, with an emphasis on sociological themes rather than the technology that makes this world possible.

The name comes from the musical device called a player piano, a piano that plays without human intervention, according to holes previously punched in an unwinding scroll.

Characters

Paul Proteus, the novel's protagonist, is the head of industry in Ilium, New York. He is caught in the middle of the conflict, forced to choose whether to continue his work and move on to a future of fame and success, or become the figurehead leader of a rebellion against the machine society. His father was an influential and important figure in the transition to an automated society and thus Paul finds himself in an interesting position. He is to be given a big promotion: to head Engineer at the Pittsburgh plant, the biggest center of production in the Eastern United States. His boss, Kroner knew his father and had always groomed Paul for big things which complicates matters for Paul as his father died when he was young and doesn't want to disappoint his father figure who is trying to help him.

Anita is Paul's wife. She was a "regular" person as they refer to her in the novel, that is she didn't score well enough to get a job as an Engineer or go to college, had Paul not married her she would've been living in Homestead. She is described as an attractive woman with an desire for her husband's career advancement, to a fault.

Kroner is Paul's boss and one of the most important men in the country. He treats all of his underlings as if they are his children and he even refers to his wife as "mother" when speaking of her to Paul. He's overtly sexist and believes the system of automation in place is the best thing for the country with every fiber of his being.

Ed Finnerty is Paul's old best friend. They'd come up through the Engineering ranks together and they had grown close. Their friendship waned when Finnerty took a high ranking position in Washington, D.C. and they lost touch. 'Finnerty' as he's called throughout the book had always been somewhat of a nut, never caring what others thought of him in the least, his poor hygeine is discussed at length in the start of the book. It is Finnerty that first plants the seeds of revolution in Paul's mind.

Rev. James J. Lasher was in a bar that Paul happened to go into to buy scotch and struck up a conversation with him. When Paul went back the next day with Finnerty the two hit it off and began swapping revolutionary ideas almost immediatly.

The Shah of Bratpuhr is another character in the novel, the spiritual leader of the Kolhouri, a sect with 6 million adherents. During the novel he is led on a tour of the United States in order to learn from the most powerful nation in the world how to improve the lives of the people in his mountain kingdom.