Before re-reading it I assumed that reacquainting myself with Vonnegut's Player Piano was going to be a bit of a chore. For some reason in my teens I'd somehow formed the opinion that the writing was a bit flat and the novel too long by a third. I now realise what a fine, sustained work PP actually is. True it lacks the stylistic and thematic fireworks of what would follow appearing to be in most respects a fairly conventional piece of sci-fi, but it's a beautifully controlled satire of corporate politics and behaviour, written before most folk had become really aware of just what the corporate world was/is like. Come to think of it, it's hardly sci-fi at all in the usual sense.
I'm guessing I just didn't have any real connection with the essential subject matter of the novel all those years ago and, understandably, just didn't get it. Would that I might be that innocent again.
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