Somewhere between Utopian and Dystopian, Vonnegut imagines a future which is both good news and bad news. Its always a treat to read Vonnegut and the short story form is perfect for such a concise mind as his to showcase his wit and talent for fiction. He doesn't pose the question - astonishingly the question becomes obvious as he details the solution. You can live as long as you like, so long as you don't reproduce. Its a quid pro quo life in the truest sense. One person born, one person dies. And even death has been neatened up a bit and turned into a wonderful service industry. Classic Vonnegut all the way and this fan is grateful to have found it, even if I was expecting it to be about two brothers who shared a flat. LOL moments combined with painful irony. Rather mundane story of a future where population balance is all - for every child born, one person has to die, now that anything but voluntary mortality is a thing of the past. In my view, the reality of such a situation would be that there would always be a contentious third world and there would always be aggressive young men and there will always be an arms industry and small wars will be encouraged.I do see that medical cures and ways of extending life, perhaps more or less indefinitely, might be developed, but I don't see how you are going to breed pacificsm and generosity into people. Nor do I see that aggression and avarice will decline, let alone die. Religion alone will see to that. Come to think of it, what happens to heaven and hell when there is immortality and eternal sin will go unpunished.Utopia, like dystopia, is for writers, they exist, like heaven and hell in the imagination. Reality is the unchanging nature of people. I don't see that as being influenced to change completely by any technology that might be developed.Perhaps when it was written, this was cutting-edge dystopian sci-fi, but now it has no lustre, there is nothing in it that stands out as unique to this story. I can't rate a book on 'how it was back then' only on how much enjoyment I got from it now. Three and a half stars because it was as well-written as one expects of the doomy-gloomy Vonnegut but that's it.
Do You like book 2BRO2B (2010)?
short but thoughtful distopian essay on assisted euthanasia.
—FedeKikka
