I just finished Sirens of Titan today for the 2nd time, the 1st was 13 years ago during a rather deep depression…differences and recommendations. (Spoilers)

Sorry this is a bit of a long read but if you make it thanks!

So, like the title states I read this book randomly awhile back during a horrible clinical depression episode that lasted like 4 or 5 months, by the 3rd month I could read again and picked it up and loved it, I thought it was a fantastic absurdist satire comedy with a little bit of hope and positivity towards the end, it was a nice read on my uphill climb back to feeling “normal”.. I was crashing at a friends house then and barley making ends meet, it was a rought time.

Now, I got laid off a month ago and while this may sound depressing I am very happy with where I am at in life, I have a little saved up so don’t need a new job right away and good living conditions , so different mindset then the first time and a bit of life later. This has given me time to read and just do whatever I want, so last week I decided I wanted to read more Vonnegut as I’ve only read Hocus Pocus and Sirens, and I know only reading 2 of them it was kinda weird to pick up Sirens again but I remember it being amazing, something to hold onto when everything else was horrible in my head, and I wanted to remember why I felt this way.

This time reading it I found it pretty depressing for most the book but still morbidly hilarious but the LAST CHAPTER and EPILOUGE were still some of the best words I have read, and I remembered during my depression thinking the same thing, but could not remember why. This is why I read the entire book again becase the last chapter engraved itself in my mind as being great even though I could not remember it. The ending is amazing, it’s such a revel on a level that really blew me away, I was laughing out loud reading this in my yard and how wild it was that literally everyone was being used by someone and how that all plays out …

The MAJOR difference this time was that when I got to the line in the Epilogue, which I now know is pretty popular after looking it up online, which was –

***”It took us that long to realize that a purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”***

I smiled and paused for a minute , I mean the entire Epilogue is really peaceful and lovely compared to the rest of the book, so I was pretty elated all ready… but then I read it again, and started crying. Not sad tears, but I dunno, I kept crying for like 5 minutes while smiling and feeling pretty great. Thie quote is the main takeway from the entire book right? I feel like he wrote the book to explain this quote. oh and then Salo puts the hypnosis into Constant so he can finally put his own known wrong right and see his buddy Stony again, the tears came back.. What an ending, everything was fine in the end….much lol but it’s a good feeling at least but a rare one for me, happens with cinema more then reading but music can do it as well , but for a book, it’s rare for me. I almost feel like I am a character in this book, like I was struck with depression so I would read the book so it would stay in the back of my head so I could read it today and have it hit me like it did… and even though I don’t really feel this way, it’s fun to play with the idea after reading the book.

Anyways, this book to me a Masterpiece, to pull that kind of emotion that was unavailable to me during my 1st read but now is, I dunno man, it’s like nothing else and just wanted to share it here and see if anyone else related like this… I can’t wait to keep reading more of Vonnegut , I plan on reading a few next because I love Sirens so much and I know he has very different books but I plan to read more. The only one I own is Jailbird which I see he gave an A bit I know it’s not sci fi, little more down to earth but anyone have an idea what I should read next? Thanks if you made it this far!

by The_Hatbox_Ghost81