The Reproductive System

Sladek is the first writer I've encountered who even remotely resembles Vonnegut in style, form, and subject matter. Sladek is not as refined as Vonnegut, and Mechasm certainly has more graphic sexual content and violence than anything that I've ever read from the later. Though, like a lot of Vonnegut's works, Mechasm follows a broad cast of characters that are all loosely tied together in the most absurd ways. Here, a secret government project has produced a self-replicating system of robots that function like cells, who voraciously consume all the metal they can find in order to both grow in size and produce more of themselves. Honestly though, these robots aren't exactly the focus of the novel. Instead, they suffuse into the background of nearly every scene, which gives the characters a common struggle. The book follows several groups in the US who witness the expansion of the self-replicating system, and an absurd government spy operation in Morocco, where France is attempting to launch a mission to claim the moon.

Through the course of Mechasm, Sladek takes satirical shots at an uncountable number of things, including: government overspending, the military industrial complex, scientific academia, consumerism, gender relations, American exceptionalism, formulaic fiction, etc.. Sladek clearly sympathized with left-leaning libertarian ideals, and was a devoted skeptic. All of these more serious satirizations are interspersed with slapstick humor and absurdist plotting. Not all the jokes land, but a surprising amount of them do, and I'm impressed by the ratio that I experienced. Humor is such an ephemeral thing, written humor especially so. Anything that was written more than 60 years ago and can make me laugh in the present day deserves a lot of credit. There are so many absurd and outlandish turn of events that it's hard to remember them all, but the book overall was very memorable on the whole.

When Sladek switches into less farcical writing he shows that he can really do some beautiful prose work. Really the whole book is a cut above in terms of prose quality, especially when compared to his peers of the time period, though it's not the best I've ever read either. There's a section of text that describes a group entering 'the belly of the beast' as it were, as their runaway car takes them into Las Vegas, which has been converted into a nightmarish landscape of machines. This section is particularly noteworthy and hallucinogenic. Unfortunately there are also sections of boredom and monotony, where his prose is touchy at best. This is really where Vonnegut outstrips Sladek, because I can't remember any Vonnegut book where there was as much unevenness as Mechasm.

A very pleasant, funny, and enjoyable read that is significantly different than a lot of the stuff being produced at the time, which is refreshing. The central premise hooked me, and the absurdity and skepticism kept me coming back in spite of the unpolished quality of the novel. Sladek is definitely worth looking into if you enjoy this type of writing.