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Cat’s Cradle (平装)
by Kurt Vonnegut
| Category:
Fiction |
| Market price: ¥ 158.00
MSL price:
¥ 148.00
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MSL rating:
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| MSL Pointer Review:
Written in an outlandish style of satire and suspense, Cat's Cradle offers a pessimistic outlook and reveals our absurdities in politics, religion, and science. |
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AllReviews |
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The New York Time (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
A free-wheeling vehicle... An unforgettable ride! |
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Books And Bookman (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
Vonnegut's most accomplished novel. |
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Barron Laycock (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
I once heard Kurt Vonnegut speak at a commencement ceremony at a Bennington College in Vermont in 1970, when his daughter was graduating with a bachelor's degree. He spoke quite eloquently about what graduates should do with their lives, and I remember parts of that wonderful speech as if it were yesterday. Indeed, Kurt Vonnegut is a writer of prodigious talents, a visionary seer disguised as an ordinary man, a contemporary wise man who speaks to us in amusing yet frightening allegories about the nature of contemporary man and the absurd technological culture he lives in today. This book, Cat's Cradle, is among his finest novels, like most of his others, a work combining a wry sensibility with an amusing ability to confect sweet sounding yet bitter- tasting tales of mayhem and woe.
The plot of Cat’s Cradle is pure science fiction, and revolves around work to create a way to help American tanks more mobile in rain soaked and muddy circumstances, when such an ability to transverse the impossible terrain would give our guys in their tanks an overwhelming advantage over their evil foes. Our protagonist is a scientist working on isotope of water (called Ice-Nine) that has the ability to crystallize water into a unique form of ice that does not need freezing temperatures to crystallize. With such a capability, the Army could solidify the water in the mud, making it firm and allowing our tanks to roll over it with impunity. The problem is that once introduced into the ground, the compound has untoward effects no one had considered. And the basis for the cautionary tale is spun.
All of this is just the premise that allows Vonnegut to explore the far reaches of human behavior and the insane ways in which our culture is operating. It is a brilliant work, one that delves into the deep recesses of what we are, why we are that way, and where we seem to be going. It is at once a satire, a running commentary on the nature of our institutions, and the way in which we lie, cheat, and pretend to be people we are not, and as in his wild and wacky novel Mother Night, shows why you should be afraid of who it is you are pretending to be, for it may come back to haunt you. This book literally explodes with a plethora of stinging insights into contemporary society, and constitutes a brilliant, albeit ironic, diagnosis of what a contradiction it is to be a human being trying to live a sane life in an insane world. This really is magical mystery tour, and one that will take your breath away. Enjoy!
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Alex Frantz (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
This early classic was one of the books that made Vonnegut famous, and probably the first book where he really found successfully his particular style of black comedy. (He aimed for something similar in Sirens of Titan, but that book, with some fine moments, is uneven and significantly less successful.)
The first persom narrator is known only as Jonah, although his first sentence is the allusive, "Call me Ishmael." He is writing a book about the atomic bomb that leads him to research on the late Dr Felix Hoenneker, a brilliant scientist who viewed science with pure curiosity. Never caring about the practical implications of his work, Hoenneker made no dis- tinction between working on the atom bomb and investigating how turtles retract their heads.
Seeking to learn more about Hoenneker from his surviving children, Jonah follows them to the impoverished island nation of San Lorenzo, loosely based on Haiti. There he is introduced to Bokononism, the dominant religion of the island which, among its many unusual features, openly proclaims that it is a fraud. A good part of this rather short novel is a detailed discussion of Bokononism, which is one of Vonnegut's most memorable creations.
While on the island, Jonah also learns more about ice 9, the final project that Hoenneker worked on. Ice 9 is ice with an entirely different crystalline structure from regular ice, which has the trait of freezing at normal temperatures. Thus, if you mixed ice 9 with any body of water, it would promptly freeze. Jonah soon finds reasons to doubt his assumption that ice 9 could not really exist.
Jonah's adventures come to a grim if strangely appropriate finale - I don't think Vonnegut has ever written a novel with a happy ending. The moral of the story is, it seems, that life is entirely without meaning or purpose. And yet, the humor and vitality of the novel give it an energy and even joy strangely at contrast with its depressing message.
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Celaschi (MSL quote), Italy
<2007-01-05 00:00>
A masterpiece in dark science fiction, which, behind a showing simplicity and a smooth flowing, hides a highly polished and well-timed language, even in its slang expressions. A personal prophecy about use of "final weapons", with an interesting reference to solid state physics (people with some experience in crystal growth may find dynamics of Ice-Nine a bit inconsistent, but it is nevertheless interesting, and who remembers the polywater affair?). A strange religion, exotic environments, politics, Vonnegut's seminal work mixes all up stimulating at a same time entertainment and reflection. |
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Vincent Vega (MSL quote), France
<2007-01-05 00:00>
This is a decent sci-fi escape, but nowhere near as good an escape as Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, or Star Wars: A New Hope. This isn't very challenging, and you may feel compelled to read it because of the almost too simple story, and easy going language. This is basically a book about a mad scientist who tries to take over the world by freezing it over with a substance called Ice-Nine, and at the end he succeeds because of his children's greed to control it. Again, not very complex or deep, a basic fable, but still entertaining. But as entertaining as Star Wars? NO. I recommend renting the star war movies or getting the star war books, especially the ones with Jabba the Hut. Cat's Cradle has no point or meaning to it, unlike Lucas's prophetic, amazing vision. Vonnegut is funny, but not very intelligent. |
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An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
An apocalyptic satire of some of the institutions most easily satired-government, religion, military. But Vonnegut is wholly original, as always. His satire holds up today, and there is nothing expected about this book, which involves, among other things: the midget offspring of one of the inventors of the atomic bomb, a form of dangerous ice with the power to freeze people, a tropical island with natives exploited by Americans, and a made-up religion that is just weird enough to be believable. My only criticism, if any, is that although I found the characters interesting, hilarious at times, I wasn't emotionally attached to any of them. I didn't enjoy it as much as Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions, but it was a good read nonetheless. |
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Michael Schoeborn (MSL quote), UK
<2007-01-05 00:00>
This book is one of those rare gems that you stumble across by accident and end up loving for your entire life! I was 14 when I first read this and now it’s practically an annual event.
I love the standard Vonngeut canon (which is, in order of "must read"- ness: Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions and Bluebeard), but none of those titles had quite the effect on me that Cat’s Cradle did. I won't spoil the plot, but suffice it to say that this apocolyptic satire of religion and science; predestination and free will; ice and ice 9; is brilliant throughout. There's a reason that this book holds cult status with Vonnegut fans around the world; read it, you'll get it!
Reading the rest of the Vonnegut catalogue now just crushes me, because nothing lives up to his big three titles. It was as though he spent himself on his masterpiece and then there was nothing left. Nothing except this one diamond in the rough.
All I want to know is: who are the reviewers giving this book less than 5 stars?? I just hope that you didn't put your real addresses on your wishlists...
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Brian Markowski (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
Cat’s Cradle tells of the story of a man simply setting out to write a book about the atomic bomb. From this simple objective, our hero finds himself thrown into a world of dwarfs, banana republics, Hoosiers, scientists, and one secret formula called Ice-Nine. The plot is a wild one, but the theme remains constant as Vonnegut pits science against religion in a no holds cage match. In the end, our hero barely survives both as Vonnegut seemingly thumbs his nose at the rest of the world.
Cat’s Cradle reminds me of Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, both books speak in powerful ways to youthful angst and both tend to grow and develop with their audience. There's no protagonist like Holden Caulfield here (a youthful soul most readers related to strongly) but there are a number of characters that represent the worst society has to offer, characters we see each night on the news. The book starts with "Cradle's" protagonist, Jonah, coming up against a guarded and cynical scientist who in turn leads him to the three children of Doctor Felix Hoenikker, inventor of the nuclear bomb. Each of Hoenikker's kids, now grown, have some of their father's last experiment Ice-Nine, a chemical, which freezes all fluids on contact. A small amount could freeze the planet we learn, this while the Hoenikker siblings are running around the globe, each with their tiny thermos of Ice-Nine, the very future of the world in their incapable hands. The trail of the sibling's flows to San Lorenzo, a small island, that is responsible for the creation of Bokonism... a religion based on lies. It is here where Ice-9 and Bokonism go head to head and the results are devastating.
Of course Vonnegut's true villain in all this is man and his incredible talent of making wondrous things, be it through God or test tubes, that are very good at destroying us.
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Joanna Daneman (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
While Slaughterhouse-Five is considered Vonnegut's masterpiece, I think Cat's Cradle shows the author at the height of his powers.
The crazy plot involves a new religion, Bokanonism and its xylophone- wielding prophetess Mona. There's an evil plot to destroy the world, and a hapless, slightly stupid hero.
What I enjoyed the most were the concepts introduced by Vonnegut; the "granfalloon" which is an association of people that is meaningless - being on a bus, joining the Shriners. My dad used to play bridge with Vonnegut in Indianapolis years ago - that pretty much defines it, a connection between people with no deeper meaning. For "deeper meaning" you need to look to your karass, a group of people you ARE related to in some meaningful fashion, but which is not revealed to you until after your death. And then there's the special karass, the "duprass" consisting of two and only two people. If a married couple, they will perish within minutes of each other, and even their children, if any, don't belong to their karass.
These and other concepts (Ice-Nine, a molecular arrangement of water that differs from the ice in your drink) show Vonnegut's incredible creativity and also his ironic sense of humor. If you haven't read any Vonnegut, this is a great novel to start with.
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