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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:
 Good for Gifts |
| 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 |
  1 2 Total 2 pages 14 items |
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Jeffrey Steinberg (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle is the story of a man, Jonah, who is writing about the "end of the world," or the day when the atom bomb was dropped. His work on the book encourages him to go on many journeys which ultimately leave him in a somewhat ironic yet very comedic position. The story features an imaginative religion, a scientific potion, and a far off society as part of Vonnegut's many bizarre episodes. Jonah, researches the "father of the atom bomb" and his children in order to determine what they were doing on the day the atom bomb was dropped. Seemingly against his will, Jonah gets pulled into a plethora of discoveries about the children and their father which he never could have imagined to be true. His journeys ultimately land him, along with the children, on a secluded island with a radically different society from their own.
I did in fact enjoy reading this book because of the absurdity and the unbelievable voyages which the main character undergoes. However, it is in fact Vonnegut's style that makes the book so enjoyable. He is able to bring the reader into this world where virtually anything can happen which then leaves the reader totally unaware and clueless as to what comes next. The world allows him to describe such things as the discovery of the island of San Lorenzo in a two page account where six different countries claim and forget about the nation before escaping African slaves finally claims the land for good. It is through Vonnegut's voice and style that the reader may not stop to consider such oddities as this one.
Originally, I chose to read this book after finishing Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, and was absolutely taken away by the combination of absurdity and hilariousness through which he expresses himself in this book. Though I did not expect this book to be as far out as the alien adventure in Slaughterhouse-Five, it did seem like a pleasant offbeat satire about modern man. In the end I enjoyed this book more than Slaughterhouse-Five because of the comedic voice that I found more visible in Cat's Cradle. Though the first was rather ridiculous and interesting, for me it did nothing more than provoke thoughts about where such an idea would come from, rather than make me laugh.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is seeking an imaginative and far off satirical story that is sure to create a smile. While many may think the story to be boring and pointless, it is partly this hollowness that makes it so enjoyable. The reader is baffled and unable to understand why things happen the way they do creating a randomness that I have found to be attractive. For those readers that were bored by part of the book and decided to put it down forever, I would encourage you to fight through the beginning. After all, I did in fact at first believe that this would be a serious account of the day the atom bomb was dropped, until the Bokonon religion was further explained and glorified. |
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Snook (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
I frankly hold this one book as the perfect example of fiction writing at its best. Intelligent, creative, wry, funny, brilliant. Read it! If you don't have at least a slightly twisted sense of humor, don't bother reading it. |
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Sigrid Macdonald (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
This is the first time that I've read Vonnegut and I must say that I was deeply impressed. He managed to cover some of the most important philosophical, religious, psychosocial and ethical questions of the times.
Can science and religion coexist peacefully? Can most people accept reality or do they prefer to live with their delusions? Is there any point in reading history, let alone writing it, if humanity's track record is such that we appear to be doomed to infinitely repeat our own mistakes?
Vonnegut covers these tough issues and more in an entertaining and ironically humorous fashion. Although the book was published in 1963, his preoccupation with substances that could obliterate the species is every bit as relevant today as it was then, if not more so, and his characters are quirky yet believable.
He spins a tale about a writer named Jonah (John to be exact) who becomes fascinated with the Hoenikker family: the children of a late scientist who co-discovered the first atomic bomb and an even more lethal substance called ice-nine, which could freeze all of the rivers and streams.
Fortunately for us, Vonnegut's doomsday scenario has yet to play out. Perhaps it's just a matter of time but hopefully, people and nations are smarter than Vonnegut gave them credit for.
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McOuat (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
Dr. Asa Breed, scientist from the research laboratory of the General Forge and Foundation Company, had this statement to say about Dr. Felix Hoenicker, one of the founding fathers of the atomic bomb as well as the creator of "Ice Nine:"
"I told you all this in order to give you some insight into the extraordinary novelty of the ways which Felix was likely to approach an old problem."
The statement could easily become non-fiction if the word "Felix" was replaced with "Kurt Vonnegut." Vonnegut is a master of spinning a crazy web of seemingly random events that poignantly, clearly spell out a very clear and crystallized point.
Vonnegut is a crafty-sneaky writer. Two skills, which many writers have individually, but few have in tandem, set him apart from other writers. First, he has the ability to present his story as an unrelated series of random events. The "hero" seems to be victim of merciless random forces that confront him with strange events and experiences. However, the story remains tight and coherent and Vonnegut's points are amazingly clear.
Second, in the true science fiction tradition, Vonnegut makes bizarre, incredible and completely fictitious creations seems completely plausible. Taken together, he seems to repetitively beat the reader over the head with rather salient life observations hidden behind bizarrely incredulous premises. With the exception of Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat's Cradle may be Vonnegut's best demonstration of these two most characteristic skills.
He starts the story with the narrator giving a brief explanation as to why is called Jonah (which he is never referred to as for the remainder of the story):
"...somebody or something has compelled me to be certain places at certain times, without fail. Conveyances and motives, both conventional and bizarre, have been provided. And according to plan, at each appointed second, at each appointed place this Jonah was there."
Similar to other Vonnegut Heroes (Billy Pilgrim, Rabo Karabekian are two), Jonah passively and seemingly haphazardly drifts among nonsensical events. For Jonah, the terminal destination is President of the island republic of San Lorenzo. During his journey, he meets a motley cast of characters seemingly unrelated. For sneaky Vonnegut, they are related, many of even them belong to his own karass.
Secondly, Vonnegut is the master science fiction writer. Two science fictional concepts that Vonnegut creates in Cat's Cradle are the scientific invention of "Ice Nine" and the religion of "Bokononism." Both Bokononism and Ice Nine are the centerpieces of the novel, so they had to suspend the reader's disbelief, or the story would die. With Ice Nine, Vonnegut needed to create a scientific discovery that was capable of destroying the earth. He did it, and explained in a simple and believable manner. Very clever. The religion of Bokononism includes its own philosophy, last rites and vocabulary (karass, granfalloons, pool-pah, foma, wampeter, etc). Similarly, he defines religion as "better and better lies" intended as an "instrument of hope." On San Lorenzo, everyone is a Bokononist, and Jonah becomes one over the course of the story. Most of the Bokonon philosophy is presented as short statements, often only in short, Confucius-like statements and often provided to a calypso beat. My favorite Bokonon saying is: "Maturity is the bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy something."
The story provides some insight into the extraordinary novelty of the ways which Vonnegut is likely to approach an old problem. Cat's Cradle asks the tough question of what is morality in an existential world. The ultimate answer, unfortunately, is self-destruction.
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