Cat's Cradle: A Novel by Kurt Vonnegut Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Cat's Cradle: A Novel
Book Review: "No Cat, No Cradle!"
Summary: 5 Stars
If you've never read Kurt Vonnegut before, then you face a slight dilemma. You have two options available to you (well, really you've got more than two, but as long as you're reading this, I'm running the show and I say you've only got two):1) You can read a slew of other Vonnegut books and build up to reading "Cat's Cradle," or
2) You can read "Cat's Cradle" and be so entirely blown away that no Vonnegut book will ever again live up to your newly inflated expectations.
That said, "Cat's Cradle" is an absolute must read for anyone and everyone over the age of birth. To summarize Vonnegut's crazy, whacked out plot would be an exercise in futility: it's got something to do with the father of the atomic bomb and his three bizarre children and the narrator who will chronicle their story as they get mixed up with the inhabitants of the island of San Lorenzo, all of whom are Bokononists. Confused yet? You should be. Throw in a little bit of ice-nine, a chemical that can feasibly bring about the end of the world, and you might have a slight inkling of the pieces of Vonnegut's puzzle.
Still, for all of the crazy characters and situations in "Cat's Cradle," it's ultimately a brilliant satire of the Cold War; at one particular moment a character realizes the importance of dichotomies, why we must believe the other is "evil" for us to be able to see ourselves as "good" and how absurd such things are, how phony and constructed they are. At the heart of all this is Vonnegut's brilliant metaphor for the cat's cradle, and it's a beauty.
Even if all this political satire doesn't grab you, just the way in which Vonnegut manages to throw a dozen ridiculous balls in the air and keep them well juggled and catch them all with grace by the final page is testament to his skill. "Cat's Cradle" is a book that'll make you sit up and think, but will also make you laugh out loud and maybe even touch you emotionally, particularly during the American ambassador to San Lorenzo's speech. It's so gut wrenching and absurd and oh so wonderfully written that you'll be hooked before you even realize it. Read it; this is as good as it gets.
Book Review: "Yes, yes!"
Summary: 5 Stars
Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle is a fantastically witty narration of an author's bizarre encounters as he goes about collecting material for his book, The Day the World Ended. Through the voice of the narrator, Vonnegut lampoons organized religion and creates an imaginative science fiction story in which a new atom called "ICE NINE" that has the potential to destroy the world. Vonnegut's ideas are expertly assembled to create a masterpiece of science fiction and humor that holds together and is extremely entertaining.Book Review: ...It Might Have Been....
Summary: 3 Stars
This is a wacky, swift, many charactered Vonn book, wrapped around his frequent theme of human ridiculousness.
Jonah is the narrator, a man fascinated by the day the Hiroshima bomb was dropped, who sets off to investigate one Feliz Hoenikker, noted scientist and possible "father" of the bomb. What ensues is a funky, quirky, Vonnegutian swirl of synchronicity, and faux Taosit/Existential philosophy, born as Bokononism.
Cat's Cradle is a quick read, featuring 127 chapters, some a page long, few beyond three pages long. Including Jonah there is Newt, a midget, Mona, the most beautiful woman in the world, the mysterious Bokonon, gruff, crude American's, scientifically bizarre ice-water, a statue lover, a Ukrainian spy, an ex-pat ex-convict major domo, a frozen dog, and the possible end of the world, among others.
Truly a trip through Vonnegut. Through it all though, the essential foolishness and gullability of man is turned up to light.
"Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are 'It Might Have Been.'"
Book Review: ...and plummeting to number 13...
Summary: 5 Stars
This was once my favorite book. Now I find it at #13 on my all time list (I did Listmania!). It's not that I don't love this book. I do indeed. It's just that it seems so... 5 years ago. Since then my tastes have ripened (pretentious, eh) a bit, and have left little books like this one seeming, well, a bit sophomoric. Still, it is thanks to books like this one that I graduated to bigger and better things such as the work of Thomas Pynchon, Robert Anton Wilson, and Phillip K Dick. So like a girl who's outgrown the puppy love of her high-school sweetheart, and who now favors older men, I've moved on from Cat's Cradle, but I won't forget it. What a terrible review! Do I even know what I'm talking about? This is a great book. Anyone who disagrees is flat out wrong. And stupid too.
Book Review: ...cats cradle
Summary: 5 Stars
This is truly an amazing book, if your interested in reading anything by Kurt Vonnegut I would recomend this being your first, I swear it, if you read Cats Cradle you will be hooked on Vonegut!