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: A Christian's Cup of Tea (SARCASM)
Summary: 5 Stars
I enjoyed this book. It was funny, scandlous, and very interesting. e
Book Review: A Coldly Humorous End for the World
Summary: 4 Stars
Ice-nine is a substance that will freeze anything it touches. Invented by Felix Hoenikker, one of the scientists who created the atomic bomb, it has the potential to bring the world to an end by turning the planet into a freezing ball."Cat's Cradle" is a novel full of sharp satire and irony. The narrator, who is writing a book about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, meets in the course of his research a variety of weird and wonderful characters who recount their experiences of the late Dr. Hoenikker. This leads him on a quest to find Hoeniker's three children, who each possess "chips" of Ice-nine...
A novel that has been compared a number of times to "Dr Strangelove", "Cat's Cradle" is a witty, dry-humored approach to the apocalypse. Although Hoenikker's three children are weird, I could relate to these characters more than any of the others in the book.
The way in which the world comes to an end is so ironic and offbeat. I can imagine Terry Gilliam making a movie of this novel. With his quirky approach to film-making, I'm sure it would work well.
Book Review: A Deathly Funny Satire
Summary: 5 Stars
Cat's Cradle is the second Vonnegut novel I read, the first being Slaughterhouse-Five. I was highly impressed by both of them. He has become one of my favorite authors. Once again, I am amazed at Vonnegut's ability to treat deathly serious subjects so lightheartedly without trivializing them. I laughed out loud several times during the course of this book, and yet, it is no less profound than the overtly serious 1984. How can this be, you ask? The answer is that Vonnegut has discovered what Orwell, Huxley, and countless other brilliant "fair warning" writers failed to realize: humor is the one universal element. Many people disdain such so-called universal elements as love, religion, politics, and the like. However, NO ONE, I repeat, NO ONE, is safe from the far-reaching potential of humor. Vonnegut uses it skillfully here. I won't go into plot details here, read the book for that. What I will say is that on the surface is an entertaining and fast-paced piece of black-humored satire, and between the lines is a highly relevant novel that has, and hopefully will continue to, displace the arrogance and folly of modern Man.Book Review: A Fantastic Post Modern Satire
Summary: 5 Stars
Among the many Kurt Vonnegut books I have read, this was the first one and today still remains to be my favorite book by him and perhaps of all time. While I believe "Cat's Cradle" to be Vonnegut's best piece of literature he has many other great stories and "Cat's Cradle" works as a great introduction to his style and humor. What separates Vonnegut's satire from those of lesser authors is the wit and black humor that is embedded in every page. With the eccentric and eclectic cast of characters, notably a midget, Vonnegut is able to comment on all of the faults of the modern man while still maintaining the humor which makes the book very easy to pick up and even harder to put down once started. "Cat's Cradle" can be read in two ways: as a humorous warning apocalpytic tale of a man at the end of the world, or as an in depth look at the plight of man and the many pitfalls of our society. Neither way is wrong because the book fits both instances so well that it's hard to find any fault with it; it's neither too serious or too goofy. In fact it's this balance of seriousness and humor that makes Vonnegut's writing so enticing and enjoyable. If you enjoy apocalyptic stories, social commentaries, and clever and subtle humor then you will find "Cat's Cradle" to be highly enjoyable journey and will re-visit it many times throughout the years.Book Review: A Funny, Philosophical, Superb Romp-to-the-end.
Summary: 4 Stars
Vonnegut writes the book with the question that "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater" plays with on a different level, all the while throwing in philosophies, wit, and things to ponder on and about during the COLD WAR. The narrator (first-person incompetent) is somewhat vacant, and being so, maneuvers the story the best way possible.
The narrator is writing a book on the atomic bomb and he travels about meeting strange people who know the creators of the bomb. The characters he meets are funny and strange (You would have to be an oddball to be toying with doomsday.). In his journey he finds the sons and daughter of the inventor of the A-bomb. He finds that these three are an eccentric and foolish trio. The daughter and sons hold with them ice-nine, a weapon that makes the a-bomb seem infantile. Ice-nine was an attempt by their father to make battlefields (mud) solidify, making battle easier on soldiers. It winds up making any moisture it touches solid and blue, but its one flaw is, once put into the atmosphere it regenerates without stopping, freezing everything in its path(including human beings).
Vonnegut throws in the element of Bokononism, a quirky, weird religion spawned by an eccentric, self-made prophet named Bokonon. This angle plays in the mind of the reader as it debases the relevancy of all religions, thus, for example, making Catholicism or Islam just as strange as Bokononism. Bokononists chant about man being born of the "mud."
Symbolically the three children holding ice-nine, a single flake of which will end mankind as we know it, stand for three world superpowers. It shows that anyone, no matter how high in power, can be foolish, and should have no access to such an element of destruction. The ice-nine is just a symbol of the end of mankind through the folly of science, for the ice-nine turns things bluish white, like ice--putting man in another ice-age, destroying all "mud". The island of San Lorenzo is like Cuba--through its history no one really cared about anyone else ceasing it, but since there is an odd belief there(Bokononism/Communism),people poke around there now. It shows how such a small place, like Cuba, in the Cold War, could be ground-zero for the end of humanity, and warns against intervention there.
Being that the Cold War is over, this is an era piece that some may think is stagnate. Yet the tools to end civilization are still out there, so this book is relevant as long as science and government have and look for a greater means of destruction.
Though this book is funny and eccentric on surface, it is ultimately found to be a political warning. This humorous look at what could be the end, parallels Orwell's "Nineteen-Eighty-Four" in the field of political writing for the sake of warning (Orwell warns about the threat of Totalitarianism, Vonnegut warns about man's acute closeness to his own demise). This book is not as hard-nosed as "Nineteen-Eighty-Four." It is funny, but this is done to show the folly and incompetence that mankind's demise is handled with: Vonnegut's use of juxtaposition is without flaw.
Bokonon adds a religious facet to this novel. He ultimately shows folly and incompetence in the creation of something other than doomsday devices--religion. After the reader drops the hypocrisy of thinking their religion is "the one," Vonnegut brings up the question: Were people like Jesus or Mohammed just fools out spreading nonsense for the sake of an ego-trip?
This book touches on so many intense questions. It puts forth a vehicle for such deep introspection, yet it is hilarious. I only wish I were to have read this in the mind set of the world in the early sixties, when this book was first published. Vonnegut was way ahead of his time with this one. His writing, when dissected, makes me think he is one of the great thinkers of the twentieth-century into the twenty-first...