Cat's Cradle

Se há livros que quebram certezas e perturbam convicções, este é um deles.
Qual a relação entre um químico, um dos pais da bomba atómica, uma religião inventada, uma ilha pobre no meio das caraíbas, a destruição do mundo e uma cama de gato? Vê a cama? Vê o gato? pergunta um anão, filho do químico. Eu não vi cama, nem gato. Mas estou confusa, parece que a cama e o gato estão mesmo lá.

- Diga-me o senhor, como morre um homem quando privado do consolo da literatura?
- De uma de duas maneiras - disse ele - putrefação do coração ou atrofia do sistema nervoso.
- Nenhuma delas muito agradável, imagino eu. - sugeri.
- Não - disse Castle mais velho. - Por amor de Deus, vocês os dois, por favor, continuem a escrever!

- show more «Muitas mãos tornam o trabalho bem mais leve.» É um provérbio chinês antigo.
- Eram espertos em muitas coisas, esses chineses, lá isso eram.
- Sim, devemos manter viva a sua memória.
- Agora gostava de ter lido mais sobre eles.
- Bem, era difícil, mesmo em condições ideais.
- Agora gostava de ter lido mais sobre tudo.
- Todos nós temos os nossos arrependimentos, mamã.
- Não vale a pena chorar sobre o leite derramado.
- Tal como disse o poeta, mamã: «De todas as palavras de ratos e homens, as mais tristes são: "Podia ter sido."»
- Isso é muito bonito, e bem verdade. show less

Oh, Kurt Vonnegut, you're totally still funny! And the criticism of the arms-race and neutrality-of-science mentalities is still trenchant, and ice-nine is still terrifying, and you have kind of queasily problematic attitudes about pretty women and black dudes and midgets--namely, that they're all there in part for comedy--but this still makes a great airport read. Theodore Sturgeon said you'd better take it lightly because if you don't you'll never sleep again, or words to that effect. Good, accurate blurbing, that.

The title's string game is used as a symbol to express the meaninglessness of virtually everything in this absurdist drama. Religion? Bunk. Sex and romance? Nothing but comedy. Politics? Gawd help you. Science? Probably the death of you. There's no where to turn for any ground to stand on, random events will just keep rolling at you. Which of these events are the good news, and which are the bad? Impossible to tell.

Yes, there is a plot of sorts. Our hero is interested in writing the biography of a philanthropist on a tiny island in the Caribbean. In the course of research he gets mixed up with the island's religion, tumbles into a romance, wrestles with its politics, and eventually gets confronted by some pretty formidable science. None show more of it offers him a whole lot of comfort, but if he can overlook that and follow the model of others by just embracing the madness he might stand a chance. Or the madness might embrace him back.

Is this nothing but a pack of playing cards, or an allegory for the lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis? I don't know, it's impossible to tell. show less

4/5

No damn cat. No damn cradle. Cat's Cradle is a satire of some of the largest structures in society, showcasing the emptiness of their promises, and questioning our free will to change anything about our lives. Virtually plotless, like many of Vonneguts other works, Cat's Cradle is bleak, playful, absurdist, subtle, and strikingly unsubtle all at the same time. I won't even provide a 'plot' overview, because there would be simply too much to cover.

The closest a book has ever come to matching the energy, pacing, and tone of a Wes Anderson movie. I can see all the events of the book so clearly represented in the colors that Anderson uses, with the actors that frequently collaborate with him. I usually groan when someone draws show more comparisons between completely unrelated works of literature and film, but I just can't get this one off my mind.

Thematically very focused on the hollowness of many facets of modern society/life. Religion and science are specifically targeted as structures that lack the morality and empathy that they tout. Yet there is also a thread of Vonnegut discussing the necessary and welcome 'untruths' that we tell ourselves to better understand our world, to make ourselves happy and useful. Very interesting to see Vonnegut's perception of the scientists working on the Manhattan Project as indifferent to the ramification of their discoveries. There's also criticism of US government and politics, specifically as they relate to banana republics in central America.

Ice-9 is a hall of fame level SF concept, one that I use a benchmark of creativity in the genre, though it's hardly the focus on the novel. Vonnegut focuses the bulk of the novel on Bokononism, and it is here that he makes many of his thematic points. Some aspects of Cat's Cradle haven't aged so well though. Severally of the characters are drawn with a ham fist and stereotypical representations, and the prose itself isn't anything to write home about.

I struggled finding any cohesion to my thoughts on this work, even though I've now read it twice. I'm not frustrated by this though, more so puzzled in pleasing way. There's depth and nuance here that doesn't make itself plain on the surface. show less

"Science is magic that works."

Dr Felix Hoenikker, one of the founding ‘fathers’ of the atomic bomb, has left behind three eccentric children and deadly legacy to the world, ‘ice-nine’, a lethal chemical capable of freezing the entire planet known about by only a handful of people among them a crazed Caribbean dictator.

Cat’s Cradle was first published in 1963 there are elements that speak of its time. There is misogyny and racial slurs; I'm still unsure as to whether or not a black leader was pivotal to the destruction of mankind and that a white man came along as saviour but failed was meant to be ironic, thought provoking or simply racist. I guess it boils down to the individual reader. But the story covers some pretty big show more issues, nuclear war, environmental concerns and the role of governments as well.
In particular it preys on our deepest fears of not only witnessing Armageddon but worse still, surviving it. A theme that still feels relevant today.

Likewise, the pseudo-religion of Bokononism, although on the face of it ridiculous, resonates with how some societies are looking at religion not only for comfort but also for explanations to the big questions of life. The story seems to be warning that easy answers are not always the correct ones whilst warning that science can be a boon to humanity but left unchecked can also lead to its ultimate destruction.

"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before."

On the surface, this is a tale about a dysfunctional family yet it also looks at human's need for family, relationships and love and the strange things that some people do to achieve it.

This is my fifth book by the author but my least favourite. The tale is told in Vonnegut's distinctive deadpan irony and bitter satire that I usually like but ultimately this one is just too weird for me. Yet despite its apparent depressing tone I found it somewhat uplifting as I felt that hope rather than despair was the underlining message and as such this book deserves to continue to be read. show less

This was my third read of Cat's Cradle. I am not much of a re-reader, but there are a few books I come back to as I need them and this is one. (As is Slaughterhouse Five. Vonnegut is one of four authors with multiple books on my re-read list.) Each time I read this book it tells me something different. This time it told me that people, particularly Americans, have always ignored what was in front of their face, choosing their personal folklore over verifiable facts. It is fair to say QAnon would not have surprised Mr. Vonnegut one bit. And it would not have surprised Vonnegut how most people pay no attention to assaults on liberty and decency and the survival of humans on earth, opting to just play cat's cradle, to fiddle while Rome show more burns.

I won't go much into the plot, since thousands have recounted it already. All you need to know is that the narrator ("Call me Jonah") is purportedly writing a book about what real people were doing when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. He ends up getting entangled in the lives of the unusual adult children of one of the A-bomb's inventors who was also working on something as lethal as the bomb (though different) at the time of his death. The subject of his last work was created in response to the Marines asking if he could "do something about mud" since Marines were tired of being dirty. As mentioned the inventor dies, the children have the new invention. The eldest son finds himself in a position of power on a colonized island, and his estranged sister and brother meet up with him on the island because he is supposed to get married. Hijinks of a sort (an apocalyptic sort) ensue.

I will say this is a post-modern satire aimed squarely at "pure" science, organized religion, and America. It is a post-apocalyptic/pre-apocalyptic 2.0/post-apocalyptic 2.0 story. I learned while reading this that Cat's Cradle was Vonnegut's Masters thesis at University of Chicago where he earned a Masters in Anthropology and that factoid actually changed the way I read the book.

The important stuff: This book is very funny provided one appreciates ice cold irony and has some basic grounding in 20th century American history. This is also one of the canniest 20th century novels I have read mocking American colonialism (there are many earlier books that delightfully stuck it to the British Empire of course.) This is often classified as science fiction, but as with Slaughterhouse Five I think it is a vast overstatement to call this sci-fi and people who read it looking for that are sure to be disappointed. Read it as one of the smartest sendups of nationalism, tribalism and religion. Vonnegut was a genius. He could say more with 100 pages of jokes that most cultural commentators say in 800 page heavily footnoted tomes, and in addition to saying a lot, it is hilarious. Win-win. show less

This is a re-read. I first read it about 15 years ago, and it still holds up. On the one hand, this is a hilarious satire on the cold war and the atom bomb; the weapon everyone wants, but whose use can only mean everybody loses. It certainly has Dr Strangelove Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb - the idea of a doomsday weapon that can't NOT be set off - for a cousin. The Cuba crisis looms large.

At the same time, it's a bit more than that. Despite the fact that it's obviously more than 40 years old, Cat's Cradle still feels quite relevant; both in its discussions on American foreign policy

The highest possible form of treason (...) is to say that Americans aren't loved wherever they go, whatever they do.

and on the whole show more debate of rationality vs irrationality, science vs religion. People on both sides could do well to read this. As dismissive as Vonnegut is of the idea that science will always make the world perfect - the main target of the satire - his wish isn't a return to superstitoin but an advance to humanism. A large part of the narrative is carried by the fictional religion of Bokononism, a calypso-based religion that claims as its first gospel that all religions are lies, especially Bokononism, and that the only thing holy is man. Of course it's a crackpot religion, but then again, it's a crackpot mankind.

It wouldn't be Vonnegut if this rational rant against the completely rational wasn't delivered as an absolute farce, where everything goes to hell and nothing's as bleakly funny as the end of the world. The image that has always stuck with me is the one for which the book is named:

Newt remained curled in the chair. He held out his painty hands as though a cat's cradle were strung between them.

"No wonder kids grow up crazy. A cat's cradle is nothing but a bunch of X's between somebody's hands, and little kids look and look and look at all those X's . . ."

"And?"

"No damn cat, and no damn cradle."

In a world where the alternatives seem to be either blind faith or blind progress, Cat's Cradle is a pratfall of a novel saying HEY! It's just a piece of string! LOOK at it! Look at how the world is made up of people, and we've in our infinite wisdom arrived at a point where we need to recognize each other for the fuck-ups we are or we'll be laughing ourselves into an early grave. 44 years on, I see no reason to pronounce him wrong. show less