cat’s cradle
Rick Van Kooten John, the intrepid narrator of Cat’s Cradle, is working on a book describing what Americans were doing at the precise moment the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. He tries to contact the three children of the late Felix Hoenikker, Nobel Laureate and so-called “father of the atomic bomb,” for greater insight. We learn of Dr. Hoenikker’s …
Rebekah Sheldon “We do, doodley do, doodley do, doodley do, What we must, muddily must, muddily must, muddily must; Muddily do, muddily do, muddily do, muddily do Until we bust, bodily bust, bodily bust, bodily bust” —The Books of Bokonon Mud recurs throughout Cat’s Cradle. Most prominently, it is the scourge of marching armies that inspires Dr. Felix Hoenikker to …
Sandy Shapshay Of all of his novels up to this point, Vonnegut’s 1963 Cat’s Cradle strikes me as the most Nietzschean. It’s in this novel that our Hoosier author—through the formerly Christian (p. 1), now Bokononist narrator Jonah (a.k.a. John)—struggles to overcome a nihilistic pessimism, the same –ism that exorcised Nietzsche throughout his writings. In Nietzsche’s first philosophical book, …
Eric Sandweiss In Cat’s Cradle, his first novelistic foray out of the postwar gloom of Mother Night, Vonnegut awakens to find the shell-shocked, the disillusioned, the displaced—here a Soviet dancer, there a Nazi doctor, an American defense contractor, a dissipated playboy-turned-humanitarian, and so on—still bouncing about a world turned upside down by generations of global war. We know little …
Sarah Phillips Dr. Angela Hoenikker Conners, PhD Planet Titan (previously of 4918 North Meridian Street Indianapolis, Indiana, USA, Planet Earth) Mr. Jonah Breit San Lorenzo, Planet Earth (Forwarding Service Requested) Dear Mr. Jonah Breit (“dear” in this case being over-generous): No doubt you will be surprised to hear from me, convinced as you are that I met my demise …
Jonathan Elmer Although it takes him six novels—until Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)—to directly confront his personal trauma of surviving the firebombing of Dresden, Germany, all of Vonnegut’s early work seems simultaneously to approach, and retreat from, the cataclysm of the Second World War. Maybe “directly” is not the right word, even for the apparently autobiographical Slaughterhouse; but certainly before Slaughterhouse, Vonnegut …
Ed Comentale Aren’t we all getting a little tired of this crap? Here at Salo U, we have to fight for knowledge on two fronts. Looking above, to the institutions of power, we confront shabby resources, political posturing, a fickle market, and meddlesome administrators. Looking below, to the public we hope to help, we find suspicion, resentment, outright hostility. …
Ted Castronova Whatever anyone knows is known by no one. —Emerson Scott Boolard *** This does not reflect the actual opinions of its author. *** Stave I I am a professor. I had a thought to write an essay. It was to be about Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle. I was walking across campus thinking about my essay. Some students …
Cooper Harriss The company line on Cat’s Cradle concerns Vonnegut’s invention of a religion—Bokononism—to satirize his contemporary vagaries of knowledge and authority. See the cat? See the cradle? Religion is a lie, the story goes; it’s not true but an invented dimension of human cultures. Like the lies we tell our children, religion arouses fear, provides comfort, establishes meaning, …
