Hoenikker
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 …
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 …
