“Live by the harmless untruths that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy.”

Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, one of the great anti-war novels of all time, is based on Vonnegut’s own experience as a soldier during WWII in the bombing and destruction of Dresden. The book is darkly funny, veering into science/speculative fiction, but underneath it all is barely contained rage and despair at the stupidity of the human race, especially with respect to the conduct of war and the destruction of civilians in cities. Cat’s Cradle, his fourth novel, continues Vonnegut’s rage against the war machine, this time focused on Dr. Irving Langmuir, one of the architects of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, fictionalized in the guise of Dr Felix Hoenikker, whom Vonnegut has constructing a cat’s cradle when the bomb is actually dropped. Vonnegut met and talked with Langmuir at one time.

Here’s how to make a cat’s cradle:

https://www.wikihow.com/Play-The-Cat%...

I won't include information here on how to make an atomic bomb. We have enough idiots who have these bombs ready to end the human race. And, we already know how to bomb (or not bomb) a nuclear power plant, so no need for that.

This book, Cat's Cradle, is actually structured as a kind of elaborate (though seemingly random) cat’s cradle. As Vonnegut observes, it is a cheat: No cat. No cradle. Just a series of exes, a pattern appearing to be beautiful, but ultimately meaningless, absurd, like Vonnegut’s basic philosophy. Senseless acts of beauty, vs. senseless acts of destruction. You make your choice. But if bombs are dropped on cities to win wars, Vonnegut makes clear, life is senseless. Vonnegut's books, he once said, "are essentially mosaics made up of a whole bunch of tiny little chips. . . and each chip is a joke.”

The book begins like Moby Dick: Call me Johan. Johan is writing a book about the day the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Much of the action takes place on a fictional island, San Lorenzo, with mostly poor people and a dictator. The country follows the Bokoninist religion, one that Vonnegut made up. All religion is absurd to Vonnegut, though one principle of Bokoninism makes sense to him: All religion is s pack of lies. Vonnegut uses this religion in various books, involving wampeters, granfalloons, karasses, stuppas, and so on. The plot is silly, fun, dark, all of that, but one point has to do with man’s relation to technology and science, especially that which loses its connection to people. The threat of nuclear destruction in the Cold War is a major theme. The Cuban Missile Crisis happened in 1962; Vonnegut’s book came out in 1963.

“Perhaps, when we remember wars, we should take off our clothes and paint ourselves blue and go on all fours all day long and grunt like pigs. That would surely be more appropriate than noble oratory and shows of flags and well-oiled guns.” Vonnegut may not have been a fan of the national American holiday set on the fourth of July, nor the public misty-eyed singing of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," with its heroic imagery about the bombs bursting in air, accompanied by fireworks to mimic bombing.

One thing that Cat's Cradle looks at is the Books of Bokonin, whose Fourteenth Book answers the question:

"What can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years?"

It doesn't take long to read The Fourteenth Book. It consists of that one question and a one-word answer followed by a period. This is the one-word answer: "Nothing.”

Johan concludes his writing: “If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down on my back with my history for a pillow; and I would take from the ground some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men; and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who.”

"...for the quotation captured in a couplet the cruel paradox of Bakononist thought, the heartbreaking necessity about lying about reality, and the heartbreaking impossibility of lying about it.

Midget, midget, midget, how he struts and winks,
For he knows a man's as big as what he hopes and thinks!"
-- Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle



I first read this in 9th grade. The grade my two kids are right now. Life has a way of making you feel both old and insignificant. When I first read this book I was focused on the technology of Ice-9 and the absurdity of weapons of mass destruction. This time, as I read it in a quickly cooling bath.* Seriously, all men over 40 should read this book naked in a bath that is quickly losing its heat, while wrinkles develop on their hands, feet, etc. There is nothing emasculates a man faster than a cold bath, nakedness, age, and Kurt Vonnegut.

Anyway, 28 years after first reading it and I still love this book. It was my first Vonnegut. One of my first exposures to the world of literature as absurdism, dark satire, and the wicked wink of postmodernism. I was hooked.

* with all this damn technology, one would think it would be easy to develop a better system for insulating baths. During the last 60 years, our society has gone from porcelain to plastic. So, now I can't even scratch OR freeze my ass in my tub and remain dignified.

‘Live by the harmless untruths that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy,’ Vonnegut writes in Cat’s Cradle, pointing to something fiction is really well suited towards. I mean what is fiction if not an untruth that can help understand truths, especially when the truth is so difficult and often rather frightening. Especially when the truth is that death is coming. The world is a scary place with Death around every corner. Turn on the news, there’s Death waving to you from behind a podium, sitting in a CEO office, riding flood waters down a city street; open your news feed and you’ll find Death romping the four corners of the world and likely find them stirring up an argument in the comments section. That little fucker is everywhere. During the Cold War, people in the US were hyper aware of Death on a mass scale as nuclear proliferation and proxy-wars were always at the back of their minds, which can really send you jittering through life on anxiety. But luckily they had folks like Kurt Vonnegut who pointed at Death and laughed and got everyone to laugh with him. Cat’s Cradle is a marvelous book for laughing in the face of Death, one that still holds up today as science and technology keeps racing towards newer ways to put us all in our graves.

This was one of those books that first really opened the doors to literature for me when I was I high school. I mean, I was fairly obsessed with this book for awhile and it sent me down paths to other exciting books. We read it for a class and i was so enthusiastic about it my teacher gifted me a copy of Slaughterhouse-Five which I also loved. So many great minds have elucidated upon this novel so efficiently there’s not much else to say, but I’ve been thinking on this one a lot lately and wanted to share. Vonnegut is a lot of fun and manages to convey pretty heady topics of ethics and humanity in easy to swallow capsules of humor without detracting from the importance of the subjects. He also reminds us to laugh, even at ourselves, and that nothing is so sacrosanct we can’t critique it.

‘Anyone unable to understand how useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book either.’

In the book of Bokonon—the fictional religion in the book— it asks the question ‘What can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years?’ The answer it gives is simply ‘nothing.’ Which, like, fair. Vonnegut frequently satirizes war and the weapons of destruction we build (there is a brilliant moment in a bomb factory with a banner on the wall talking about peace on earth), and here we once again find humanity creating technology like Ice-Nine for the sake of militarization despite its potential to quite literally end the world. ‘Science has now known sin,’ a scientist says after witnessing the testing of the nuclear bomb, to which Dr. Hoenikker asks ‘what is sin?’ Vonnegut getting all existential here looking at the idea that sin is a moral narrative established by religion, and as we see in Cat’s Cradle, narratives are a way in which we ascribe meaning to life and make sense out of chaos. Which is comforting when everything seems so much bigger and scarier than us.

I recently spent a a lot of time reading and thinking about Terror Management Theory and wrote about it pretty extensively as it applies to the novel White Noise, but a lot of that is going on here in Cats Cradle as well. Roughly, being assailed by thoughts of death in situations where we are forced to consider how beyond our control it is rally us towards finding ways in which we feel we have some sense of control or community. In DeLillo he discusses consumerism or fascism in this regard. But we also see how religion is another. What is clever about Bokononism in Vonnegut is that it is expressly fictional—in our world and in the reality of the novel. It was invented to give people something to believe in, to use as a compass to ascribe meaning to suffering and life, and—and this is humorously clever—declared illegal to ensure people will believe in it.

‘Well, when it became evident that no governmental or economic reform was going to make the people much less miserable, the religion became the one real instrument of hope. Truth was the enemy of the people, because the truth was so terrible, so Bokonon made it his business to provide the people with better and better lies.’

The banning of Bokononim adds an element of edginess and subversiveness that makes it all the more enticing. Look at how powerful conspiracy theories are, so much of it draws on giving the believer a feeling they have some secret knowledge that makes them better. Have there been any studies over if the teenagers who make knowing underground bands and art into a personality becoming more inclined to conspiracy theories later on? But it also plays into how the world is becoming so miserable they needed people to believe in something, though is believing in a conspiracy theory to avoid reality actually a good thing? And when people start affecting the lives of others based on the beliefs in a system that is an elaborate fiction, does that only add more suffering and problems to a world already wallowing in problems?

What is clever about Bokononism is all the in-group language it has, such as karass (a group of people linked in a cosmically significant manner, even when superficial linkages are not evident. Ex Bokononism itself) or sinoookas (the “tendrils” of people’s lives). ‘With emotionally charged buzzwords,’ writes Amanda Montell in her book Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism, ‘[groups] establish an ‘us’ and a ‘them’’ which can ‘be as comforting as a tranquiliser.’ The language makes you an “insider” that can become ‘an addiction to the discourse, to the special feeling of knowing something other people didn’t.’ While she is discussing fascist groups, this isn’t far from how Bokononism probes all sorts of religions and the ways they may have of maintaining their flock and instilling a belief all outside are unsaved or damned. Having the book peppered with the language of Bokononism is a way Vonnegut draws us in almost as an insider too.

My favorite of the term, though, is foma, which means a ‘harmless untruth.’ There is something rather meta here, as in context it addresses the way the religion of the novel is a harmless (is it?) untruth that gives meaning to the people’s lives of this island, but it brings me back to the idea of fiction to begin with. Fiction is, well, a fictional story that is geared to have a meaning from the events depicted in it, be it a moral message, a way to move about an idea and learn from it, a criticism of structures around us, etc. Vonnegut is using a foma to address issues of religion, power, weaponization of science and technology, and above all, human nature. And he does so in a way that satisfies with wit, irony and humor that allows us that is comforting and empowering as we laugh in the face of destruction. Which is something we always need and could definitely use lately. I mean, we don’t have Ice Nine putting a snowy end to the world in the dramatic fashion of the novel, but if we can feel comfortable approaching difficult topics, maybe we can be empowered to make change. To laugh at those who stand in the way of improvement, to reduce them to a cartoonish villain because those we feel we can overcome if we hold to love and goodness. Because, as Vonnegut tells us ‘there is love enough in this world for everybody, if people will just look.’

Maybe satires aren’t my thing. But wait a second. If that were true, then I wouldn’t have enjoyed Slaughterhouse-Five, which is at least partly a satire, and I pretty much loved Slaughterhouse-Five. So I’m going to chalk Cat’s Cradle up to being a bit too odd. Scratch that – it’s a lot odd. To me at least. Can’t forget the “to me” part, because a whole lot of people have rated it 4+ stars. Therefore, don’t take my opinion too seriously. I thought that Cat’s Cradle finished on a high. The whole middle was…what was that word again? Doesn’t mean that I don’t love me some Vonnegut, or appreciate a look at the end of the world, spurred on by the realities of what man does for the sake of progress and science.

PS. Ice-nine scares me more than the atomic bomb.

A satirical view of society as a bicycle mogul wants to move his plant to San Lorenzo because "people down there are so poor & too ignorant enough to have common sense." Our hero who has been with 53-woman rebels against his wife's promiscuity until she threatens to leave him & then he decides she can be promiscuous.
While Vonnegut goes full blown Dr Suess on inventing his religion with many nonsense words overall, the novel was on the symbolism of nuclear war.

(Book 427 From 1001 books) - Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut

Cat's Cradle is the fourth novel by American writer Kurt Vonnegut, first published in 1963.

It explores issues of science, technology, and religion, satirizing the arms race and many other targets along the way. After turning down his original thesis in 1947, the University of Chicago awarded Vonnegut his master's degree in anthropology in 1971 for Cat's Cradle.

At the opening of the book, the narrator, an everyman named John (but calling himself Jonah), describes a time when he was planning to write a book about what important Americans did on the day Hiroshima was bombed.

While researching this topic, John becomes involved with the children of Felix Hoenikker, a Nobel laureate physicist who helped develop the atomic bomb. John travels to Ilium, New York, to interview the Hoenikker children and others for his book. ...

گهواره گربه - کورت ونه‌ گات جونیور، انتشاراتیها (نشر افق، ثالث)؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: بیست و دوم ماه می سال 2011میلادی

عنوان: گهواره گربه؛ نویسنده: کورت ونه‌ گات جونیور، مترجم: علی اصغر بهرامی؛ تهران، نشر افق، 1383؛ در 406ص؛ چاپ دوم 1386؛ چاپ سوم 1392؛ چاپ چهارم 1394؛ شابک 9789643691615؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 20م

عنوان: گهواره گربه؛ نویسنده: کورت ونه‌ گات، مترجمها: مهتاب کلانتری؛ منصوره وفایی؛ تهران، ثالث، 1383؛ در 375ص؛ شابک9643800385؛

رمان «گهواره گربه»، چهارمین اثر نویسنده ی آمریکایی: «کورت ونه‌ گات» است، که نخستین بار در سال 1963میلادی، چاپ شده است؛ ایشان در این کتاب، در باره ی علم، تکنولوژی، و مذهب، بحث می‌کنند، و مسابقه ی تسلیحاتی، و بسیاری از مفاهیم جدی دیگر را، به سخره می‌گیرند؛ عنوان کتاب، از بازی کودکانه ­ای گرفته شده، که با نخی بازی می‌کنند؛ که دو سرش گره خورده، و بین انگشتان دو نفر، دست به دست می‌شود؛ در صفحات نخستین رمان، «فلیکس هوینکر»، مخترع فرضی «بمب اتم» را می‌یابیم، که درست، در لحظه ی افتادن، یا پرتاب بمب، مشغول همین بازی است؛ «گهواره گربه»، در سال 1964میلادی، کاندیدای دریافت جایزه ی «هوگو»، برای بهترین رمان، بوده است

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 27/07/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 07/06/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

there are probably as many reviews of Cat's Cradle as there are stars in the sky, so no doubt there's little i can add that's of any value. who cares? i love hearing myself talk, so let's go for it!

.....

well, this is harder than i thought. it's as easy as describing why i love my favorite pillow or threadbare t-shirt, or why i like rainy days as much as sunny days. okay, here goes. the inventiveness of Cat's Cradle and its bleak, absurd humor was incredibly eye-opening to me in high school and it practically provided a template for how i looked at things. in college, it was a joy to return to, particularly after the tedious nonsense foisted upon me in various classes (well, in time, i grew to love all the tedious nonsense foisted upon me, but that was years later, and besides the point). after college, it defined the outlook of almost everyone i knew around me, and i remember bothering folks to read it so that they could understand some of my references, or so that they could read their own worldview, in book form. when i said things like "impaled... on a giant hook" or "i want to read your index", folks had no clue about what i was talking about. i guess that's why i eventually stopped saying those phrases.

and back to the book. Cat's Cradle: it has warmth and anger and wisdom and an almost naive kind of brashness at times. i love that combo.

favorite character: cynical young Philip Castle: do-gooder, sarcastic asshole, painter, owner of a hotel that scorns snobs and is therefore pretty empty. i love you, Philip Castle! my second fictional crush slash look, i see myself! type character. Holden Caulfield came first and Donnie Darko eventually replaced you... but you were the dreamiest.

A perfect choice to read as the world crumbles around us. If you need some low-level mental stimulation and an appreciation for the absurd, look no further.

This book is a warning against apathy. Heed it.

Listen:
Although I've only yet read three of his novels, I would be surprised if Cat's Cradle isn't Kurt Vonnegut's greatest masterpiece. It can be very difficult to rate Vonnegut's work, as his books are so easily enjoyable and his flippant sarcasm, through which he makes light of such matters as Armageddon, could give the impression that he shouldn't be taken seriously as an artist (he certainly isn't taking himself seriously). However, this meditation on science's role in man's eventual destruction, and the inherent paradoxes of religious beliefs is undeniably a significant literary accomplishment.

To start with, the storyline in Cat's Cradle is a fuller one than in Breakfast of Champions or even Slaughterhouse-Five. The book is essentially a collection of short vignettes. It begins as the narrator, Jonah, attempts to write a biography of the mysterious Dr.Felix Hoenikker, "the father of the atom bomb." His quest for information about this bizarre man, comparable in a way to Charles Foster Kane, leads him to an island in the Caribbean, which he soon becomes president of (think Woody Allen in Bananas). The plot then descends into an end of the world scenario that would make any pulp sci-fi author worth his salt jealous. Even faced with the end of mankind, Vonnegut can only laugh, and, it goes without saying, make the reader laugh along with him.

Indeed, this is Vonnegut at his most wickedly satirical; there's nary a flat line or a philosophical observation that doesn't ring true. And if Vonnegut is writing his best punchlines, then it should follow that this novel contains his best prose writing, given that stinging punchlines are the center of his writing. In the past, I breezed through his novels in less than a day, but here, for the first time, I slowed down and savored his writing; there's so much to enjoy here that, though the book is short, a reader should really take the time to admire how finely crafted this book really is.

Finally, there is Bokononism: the self-refuting religion Vonnegut created for Cat's Cradle. This brilliant concept is what makes the novel truly great. Although he wrings a great many laughs from Bokononism, it is far from just a jokey concept. Indeed, the fact that it is a joke shouldn't keep the reader from taking it seriously. Here Vonnegut has created a true mythology, which ranks with the best of any "serious" sci-fi author.

I regard the novels of Kurt Vonnegut as treats; they go down smoothly and keep you coming back for more. But he also has the brilliance to use humor to take some very high-minded concepts down to Earth(for example: has any contemporary writer of fiction written more candidly about the existence or non-existence of a God?). I would think that, if nothing else, a writer who can make us laugh in the face of the absurd tragedy of mankind is more than worth reading, and Cat's Cradle is this "moral mad scientist" at his very best.

n  n    “No damn cat, and no damn cradle."n  n

Cat's Cradle is my first foray into the world of Kurt Vonnegut. For some reason I never picked up one of his books all these years. Thanks to a good friend of mine, Kenny, who suggested we read Vonnegut for a buddy read. Slaughterhouse-5 is one of his favourite so I guess I know where I'm going next from here.

The story of Cat's Cradle is essentially about one of the 'fictional' founding father of the atomic bomb that destroys Hiroshima. He leaves even a deadlier legacy behind - in the form of Ice-nine, a lethal chemical capable of freezing the entire planet. It's a funny and frightening satire on the end of the world and the madness of mankind.

n  n    Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?'
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.”n  n

I loved the subtle humor and the bittersweet irony on postmodern concepts and humanity. Firstly, about truth through Bokononism (religion). Secondly, the idea of progress and how societies thinks it corelates to the betterment of humanity. One way societies weigh progress is through knowledge and science. Knowledge is power, power to understand all things, power to create something deadly, power to erase humanity.

This is a short book. There is no world-building. Cuts right to the chase - no nonsense. In some ways it might seem as though Vonnegut is showing middle finger to humanity, yet it does not come as offensive.

n  n    "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die."n  n

5 stars - I'd give it higher a rating if it was possible.

n  “Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?'
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.”n

You must have already come across this quote somewhere I'm sure. But if not, then come, let's bask in the glory of its supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (:D) wisdom. After reading my second Vonnegut, I could only fathom one feeling for us humans in this vast unending universe: Pity. Don't these lines elucidate just how miserable we really are? How there's always a nagging need for us to find answers and get into the war of proving which one is right and which one wrong? How we think ourselves oh so very intelligent to have spun off Religion and Science and thus pave the path for ultimate wisdom and power to change the course of this world(really?)? How we feed our ego by considering us above all other living creatures because they are so very simple?

Well, of course I sound moronic, this is what Vonnegut does to it's reader. But I can't deny a subtle sagacity which was neatly coded into my head by the time I turned the last page of this funny book. It was like being in a coma of satire and black humor but at the same time my senses subconsciously decoding and instilling profound and astoundingly real meanings which flooded my thoughts only after I snapped out of that coma.

As I have mentioned above, since the inception of mankind, our biggest and pat-on-the-back worthy achievements so far have been a:Religion and b:Science, and this book categorically tackles both, accredits great importance to both, and ridicules both. It is written in the first person narrative of an aspiring writer who is collecting material for his book 'The Day the World Ended' which is supposed to be factual consolidation of what important Americans had done on the day when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. So he starts off with the scientist who invented the bomb, but couldn't reach him because he was dead (an unusual death), instead found his three children. Weird, all of them, obviously, and Idiots too because they inherited and divided among themselves a product of their dad's invention which could possibly eradicate the very life from the face of this earth. This can't be good, eh?

So started the expedition of this gentleman who by the end of his quest, becomes a Bokononist. Bokononism being a fake religion created on the ideology of 'Living by the harmless untruths that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy.' Sounds like the best thing ever right? It actually is. Although, this brand new religion which is only followed by the people living on a secluded island called 'San Lorenzo' is banned there (Ha!). Any person found guilty of following Bokononism would be hung by a hook to his/her death. Quite interestingly, Bokononists believe that all humans are divided into teams which follow God's will without realizing it. The quest of knowledge is futile and there's no existing truth.

“Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.”

But hey, this religion is not real. Not even in theory, because it is all a self-proclaimed lie. A ridiculous yet mesmerizing illusion. You can't follow it and you can't preach it. Although you would still want to believe it.

I have to admit that till the first half, I couldn't understand why it was called a science fiction, it was more like magical realism. But then a definite non-surprising scientific phenomena happened by the denouement which I think brought Bokonononism to the forefront again, refuting and demolishing all precepts of human egotism. Bringing upon our eyes the mesh of string patterned in a shape of cradle between hands, asking us what do we see? No, but finally we don't see it - because we realize: "there is no damn cat; there is no damn cradle".

This is not a well structured book tackling the most important of sociological, theological and philosophical questions in a very linear and scholarly manner. This is a fun read, makes you laugh at yourself, yet impacts you deeply with the genius of its content. Unforgettable, like this Calypso:

n  "Someday, someday, this crazy world will have to end,
And our God will take things back that He to us did lend.
And, if on that day, you want to scold our God,
Why go right ahead and scold Him. He'll just smile and nod."n

Wiki says that “Cat's cradle is a game involving the creation of various string figures between the fingers, either individually or by passing a loop of string back and forth between two or more players.”

How does that relate to Kurt Vonnegut fourth novel so named? I can but hazard a guess. The game is ultimately meaningless. In fact, life is if we think about it. We live, then we die. Religion to some holds meaning, but then the other argument is how? There is no one we have ever met that has met a God/Gods/Superior Beings and so on and so forth. And those that have, some of us tend to think a bit odd. That is why we might just act the way we do. Those that have faith and those that don’t: they do what they do for the same reason, do what we do because of our faith or because it don’t matter anyway. Human stupidity does not matter.

Cats Cradle, the book, has both the religious and the non-believers doing what they do because of that faith and that lack thereof, and that is why, as an example from this book, that they create weapons of mass destruction when there is not really a need.

To slightly paraphrase Lionel Boyd Johnson from this book about nothing but a cat’s cradle if I had the ability, I would write a history about human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mt Coot- tha and sit and stare at Brisbane City from above while I drank the coffee I purchased from the café and I would thumb my nose or wonder about You Know Who and what.

Recommended to those that do wonder why.

My 4th read in my attempt to read Kurt Vonnegut Jr’s oeuvre from first to last.

My review of number 1 Player Piano here. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
My review of number 2 The Sirens Of Titan here. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
My review of number 3 Mother Night here. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Onwards to the next...