Cat's Cradle
Ratings638
Average rating4.1
I think I converted to Bokononism. It's the most honest fake/real religion ever. It admits it's all lies and jokes but gives mostly good advice.
Stopped reading on pg 146.
I'm definitely missing something, because It looks like I'm in the minority when I say that I can't stand this book.
Très drôle. Différentes parties qui se complètes bien afin de parler de plusieurs thèmes. Franchement cool à lire.
Bon après comme tout auteur de SF c’est toujours « écrire un bon personnage féminin challenge », ça ça change pas.
reading this used all the brain power available. i had no idea what was going on but when i did have an idea, i was really in love with it. i think i need every page to be explained to me.
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/6205354368
My review of number 2 The Sirens Of Titan here. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6267103559
My review of number 3 Mother Night here. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6287961968
Onwards to the next...
What an interesting book. While there is a story of some sort, Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle is just dripping in satire and a dry humor about the end of the world, religion, and the silliness of people. I don't think I even caught everything of what the author wanted to say about the world around him.
Is this book for everyone? Definitely not. It is strange, humorous but not in an overtly humorous fashion. I found myself agreeing with many of the points that Vonnegut buries in his text. Definitely worth another look at and to see what others have said about such an iconic read.
Quotes:
“Sometimes I wonder if he wasn't born dead. I never met a man who was less interested in the living. Sometimes I think that's the trouble with the world: too many people in high places who are stone-cold dead.”
“There is love enough in this world for everybody, if people will just look.”
“Live by the harmless untruths that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy.”
“Science is magic that works”
Very much a sister novel to Slaughterhouse-Five that had me well hooked by the end.
Is it possible to sort of enjoy a book when you finish it but also know that the next time you read it you're going to enjoy it far more? That's how I feel with this book and it makes rating it impossible.
The book builds a world you really can step into. The tongue and cheek humour and religion vs science threads woven through it make for a cracking read.
Busy, busy, busy
Dumb.
But I'm partly at fault for not knowing more about this book before starting. It appears on lists of sci-fi novels, but it's light on sci-fi. It's primarily a satire/absurdist novel.
It reminds me of Catch 22 and Stranger in a Strange Land. But where those are funny or thought-provoking, this is just dumb.
Personal, imi place umorul negru pe care il foloseste Vonnegut, la fel si povestirea episodica (un episod tine cam vreo 1-3 pg. deci ti se pare ca citesti foarte repede si usor, mai ales ca limbajul este simplu), dar aici personajele si povestea nu m-au tinut “in priza” pe cat am vrut...
“Cat's Cradle” is a book about a man tracing the history of the father of the atomic bomb, leading him to the poor country of San Lorenzo. In the protagonist's journey, he finds a banned religion Bokononism and gets himself involved with the politics of San Lorenzo.
“Cat's Cradle” is one of the many books by Kurt Vonnegut who was deemed ‘one of the best living American authors' by Graham Greene. The two strong messages about politics and religion are present throughout the entirety of the novel. Most of the messages are represented through the novel's infamous black humor. Every page and every short chapter had me entertained and laughing. The book, in most ways, is incredibly genius with how it is written and how it is told. The short chapters feel like memories with them being so brief. The author's voice in the book is extraordinary with San Lorenzo feeling real and how he describes the antagonist in the book. Overall, the story was very gripping and was so hilariously chaotic.
However, the characters did seem realistic but not fully developed. Though I did like all of the characters, they did not seem real. Many books do have the spell where characters come straight from the page and into real life. This book did have that spell, but it was not a very good one. I think the author could have spent more time developing the characters, especially the protagonist. Though the characters could have been more fleshed out into real people, I did enjoy the novel.
I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about politics and religion. The book does have some vulgar language and is considered an adult book, so I would recommend it to people who are above the age of fourteen. Kurt Vonnegut has a collection of novels, including the one he is famous for, Slaughter-house Five. I highly recommend this book as a starting point for his collection. I absolutely loved this book and will reread it many times in the future. The strong messages did change my point of view and did open my mind more to the logic of religion and politics. Overall, I rate this book a nine out of ten stars.
I gave up at 42% of the way through after becoming impatient for the book to start paying its way.
I presupposed this book would be counterculture but it turns out that the book counter... itself. It's weirdly full of foma. Busy busy busy :)
recenzie aici https://bloguldesefe.ro/2021/01/24/leaganul-pisicii-de-kurt-vonnegut/
I have my own personal Vonnegut story. When I was in high school, for most of those four years I spent lunch period alone in the library (the school had a very nice library indeed). It was easier than any of the other options. One year, while there, I read Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Every book he had published. I hated each one. I would finish a book, think to myself, “Thank God that's over,” return it to the shelf, and take the next one in line. I hated every one. I read every one.
I do not remember having read Cat's Cradle, but I know I did. I know I hated it.
HOW could I have hated this book? It makes no sense to me at all that I could ever have hated it. Cat's Cradle was written just for me. Strange and bizarre without being gratuitously perverse, it walks the fine line between comedy (I didn't laugh one time yet I would still call it hilarious) and satire and surrealism and science fiction. Don't tell me that line is a geometric impossibility; the book walks it anyway.
Also, if I weren't committed to being a Christian, I would become a Bokononist. Maybe I already am one and just don't quite know it.
Religion and war going wrong serves as a fascinating and depressing backdrop to Cat's Cradle. While touching on important topics like the arrival of the atomic bomb, the storytelling was what really drew me in at times. Not all of the story, but for parts of it I was mesmerized by the multiple lines of thought being weaved and brought back together in a very short period of time. It's a technique of story writing I haven't seen too often but would love to learn.