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Cat's Cradle: A Novel Paperback – September 8, 1998

by Kurt Vonnegut (Author)

4.4 11,732 ratings

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“A free-wheeling vehicle . . . an unforgettable ride!”—The New York Times

Cat’s Cradle is Kurt Vonnegut’s satirical commentary on modern man and his madness. An apocalyptic tale of this planet’s ultimate fate, it features a midget as the protagonist, a complete, original theology created by a calypso singer, and a vision of the future that is at once blackly fatalistic and hilariously funny. A book that left an indelible mark on an entire generation of readers, Cat’s Cradle is one of the twentieth century’s most important works—and Vonnegut at his very best.

“[Vonnegut is] an unimitative and inimitable social satirist.”—Harper’s Magazine

“Our finest black-humorist . . . We laugh in self-defense.”—Atlantic Monthly

Print length

304 pages
Language

English
Publication date

September 8, 1998
Dimensions

5.19 x 0.64 x 7.98 inches
ISBN-10

038533348X
ISBN-13

978-0385333481
Lexile measure

790L
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Popular Highlights in this book

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Anyone unable to understand how a useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book either.
Highlighted by 2,560 Kindle readers
“All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies.”
Highlighted by 2,095 Kindle readers
“Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.”
Highlighted by 978 Kindle readers

From the Publisher


	Slaughterhouse-Five	Breakfast of Champions	The Sirens of Titan	Mother Night	God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater	Welcome to the Monkey House

Customer Reviews	35,382	6,705	7,874	4,594	2,932	2,118
Price	$14.99	$13.19	$13.13	$15.11	$13.69	$12.39
	“[A] desperate, painfully honest attempt to confront the monstrous crimes of the twentieth century” (Time).	“Marvelous . . . [Vonnegut] wheels out all the complaints about America and makes them seem fresh, funny, outrageous, hateful and lovable.”—The New York Times	“[Kurt Vonnegut’s] best book . . . He dares not only ask the ultimate question about the meaning of life, but to answer it.”—Esquire	“Vonnegut is George Orwell, Dr. Caligari and Flash Gordon compounded into one writer . . . a zany but moral mad scientist.”—Time	“[Vonnegut] at his wildest best.”—The New York Times Book Review	A collection of Kurt Vonnegut’s shorter works. “There are twenty-five stories here, and each hits a nerve ending.”—The Charlotte Observer

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A free-wheeling vehicle . . . an unforgettable ride!”—The New York Times

“[Vonnegut is] an unimitative and inimitable social satirist.”—Harper’s Magazine

“Our finest black-humorist . . . We laugh in self-defense.”—Atlantic Monthly

From the Back Cover

One of Vonnegut's major works, this is an apocalyptic tale of the planet's ultimate fate, featuring a cast of unlikely heroes.

About the Author

Kurt Vonnegut’s humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America’s attention in The Sirens of Titan in 1959 and established him as “a true artist” (The New York Times) with Cat’s Cradle in 1963. He was, as Graham Greene declared, “one of the best living American writers.” Mr. Vonnegut passed away in April 2007.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter One

The Day the World Ended

Call me Jonah. My parents did, or nearly did. They called me John.

Jonah--John--if I had been a Sam, I would have been Jonah still--not because I have been unlucky for others, but because somebody or something has compelled me to be certain places at certain times, without fail. Conveyances and motives, both conventional and bizarre, have been provided. And, according to plan, at each appointed second, at each appointed place this Jonah was there.

Listen:

When I was a younger man--two wives ago, 250,000 cigarettes ago, 3,000 quarts of booze ago . . .

When I was a much younger man, I began to collect material for a book to be called The Day the World Ended.

The book was to be factual.

The book was to be an account of what important Americans had done on the day when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.

It was to be a Christian book. I was a Christian then.

I am a Bokononist now.

I would have been a Bokononist then, if there had been anyone to teach me the bittersweet lies of Bokonon. But Bokononism was unknown beyond the gravel beaches and coral knives that ring this little island in the Caribbean Sea, the Republic of San Lorenzo.

We Bokononists believe that humanity is organized into teams, teams that do God's Will without ever discovering what they are doing. Such a team is called a karass by Bokonon, and the instrument, the kan-kan, that bought me into my own particular karass was the book I never finished, the book to be called The Day the World Ended.

Chapter Two

Nice, Nice, Very Nice

"If you find your life tangled up with somebody else's life for no very logical reasons," writes Bokonon, "that person may be a member of your karass."

At another point in The Books of Bokonon he tells us, "Man created the checkerboard; God created the karass." By that he means that a karass ignores national, institutional, occupational, familial, and class boundaries.

It is as free-form as an amoeba.

In his "Fifty-third Calypso," Bokonon invites us to sing along with him:

Oh, a sleeping drunkard
Up in Central Park,
And a lion-hunter
In the jungle dark,
And a Chinese dentist,
And a British queen--
All fit together
In the same machine.
Nice, nice, very nice;
Nice, nice, very nice;
Nice, nice very nice--
So many different people
In the same device.

Chapter Three

Folly

Nowhere does Bokonon warn against a person's trying to discover the limits of his karass and the nature of the work God Almighty has had it do. Bokonon simply observes that such investigations are bound to be incomplete.

In the autobiographical section of The Books of Bokonon he writes a parable on the folly of pretending to discover, to understand:

I once knew an Episcopalian lady in Newport, Rhode Island, who asked me to design and build a doghouse for her Great Dane. The lady claimed to understand God and His Ways of Working perfectly. She could not understand why anyone should be puzzled about what had been or about what was going to be.

And yet, when I showed her a blueprint of the doghouse I proposed to build, she said to me, "I'm sorry, but I never could read one of those things."

"Give it to your husband or your ministers to pass on to God," I said, "and, when God finds a minute, I'm sure he'll explain this doghouse of mine in a way that even you can understand."

She fired me. I shall never forget her. She believed that God liked people in sailboats much better than He liked people in motorboats. She could not bear to look at a worm. When she saw a worm, she screamed.

She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is Doing, [writes Bokonon].

Chapter Four

A Tentative Tangling

Of Tendrils

Be that as it may, I intend in this book to include as many members of my karass as possible, and I mean to examine all strong hints as to what on Earth we, collectively, have been up to.

I do not intend that this book be a tract on behalf of Bokononism. I should like to offer a Bokononist warning about it, however. The first sentence in The Books of Bokonon is this:

"All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies."

My Bokononist warning in this:

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

So be it.

. . .

About my karass, then.

It surely includes the three children of Dr. Felix Hoenikker, one of the so-called "Fathers" of the first atomic bomb. Dr. Hoenikker himself was no doubt a member of my karass, though he was dead before my sinookas, the tendrils of my life, began to tangle with those of his children.

The first of his heirs to be touched by my sinookas was Newton Hoenikker, the youngest of his three children, the younger of his two sons. I learned from the publication of my fraternity, The Delta Upsilon Quarterly, that Newton Hoenikker, son of the Noel Prize physicist, Felix Hoenikker, had been pledged by my chapter, the Cornell Chapter.

So I wrote this letter to Newt:

"Dear Mr. Hoenikker:

"Or should I say, Dear Brother Hoenikker?

"I am a Cornell DU now making my living as a free-lance writer. I am gathering material for a book relating to the first atomic bomb. Its contents will be limited to events that took place on August 6, 1945, the day the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

"Since your late father is generally recognized as having been one of the chief creators of the bomb, I would very much appreciate any anecdotes you might care to give me of life in your father's house on the day the bomb was dropped.

"I am sorry to say that I don't know as much about your illustrious family as I should, and so don't know whether you have brothers and sisters. If you do have brothers and sisters, I should like very much to have their addresses so that I can send similar requests to them.

"I realize that you were very young when the bomb was dropped, which is all to the good, My book is going to emphasize the human rather than the technical side of the bomb, so recollections of the day through the eyes of a 'baby, if you'll pardon the expression, would fit in perfectly.

"You don't have to worry about style and form. Leave all that to me. Just give me the bare bones of your story.

"I will, of course, submit the final version to you for your approval prior to publication.

"Fraternally yours--"

Chapter Five

Letter from

a pre med

To which Newt replied:

"I am sorry to be so long about answering your letter. That sounds like a very interesting book you are doing. I was so young when the bomb was dropped that I don't think I'm going to be much help. You should really ask my brother and sister, who are both older than I am. My sister is Mrs. Harrison C. Conners, 4918 North Meridian Street, Indianapolis, Indiana. That is my home address, too, now. I think she will be glad to help you. Nobody knows where my brother Frank is. He disappeared right after Father's funeral two years ago, and nobody has heard from him since. For all we know, he may be dead now.

"I was only six years old when they dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, so anything I remember about that day other people have helped me to remember.

"I remember I was playing on the living-room carpet outside my father's study door in Ilium, New York. The door was open, and I could see my father. He was wearing pajamas and a bathrobe. He was smoking a cigar. He was playing with a loop of string. Father was staying home from the laboratory in his pajamas all day that day. He stayed home whenever he wanted to.

"Father, as you probably know, spent practically his whole professional life working for the Research Laboratory of the General Forge and Foundry Company in Ilium. When the Manhattan Project came along, the bomb project, Father wouldn't leave Ilium to work on it. He said he wouldn't work on it at all unless they let him work where he wanted to work. A lot of the time that meant at home. The only place he liked to go, outside of Ilium, was our cottage on Cape Cod. Cape Cod was where he died. He died on a Christmas Eve. You probably know that, too.

"Anyway, I was playing on the carpet outside his study on the day of the bomb. My sister Angela tells me I used to play with little toy trucks for hours, making motor sounds, going 'burton, burton, burton' all the time. So I guess I was going 'burton, burton, burton' on the day of the bomb; and Father was in his study, playing with a loop of string.

"It so happens I know where the string he was playing with came from. Maybe you can use it somewhere in your book. Father took the string from around the manuscript of a novel that a man in prison had sent him. The novel was about the end of the world in the year 2000, and the name of the book was 2000 A.D. It told about how mad scientists made a terrific bomb that wiped out the whole world. There was a big sex orgy when everybody knew that the world was going to end, and then Jesus Christ Himself appeared ten seconds before the bomb went off. The name of the author was Marvin Sharpe Holderness, and he told Father in a covering letter the he was in prison for killing his own brother. He sent the manuscript to Father because he couldn't figure out what kind of explosives to put in the bomb. He thought maybe Father could make suggestions.

"I don't mean to tell you I read the book when I was six. We had it around the house for years. My brother Frank made it his personal property, on account of the dirty parts. Frank kept it hidden in what he called his 'wall safe' in his bedroom. Actually, it wasn't a safe but just an old stove flue with a tin lid. Frank and I must have read the orgy part a thousand times when we were kids. We had it for years, and then my sister Angela found it. She read it and said it was nothing but a piece of dirty rotten filth. She burned it up, and the string with it. She was a mother to Frank and me, because our real mother died when I was born.

"My father never read the book, I'm pretty sure. I don't think he ever read a novel or even a short story in his whole life, or at least not since he was a little boy. He didn't read his mail or magazines or newspapers, either. I suppose he read a lot of technical journals, but to tell you the truth, I can't remember my father reading anything.

"As I say, all he wanted from that manuscript was the string. That was the way he was. Nobody could predict what he was going to be interested in next. On the day of the bomb it was string.

"Have you ever read the speech he made when he accepted the Nobel Prize? This is the whole speech: 'Ladies and Gentlemen. I stand before you now because I never stopped dawdling like an eight-year-old on a spring morning on his way to school. Anything can make me stop and look and wonder, and sometimes learn. I am a very happy man. Thank you.'

"Anyway, Father looked at that loop of string for a while, and then his fingers started playing with it. His fingers made the string figure called a 'cat's cradle.' I don't know where Father learned how to do that. From his father, maybe. His father was a tailor, you know, so there must have been thread and string around all the time when Father was a boy.

"Making that cat's cradle was the closest I ever saw my father come to playing what anybody else would call a game. He had no use at all for tricks and games and rules that other people made up. In a scrapbook my sister Angela used to keep up, there was a clipping from Time magazine where somebody asked Father what games he played for relaxation, and he said, 'Why should I bother with made-up games when there are so many real ones going on?'

"He must have surprised himself when he made a cat's cradle out of the string, and maybe it reminded him of his own childhood. He all of a sudden came out of his study and did something he'd never done before. He tried to play with me. Not only had he never played with me before; he had hardly ever even spoken to me.

"But he went down on his knees on the carpet next to me, and he showed me his teeth, and he waved that tangle of string in my face. 'See? See? See?' he asked. 'Cat's cradle. See the cat's cradle? See where the nice pussycat sleeps? Meow. Meow.'

"His pores looked as big as craters on the moon. His ears and nostrils were stuffed with hair. Cigar smoke made him smell like the mouth of Hell. So close up, my father was the ugliest thing I had ever seen. I dream about it all the time.

"And then he sang. 'Rockabye catsy, in the tree top'; he sang, 'when the wind blows, the cray-dull will rock. If the bough breaks, the cray-dull will fall. Down will come cray-dull, catsy and all.'

"I burst into tears. I jumped up and I ran out of the house as fast as I could go.

"I have to sign off here. It's after two in the morning. My roommate just woke up and complained about the noise from the typewriter."

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Dell Publishing (September 8, 1998)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 038533348X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0385333481
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 790L
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.19 x 0.64 x 7.98 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #4,230 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #51 in Fiction Satire
- #161 in Classic Literature & Fiction
- #459 in Literary Fiction (Books)

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4.4 11,732 ratings

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Kurt Vonnegut

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Kurt Vonnegut was a writer, lecturer and painter. He was born in Indianapolis in 1922 and studied biochemistry at Cornell University. During WWII, as a prisoner of war in Germany, he witnessed the destruction of Dresden by Allied bombers, an experience which inspired Slaughterhouse Five. First published in 1950, he went on to write fourteen novels, four plays, and three short story collections, in addition to countless works of short fiction and nonfiction. He died in 2007.

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Customers find the book brilliant, penetrating, and entertaining. They also describe the humor as ironic, idiosyncratic, and hysterical. Readers say the book presents many interesting points and thoughts that stimulate imagination. They appreciate the short chapters and sentences. However, some find the story not interesting and don't hold their interest like other books they've read. Opinions differ on the pacing, with some finding it fast-paced and mysterious, while others say it focuses entirely on vague themes.

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Readability Humor Thought provoking Shortness of story Pacing Narrative quality Character development Enjoyment

326 customers mention "Readability"288 positive38 negative

Customers find the book brilliant, penetrating, and enjoyable. They appreciate the incredible use of prose and imaginative chapter headings. Readers also mention the story is good and interesting.

"...And it's a fun fun fun and entertaining read...." Read more

"...Just the chapter headings are imaginative and fun, typical of Kurt Vonnegut." Read more

"...into 127 very short chapters, which makes it not only easier to read and remember, but also made it easier, I'm sure, for Mr. Vonnegut to write...." Read more

"...The story starts out innocently enough, but one thing just leads to the next and the next and before you know it, you will find yourself enmeshed..." Read more

116 customers mention "Humor"111 positive5 negative

Customers find the humor in the book ironic, idiosyncratic, amusing, and clever. They also describe it as mesmerizing absurdity, sarcastic, irreverent, and dark. Readers mention the book gives them a balm of laughter to help ease the reality pill.

"I enjoyed his satire in a fantasy. Refreshing to follow a writer of the 1960's, a veteran and a sentimental philosopher...." Read more

"...So, not too deep, but deep enough. Not too, too funny, but totally, irreverently so. Not too long, but not too short...." Read more

"...The writing was excellent: literate, trenchant and witty...." Read more

"...This is a wonderful book that has serious, yet comical, political,anthropological and religious messages...." Read more

105 customers mention "Thought provoking"97 positive8 negative

Customers find the book thought-provoking. They say it presents many interesting points and thoughts about life. Readers also mention the book contains much that stimulates imagination and is a thought-provoking masterpiece.

"...Not much to say, other than I feel that this book is so consequential, had I read this when I was younger, it might have changed the course of my..." Read more

"...Not too, too funny, but totally, irreverently so. Not too long, but not too short. You will most likely enjoy this book." Read more

"...This is a wonderful book that has serious, yet comical, political,anthropological and religious messages...." Read more

"...The story flows and, if one's interest is maintained through the story, the book is read quickly...." Read more

26 customers mention "Shortness of story"26 positive0 negative

Customers find the story short and easy to read. They say the sentences are good and the book is a quick novel. Readers also mention it's a clever and non-pretentious story.

"...This book is divided into 127 very short chapters, which makes it not only easier to read and remember, but also made it easier, I'm sure, for Mr...." Read more

"...Not too, too funny, but totally, irreverently so. Not too long, but not too short. You will most likely enjoy this book." Read more

"...It is a quick read, few central characters and very short chapters...." Read more

"...It made for a quick read. Almost too quick because I find reflecting on the book difficult...." Read more

51 customers mention "Pacing"34 positive17 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the pacing of the book. Some mention it's fast-paced, mysterious, and hilarious all at once. However, others say it focuses entirely on vague themes and unnecessary details.

"...Just the chapter headings are imaginative and fun, typical of Kurt Vonnegut." Read more

"...So about this book: it's a quick read. There are like 127 chapters in the story, but they all fit (in my edition) into just 287 pages...." Read more

"...I found disappointing in the story: First, there was no speculation nor explanation given as to why there would suddenly be purple-mouthed..." Read more

"...The possibilities are endless...." Read more

43 customers mention "Narrative quality"23 positive20 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the narrative quality of the book. Some mention it has hilarity, pathos, wit, social commentary, and a special blend of tragedy and utter silliness. Others say the plot becomes absurd toward the end, confusing, and drawn-out.

"...This book is so disturbing, haunting, sickening, beautiful, hopeful, and everything else in between. There are no adequate words. Just read it...." Read more

"...Message and are so devoid of reality, that their idiosyncrasies feel arbitrary and manipulative rather than interesting...." Read more

"...I definitely enjoyed it. It wasn’t scary, and it did not include outer space themes. It is literally a science fiction. A novel about science...." Read more

"...my interest at the beginning, by midway through the book it was becoming quite odd and I had difficulty staying committed to finishing it...." Read more

26 customers mention "Character development"18 positive8 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the character development in the book. Some mention the characters are interesting, strong, and hilarious. However, others say there isn't a lot of background or character development in the beginning, and the characters are thin and two-dimensional.

"...It is a quick read, few central characters and very short chapters...." Read more

"...more enjoyable than Slaughterhouse Five because I thought the characters were better and Vonnegut uses some black humour to push the story forward..." Read more

"...Characters in this novel are thin and two-dimensional (if that)...." Read more

"...I loved the unique narrator POV, as well as the ambiguity throughout...." Read more

37 customers mention "Enjoyment"3 positive34 negative

Customers find the story not interesting, epic, or redeeming. They say it doesn't hold their interest like other books they've read. Readers also mention that the plot is relatively aimless and random.

"...It's just sort of jaunty and tossed-off and having read SH5 previously, the writing in CC felt like a weak and unremarkable shadow of what Vonnegut..." Read more

"...entertained, please be aware that it is a very dry and boring book without much of a plot...." Read more

"...There is nothing redeeming about this book...." Read more

"...It does not read as serious fiction, but Vonnegut writes the story coherently enough to keep the reader skipping like a stone across the rigid world..." Read more

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sjgadlt

Kurt Vonnegut is a wonderful part of our American Heritage.

Reviewed in the United States on October 11, 2024

Verified Purchase

I encountered AN ENGLISH MAJOR with a graduate degree who had NEVER read any of Kurt Vonnegut's masterful works. None. Vonnegut's first novel, Player Piano, was so far ahead of its time that people still have not digested its message that unbridled complexity is beyond the control of humans, and it will eventually get us if we don't watch out! This novel is the starting point to enter Kurt's virtual reality. It's where he gives birth to a number of his recurring characters. And it's a fun fun fun and entertaining read. And you accidentally learn deep truths about the human condition that you don't even notice as you are exposed to them -- especially as applies to religion. Everyone should read this book. If they are normal -- or at least human -- they will want to go on and read more of Mr. Vonneguts fine works. Praise Bokonon, and may you all escape being crucified on The Hook!

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Kindle Customer Charlie 82

Humor and Fantasy on dark side

Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2024

Verified Purchase

I enjoyed his satire in a fantasy. Refreshing to follow a writer of the 1960's, a veteran and a sentimental philosopher. You'll take a wild adventure to San Lorenzo, but catch the small satirical remarks about lying, resentment and love scattered in each chapter. Just the chapter headings are imaginative and fun, typical of Kurt Vonnegut.

2 people found this helpful

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Phaia

Fantastic.

Reviewed in the United States on March 22, 2024

Verified Purchase

I had read some Vonnegut over the years but had managed to skip this one, and I think this is the one I should have read the most.
I had learned the name of the publishing company of the Grateful Dead was “Ice Nine publishing” and I wondered why it was called that. I learned it came from this book, so I read it. Now so much makes so much sense. “If you plant ice you’re gonna harvest wind”

Not much to say, other than I feel that this book is so consequential, had I read this when I was younger, it might have changed the course of my life.

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Carioca56

A Parable For The End of Time

Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2012

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Cat's Cradle is arguably Vonneguts greatest work, although I haven't read them all. It's about the end of the world, and starts on the anniversary of the end of the world for the Japanese, the day the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

Our protagonist, Jonah, is writing a book about the end of the world. He ends up interviewing the offspring of the father of the atom bomb, Dr. Felix Hoenikker, an eccentric, seemingly uncaring father who, unbeknownst to most, also makes "Ice Nine" before he dies. Ice Nine causes everything to freeze. It precipates the end of the world.

Before Ice Nine takes over, and freezes the world, Vonnegut takes us on a whirlwind tour of the hearts and minds of a slew of zany characters, from Newt the midget, son of The Father of The Atom Bomb, to a secretary who disdains anyone who "thinks too much," to a philanthropist who turns out to be the complete opposite, to a zillion others (almost too many) in between. We are taken to the island of San Lorenzo, a Carribean banana republic run by a paranoind, eccentric dictator that is totally at the beck and call of the USA, and that is where things really get weird.

This book is divided into 127 very short chapters, which makes it not only easier to read and remember, but also made it easier, I'm sure, for Mr. Vonnegut to write.

One of the main points of this story, if I understand correctly, is that religion, in this case "Bokonism," is pretty much a hodge-podge/hocus-pocus bed of spectacular lies. In the end, the founder of Bokonism, Bokonen, admits himself that it was all a complete joke, not to be taken sersiously (how can anyone take seriously a religion where people make love by rubbing their feet together?), but I won't spoil it by telling you what happens in between.

Mad scientists and their nervous secretaries, midget kung-fu, foot sex, countless hungry, skinny, stupid natives, one beautiful, "healthy" native, fat businessmen here to save the world, steep jungles, waterfalls, underground bomb shelters, earthquakes, tornadoes, fire and brimstone (don't tell Vonnegut I said that), horse faced flute playing enfent terribles, and much, much more. Oh, and I almost forgot. Ice Nine. How could I forget Ice Nine?

This book is a parable for the end of time.

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R. P. Cotta Jr.

Classic Satire

Reviewed in the United States on July 7, 2018

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Okay -- three stars. That's what I think OTHER readers will think of this book. I think it is worth four stars. But this review is supposed to try and be helpful to you, dear reader, so I do not wish to inflate how good YOU might think this book is.

But let's face it: It's Vonnegut. Satirical. Whimsical. Deadly earnest in a half-joking kind of way. Not particularly optimistic about the future of us People, and not, apparently, particularly fond of us either. Three stars of Vonnegut is worth maybe four stars of Wolfe, maybe five stars of Koontz. Just three stars of Twain, though.

So about this book: it's a quick read. There are like 127 chapters in the story, but they all fit (in my edition) into just 287 pages. 287 very spacious and roomy pages. The chapters tend to be about a page-and-a-half long, some just a couple of paragraphs. Vonnegut bounces right along, telling the story of John, as John seeks to write a biography of one of the father's of the atom bomb. (A fictional father.)

The work no doubt contains some of Vonnegut's more creative ideas: ice-9; Bokononism; Mona Aamons Monzano, the most beautiful girl ever; a completely incomprehensible dialect of what might have once been the English language; and, of course, the end of the World. The story starts out innocently enough, but one thing just leads to the next and the next and before you know it, you will find yourself enmeshed in a world of utter ridiculousness, but you had better take it seriously or you may end up on "the hook." Pronounced "hy-u-o-ook-kuh."

So, not too deep, but deep enough. Not too, too funny, but totally, irreverently so. Not too long, but not too short. You will most likely enjoy this book.

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Kritikal Kasper

Absolutely Incredible

Reviewed in the United States on February 3, 2024

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I can't believe I went my whole life thus far without having read Cat's Cradle. It is disturbing just how timelessly relevant this book is. This book is so disturbing, haunting, sickening, beautiful, hopeful, and everything else in between. There are no adequate words. Just read it. Then read it again. And again. And again. When you finish the book and find yourself laughing maniacally with tears streaming down your face, then and only then do you understand.

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Amadís

“History!” writes Bokonon. “Read it and weep!”

Reviewed in Mexico on December 10, 2023

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A lady whose name I cannot recall suggested this reading after I blabbered my opinion on our species. Three years later I stand dipped in gratitude toward her. Maybe the notion of Rochester’s “Imperfect enjoyment” suits the emotion this book has delivered. An exquisite and irreversible imperfect enjoyment. I am not the same after reading this. I am now eager to indulge in my brand new vice and read everything Vonnegut ever wrote.

Ronaldo Aguiar

Probably on Kurt's top 5

Reviewed in Brazil on April 19, 2023

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Probably on Kurt's top 5 -- not as good as Slaughterhouse Five and Sirens of Titan, but definitely good

Bob

No, it's not Slaughterhouse five, but . . . .

Reviewed in Canada on August 28, 2022

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The first sentence in the ‘Books of Bokonon’ is this: “All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies,” and that pretty much sets the stage for Vonnegut’s satirical commentary that shifts with uncommon ease between fatalistic and funny.
I will quickly note – without a word of a lie – that ‘Cat’s Cradle’ is certainly one of Vonnegut’s best, while just as quickly adding that it is not on par to ‘Slaughterhouse Five” (IMHO).
‘Cat’s’ protagonist is a midget, but perhaps the starring role really belongs to adventurer, calypso singer, self-styled theologian, author, and the most beloved – though everyone professes the opposite – of all men, Bokonon! Seriously, this is the guy responsible for the best one-liners found throughout the book, like this gem: “When I am dead I’m going to forget everything – and I advise you to do the same.”
Vonnegut’s voice in this tour de force is Jonah who presents ideas but immediately questions them, almost forcing the reader to follow suit. The range of characters are (and this is typical of KV) in many cases quite bizarre, but strangely all have a way of resonating with the reader.
The book's 200 plus-pages are divided into 127 chapters making it a quick and easy read. Vonnegut’s imagination soars free and what it is allowed to create is really quite wonderful.

obarzke

Ein Meisterwerk ohne Verfallsdatum

Reviewed in Germany on March 29, 2024

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Das Buch ist nach über 60 Jahren immer noch aktuell, sein bitterer Humor unvergleichlich. Die wichtigsten zwei Themen - Wirkung einer "ultimativen" Waffe und die neue, unfassbar originelle Religion, sind auch heute noch faszinierend. Ein echter Geniestreich - uneingeschränkt empfehlenswert!

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Cliente Amazon

Fabulous

Reviewed in Spain on July 31, 2023

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I have nothing to add, is a classic, easy to read, in a perfect penguin edition

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