Kurt Vonnegut
And now for something completely different, yet again; I sure am running the gamut with the books I'm reading this year. I've only read one book by Vonnegut before (Slaughterhouse-Five) and it was quite a while ago. Also, I'm usually not one for absurdist books and am almost totally unfamiliar with the genre, but I didn't get very far into Cat's Cradle before I could appreciate its incessant satiric jabs, presented perfectly in a light tone but possessing quite the punch. Without very many solid characters or easily understood chronology, at least initially, it is a bit difficult to get into the book unless you sit back and allow it to absorb you completely; once it grabs a hold of you, however, it doesn't let up for a second. Most piercing, and central, is the book's hilarious answer to religion, found in the pack of lies known as Bokononism. Bokononism attracts its followers by immediately asserting itself as a false religion, but one that can improve the lives of its followers. It's actually a very subtle and nuanced philosophy that pokes fun at faith while retaining its best elements. Particularly uproarious is its send-up of people who wish to see connections in the most mundane and meaningless of coincidences: though Bokononism holds that humanity is organized into teams performing God's will, granfalloons are teams people invent for themselves and which hold no meaning (nationality, fans of a particular sports team, people named Dave, etc.), similar to the cat's cradle string game which, in fact, has no cat and no cradle. Imagine my delight when the central granfalloon turned out to be Hoosiers.
Bokononism and the way Vonnegut gradually and matter-of-factly presents its central tenets and history provide a wonderful and assertive, yet gentle, attack on many fallacies of modern self-centric philosophy, but its use in the novel as an opiate of the masses is right on target as well. Bokononism is outlawed on the main setting of San Lorenzo, but only to distract the masses with a common enemy in its prophet and a hero in its prophet-hunting dictator; everyone on the island is, of course, a devoted Bokononist. Aside from satirizing human associations and interactions, Vonnegut directly tackles the arms race and the end of the world, linking the two through the narrator's projected book on Hiroshima and the sudden omnipresence of ice-nine, a potentially apocalyptic new way for water to arrange its molecules. Here also Vonnegut is sharp but keeps his observations coated in a candy-sweet covering of humor. Many satires can be read entirely on the surface as good works of literature, but Cat's Cradle is inseparable from its social context on all levels, and though Vonnegut's jabs are obvious and finely pointed, they are spot-on and as entertaining as they are revealing. It's hard to say exactly what it is that makes Cat's Cradle so enjoyable, particularly when its plot is often difficult to follow, but its humor and its lighthearted view of the apocalypse and the cheerful abandon of reason by modern humans make it both searing and satisfying, a wonderful quick jaunt through absurdism that turns out, in the end, to be far too real.
Grade: A
Bokononism and the way Vonnegut gradually and matter-of-factly presents its central tenets and history provide a wonderful and assertive, yet gentle, attack on many fallacies of modern self-centric philosophy, but its use in the novel as an opiate of the masses is right on target as well. Bokononism is outlawed on the main setting of San Lorenzo, but only to distract the masses with a common enemy in its prophet and a hero in its prophet-hunting dictator; everyone on the island is, of course, a devoted Bokononist. Aside from satirizing human associations and interactions, Vonnegut directly tackles the arms race and the end of the world, linking the two through the narrator's projected book on Hiroshima and the sudden omnipresence of ice-nine, a potentially apocalyptic new way for water to arrange its molecules. Here also Vonnegut is sharp but keeps his observations coated in a candy-sweet covering of humor. Many satires can be read entirely on the surface as good works of literature, but Cat's Cradle is inseparable from its social context on all levels, and though Vonnegut's jabs are obvious and finely pointed, they are spot-on and as entertaining as they are revealing. It's hard to say exactly what it is that makes Cat's Cradle so enjoyable, particularly when its plot is often difficult to follow, but its humor and its lighthearted view of the apocalypse and the cheerful abandon of reason by modern humans make it both searing and satisfying, a wonderful quick jaunt through absurdism that turns out, in the end, to be far too real.
Grade: A
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