Cat’s Cradle

Review ebook Cat’s Cradle

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Most people have read Cat’s Cradle, so I won’t bother to try and hide spoilers. Did you say you hadn’t read it? Well, what are you waiting for? This isn’t Ulysses, you know, it’s short and funny! So, now that it’s just us people who know the book, I want to say why I disagree with the criticism you often see, that it’s too fragmentary. On the contrary, I think it’s very focused, and makes its point with near-perfect economy and wit. There are two obvious themes. One is how the irresponsible use Most people have read Cat’s Cradle, so I won’t bother to try and hide spoilers. Did you say you hadn’t read it? Well, what are you waiting for? This isn’t Ulysses, you know, it’s short and funny! So, now that it’s just us people who know the book, I want to say why I disagree with the criticism you often see, that it’s too fragmentary. On the contrary, I think it’s very focused, and makes its point with near-perfect economy and wit. There are two obvious themes. One is how the irresponsible use of science to construct ever more deadly weapons is probably going to end up destroying the whole world. The other is a wonderfully crazy take on religion. Each of these themes is satisfying in its own right; what’s less clear is that they have anything to do with each other.

Let’s look at the first theme. Vonnegut’s scarily plausible thesis is that it won’t be a question of some madman destroying the world on purpose. I love General Jack T. Ripper in Doctor Strangelove, the obvious movie parallel to this book, but I find him somehow less convincing than the series of deranged, helplessly incompetent people in Cat’s Cradle. Felix Hoenikker, an obvious Asperger’s type, invents Ice-9 in response to a casual question from the US military. His three damaged children get hold of the secret, and exploit it for their own petty ends. Plain, charmless Angela sells it to the Americans in exchange for a playboy husband; Newt, the midget, gives it to the Soviets for a dirty weekend on Cape Cod with a tiny Russian dancer; and, fatally, humorless Franklin sells it to “Papa” Monzano, who makes him a Major General in the largely imaginary army of San Lorenzo, a bankrupt state, I believe, loosely based on Haiti and the Dominican Republic. After that, things just proceed by themselves; nothing works in San Lorenzo, so why would you be able to successfully guard a doomsday device? And, sure enough, it gets used completely by accident.

The second theme is presented through Bokononism, a kind of Caribbean version of Christianity, and surely the best fictional religion ever devised. Is there any person here who’s never tried boku maru? (Unfortunately, in real life it doesn’t have the effect described in the book. Pity). Bokononism is the one thing that makes life worthwhile for Papa’s miserable subjects. Officially, the religion is outlawed; in practice, everyone is a Bokononist, which makes their lives rich and meaningful. Everything about the religion turns out to be a lie, and there is even a technical term, foma, for the lies that make up its substance. None the less, Vonnegut succeeds admirably in showing what a good religion it is. The scene where Dr. Schlichter von Koenigswald reads the Bokonist last rites to the dying Papa Monzano is funny, but also moving. I love the line “Nice going, God!”, which expresses that particular sentiment with unusual clarity and feeling; it’s extremely respectful, while pretending to be the exact opposite.

So, what is the connection between the two themes? I think in fact that Vonnegut tells you straight out, but since he does it at the beginning (a favorite ruse of crime writers), you don’t quite notice it. He introduces Bokononism, and recounts its creation myth, which is absurd even by the standards of this magic realist genre. Then he cheerfully tells you that Bokonon himself admits that it’s all lies. Finally, he comments, in one of his better-known quotes: “Anyone unable to understand how a useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book either”. As already noted, Bokonon’s wise lies in fact make an excellent religion.

Here’s what I think he means by this. The potential destruction of all life on Earth isn’t a very amusing subject. It’s so horrifying that you can hardly think about it at all. But Vonnegut manages to present most of the book as a comedy, so that you are able to think about it, which we desperately need to do before it’s all too late. By making it funny, he is formally lying to us, but these lies are more useful to us than the truth; we’re in pretty much the same situation as the San Lorenzans, who couldn’t survive without their mendacious religion.

People during the Cold War were, with good reason, scared shitless that the world was going to end soon in a nuclear holocaust. We came terrifyingly close during the Cuba Missile Crisis. (As Christopher Hitchens says, do you remember where you were the day JFK nearly killed all of us?) There were many books and movies intended to help people relate to what was going on. Some of them just presented the threat straight up, in as realistic a way as they could manage: the version I like most is Shute’s On the Beach. But I would say that the mirror-reversed ones, like Cat’s Cradle and Doctor Strangelove, were better. It’s amazing how powerful a weapon humor is; I feel they did more to help persuade us not to blow ourselves up.

We need these people badly if we’re going to stay sane. Can someone point me to a new Vonnegut, who knows how to make us laugh at global warming and the financial meltdown? I’d rather like to read him.

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