CAT'S CRADLE

Kurt Vonnegut’s 1963 novel satirizing the complete destruction of the world is the cat’s meow. It was as funny as Joseph Heller’s, Catch-22: 50th Anniversary Edition (see my review of 2/17/2013) or the 1964 film Dr. Strangelove. Wow, what a classic apocalyptic novel! And talk about short chapter books...how about 127 chapters in only 287 pages. I’ve said before that short chapter books keep me awake and reading through the night. According to Wikipedia...“in 1971 the University of Chicago awarded Vonnegut his Master's degree in anthropology for Cat's Cradle.” All I know is that this novel is one pool-pah (shit storm) to the zah-mah-ki-bo (inevitable destiny) of mankind. The previous sentence contains bokononism speak. What? Yeah, it’s like the Hawaiian pidgin language...Eh! (you know) lolo buggah (crazy guy) don’t talk stink (speak bad about) about this book, bodda you? (does this bother you?). Okay, I’m having some fun, but if you read this novel, get ready to learn the Republic of San Lorenzo’s official language...an incomprehensible version of the Basque language, such as Tsvent-kiul, tsvent-kiul, lett-pool store (Twinkle, twinkle, little star). These are not the brightest people living on this incredibly poor fictional island.

The narrator of this story is John (a.k.a. Jonah) with no last name given. He sets out to write a book about the father of the atomic bomb, Dr. Felix Hoenikker (who has passed away) and what he was doing when the bomb was dropped on Japan (he was playing cat’s cradle, which is not important to the story). He has three children: Frank, who likes to put models together; Angela, a nondescript tall drink of water; and, Newton, a midget in love with a Russian midget dancer. John doesn’t get much cooperation in his attempts to interview the children, so he goes to see Dr. Asa Breed, who was Dr. Hoenikker’s supervisor at the General Forge and Foundry Company in Ilium, N.Y. John learns that Dr. Hoenikker was approached by a Marine General to come up with a solution to harden the mud his marines were always slogging through. Dr. Breed tells John that the remedy for hardening the mud was never accomplished. But the reader finds out that the problem was solved by Dr. Hoenikker in the form of a blue and white chip known as ice-nine. On page 51, we learn, “Felix Hoenikker had put the chip in a little bottle; and he put the bottle in his pocket. And he had gone to his cottage on Cape Cod with his three children, there intending to celebrate Christmas.” Then, disaster struck. “The old man had died on Christmas Eve, having told only his children about ice-nine. His children had divided the ice-nine among themselves.” This chip could freeze the world’s waterways and end life on Earth.

Angela and Newton vanish, while Frank is believed to have been killed working in a hobby store. Unbeknownst to Frank, the store was a front for a stolen car ring. Then John reads in a New York Sunday Times supplement that Frank is a Major General for the president of San Lorenzo, “Papa” Monzano, a dying dictator. Now the story morphs to the Island. The flight to the San Lorenzo is hilarious. On the plane are H. Lowe Crosby and wife, seeking cheap labor for his bicycle business; the U.S. Ambassador Minton and his wife; and the previously absent siblings, Angela and Newton, and of course, our narrator, John. On the plane, we learn about Bokonon (a.k.a Johnson) and a Marine Corporal deserter took over the island, and “That Corporal McCabe and Johnson were able to take command of San Lorenzo was not a miracle in any sense...The reason was simple: God, in his infinite wisdom, had made the island worthless.” Ha-ha. Bokonon has become a outlawed holy man (by his own volition). “Papa” Monzano has a giant hook hanging off a crossbar mounted on two telephone poles to impale any one believing in the Bokonon religion, even though the entire populace including “Papa” believe in it. The believers lie down opposite each other and touch the soles of their feet together. Everybody seems to know that the religion is a spoof (including Bokonon), but there is nothing else to do on the island. Once the plane lands on the island, the story soars. I still haven’t told you about Mona (Papa’s adopted daughter) or what happens to the ice-nine. Will the world survive, or will the freezing chips be dropped in the bay?

This was such an entertaining novel that I don’t know how (including Heller’s novel) to categorize it. Is there a satire/funny science fiction genre? If so, this novel belongs in it. Vonnegut’s brilliance is so evident in this work. Wikipedia sums up Vonnegut’s talent by stating, “ His works are characterized by wild leaps of imagination and a deep cynicism, tempered by humanism.” Amen. I highly recommend this novel.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: So are there other funny/sci-fi novels? Yes, what about Kurt Vonnegut’s 1969 novel, Slaughterhouse-Five. Goodreads.com states, "Kurt Vonnegut's absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes unstuck in time after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of his life, concentrating on his (and Vonnegut's) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden.

Don't let the ease of reading fool you - Vonnegut's isn't a conventional, or simple, novel. He writes, 'There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick, and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters.'

Slaughterhouse-Five is not only Vonnegut's most powerful book, it is also as important as any written since 1945. Like Catch- 22, it fashions the author's experiences in the Second World War into an eloquent and deeply funny plea against butchery in the service of authority. Slaughterhouse-Five boasts the same imagination, humanity, and gleeful appreciation of the absurd found in Vonnegut's other works, but the book's basis in rock-hard, tragic fact gives it a unique poignancy - and humor."

And what about The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979). Goodreads.com states, “Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor.

Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ('A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have') and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox--the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years.”

And what about George Orwell’s Animal Farm (1945). Orwell states about his novel, “Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself.” This is not sci-fi, but certainly one of the best satirical novels of all time.

Is this the cat’s cradle game?